AFrench Blue '69 GTV Restoration

[1750GT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfaross69 ...If/when you have this area dipped in acid to remove rust which will require water washing to neutralise the rust what will you use to protect the inner spaces which will want to re-rust....

[SuperFab]

Hey Furlan...just a quick thought. The doors, trunk and hood on my Super were e-coated after I repaired them. My concern was that I needed to coat these panels inside and out after they were acid dipped as there was no way to get the bare metal coated way up inside the box sections. When I repaired the doors, I did not remove the skins completely as you did, however. If you think you might want to investigate this option, the outfit I used, Coatings 85, is in Mississauga.

[1750GT]

Salve Fabio! I did contact that company a couple of years ago when you gave me their contact. Unfortunately, they expressed no interest in doing this kind of work because it would contaminate their production dipping baths. However they did give me the name of some other smaller shop who might be able to do this work....so I'll check with them again. Thanks for reminding me about this!

[1750GT]

Hah!...just as I figured. The other shop name I was given (by someone at Coatings 85 who shall remain nameless) that could possibly do such small jobs was Butcher Enterprises....they ain't a small shop at all and do very large production volumes only. Now they did give me the name of a company called Powdertech (powder coating?) and they might be able to do the doors....I'll check them out next.

[cuorealfa]

rossano questo progietto che stai facendo e una cosa meravigliosa.anche io sto cercando di aggiustare una gtv del 74 che e tutta originale ma la mia esperienza non si avvicina alla tua.peccato che non ci troviamo piu vicini cosi mi davi dei consigli.comunque grazie e ci sentiremo a presto. ma oakville canada si trova a est o ovest da diciamo pennsylvania USA

[1750GT]

Salve Ben e grazie per i complimenti. Il nostro paesetto si trova 20 km ovest di Toronto...siamo piu vicini di quello che si pensa.

So I guess it's about time for an update....I've been quite busy as of late with non-project things...but I've managed to get the door shells and the original door skins acid dipped and then immediately had my painter epoxy prime them (but wouldn't you know it, I forgot to bring my camera along to take photos of the doors at this point). Needless to say they came out looking like new.....beautifully rust free! After unsuccessfully trying to locate a shop capable of e-coating the doors, I decided that epoxy primer is the next best thing...if not better actually (plus it's not like this car will ever see harsh environments again). The painter also sprayed epoxy primer into the cavities of the box sections on the door using a wand extension on his paint gun.

I also paint stripped the hood clean down to bare metal using paint remover...I opted not to use a wire wheel to do this because I didn't want lead paint (possibly) dust flying around all over the garage.

I was amazed at how many coats of paint had been applied to this hood over the years and when I got down to the original OE paint, I was again amazed at how tough/durable the OE paint was to the paint remover. In all, it took me a good 4 hours or more of labor and about 5 applications of paint remover to finally scrape it clean (surprisingly the process wasn't as messy as I had imagined it would be). I finished it off with the usual Metal Ready phospated acid.....this too is now at the paint shop getting an epoxy prime treatment.

[1750GT]

So I managed to jump back on to the trunk lid repair. You may recall I attempted to fix the bulge in the trunk lid skin that appeared after my initial weld repair by heat shrinking with the acetylene torch. Well I can report that although this process did shrink the large bulge down, it resulted in numerous smaller bulges and craters to appear....it is definitely not the way to go.. I could not control the distortion on the panel because there is just too much heat going onto the panel which is next to impossible (at least for an amateur like myself) to control.

So I decided to try the shrinking disk method instead. I loaded a 4 1/2 " metal shrinking disk (which I bought from Dagger tools) on my 11,000 rpm angle grinder (Dagger recommended using it at 5,000 rpm....but I didn't have a power tool that ran at that speed). To my amazement, even with just a 20-30 second duration run on the panel followed by a wet rag cool-down, I could see ever so slightly the high spots shrinking down and flattening out. Since I was able to access both sides of the panel I ran the disk on both sides of the panel (the low spots on one side become high spots on the opposite side when the panel is flipped over).

As such I was able to shrink almost all of the high and lows down very effectively...this also eliminated all the oil canning that was created (unintentionally and by mistake) with the torch the first time. Of course I had to repeat this process numerous times alternating between outside and inside all the while....probably spent over 5 hours in all doing this. Surprisingly the metal never got to blue in color at all....even with 11,000 rpm disc speed.

The photo show how well I think this turned out.....

...before...



..after...



...skin finally repaired...



...and I finally welded up the inside frame as well. All these pieces are now at painters getting epoxied....amen.

[daveydog]

Another very good job done there Rossano! Nice to see you're still working on your car, even through the cold winter months. Now you'll know for sure that there's not one speck of rust on that boot lid and the doors!
What type/brand of paint stripper did you use?

[PSk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveydog Another very good job done there Rossano!

[1750GT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveydog ... What type/brand of paint stripper did you use?

[1750GT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PSk +1 Pete

[daveydog]

Thanks Rossano. That's funny you use that brand of paint stripper! I used the same stuff on a '78 Harley Sportster I had a few years ago and it worked really well. Mind you the tank and two fenders were way less square feet than what you're into, but it's great stuff.
I should have kept that bike. But a Japanese collector was in town and he offered me a price I couldn't refuse... But I'm still bummed out about selling it.

I think we all must have those stories about loves lost snif...

[GTV-GR]

can u explain the tools used and post a picture plz man? i've scewed up my bonnet a few months ago bigtime, how do u remove the skin from the hood?

[1750GT]

Do you mean the trunk lid or the engine hood (bonnet?). If it's the engine hood, I did not have to take it apart at all as it was in very good condition (thanks again GTAlfa for this part)...all I had to do was strip it of it's many layers of paint.

[ShadeTree]

Rossano,

Did you do anything to treat the area between the inner bracing and the skin on the hood?