Not a build thread, but a REFURB thread.....

[youther]

Well it's been almost two years now since I have had my car on the road (officially) and after losing about 10 years off of my life, I finally can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I have went through two paint jobs (ggggrrrrrrr) and a new interior. So I thought I would show some pics and tell a little bit about my trials and tribulations.....LOL!

Here's a teaser of my firewall before and after.............

[38project]

Great before and after!

[mopar34]

Nice work! So where were your trials and tribulations??

[youther]

Ok here goes. Here's what my car looked like when I first bought it almost 4 years ago. I drove it for two years, not doing much at all to it. The paint was dull and beat up pretty bad. So I thought any paint would be an inprovement. So I decide to try and get it painted, which my budget limited, a friend refers me to the instructor of the local vo-tech center. He is highly respected in the auto body community according to many people.

So I go and meet with him and tell him that I'm just looking fo a basic paint job with some shine. He decides to take my car and paint it. He also tells me about this kid that he has that has some major talent and already had painted some other hotrods. He also tells me that his specialty is flames. I respond that I wasn't really a big flames fan because a lot of people already have them. So I tell him to let me think about it.

I come home and do some searhing here and around the net. That's when I find a picture of Mike's "Wet" Willy car that has red, white, and blue flames on it. So I print off the picture and take it to the vo-tech and let the instructor and the young painter look at it. They say that they can do something like it. So I say ok, let's do it. So I take the car to them on January 17th, 2007

[youther]

So your'e thinking........."what in the world am I thinking letting a youngin doing work on my car" LOL! Trust me, I asked myself that 1 million times.

So they get started on my car doing some basic work on minor dings and such. There was only one place on the car that needed some extra attention, and it was on the roof where it had been chopped. And it was a crack. The rest of the car was solid, no rust.

[youther]

So comes along my first semi-problem.

I would go by the shop once a week or so to check on progress. So I go by one day to find out that the young painter had failed an exam and would have to take the class over the second semester, which meant that he would not be able to take autobody.

The instructor who we will call "Mr S" assured me that everything would be ok. They would continue to prep the car for paint and Mr S would shoot the base and the young guy who we will call "steve" would come over in the evenings and do the flames.

[youther]

So now comes a MAJOR problem.

Like I said above I would go by once a week. Well due to work and other stuff I missed a week. A week and a half had passed and I decided to go by to check on the car.

As soon as I arrive at the center, I notice that Mr. S is not there and there is a sub teacher there. As soon as the students see me they point at me and say "there he is". I'm thinking..........what did I do. The sub intoduced himself to me and vice versa. He says "we have been trying to get in touch with you." I replied that "Mr. S has my cell number." The sub replies, "that's what we need to talk to you about. We need to know whether you want us to continue to work on your car since Mr. S in no longer here with us anymore." I was puzzled to say the least. I say..."what happened, did he quit?" The sub replies..."No, he died of a sudden heart attack a week ago."

I was stunned to say the least. First I felt terrible because I didn't know and missed his funeral. Then I felt bad for the kids because they were close to him. He was a very personable guy and spent a lot of time just shooting the bull with him whenever I would go by.

The sub says that they needed my permission to continue on the car since things had changed and the sub had no autobody experience. That pretty much meant that the kids would have to prep the car and prepare it for base.

My car looked like the pic above and I felt there was no turning back now. hind sight is 20/20, but if I had it to do over I would took the car home as it sat and found someone else to finish the car.

So I told them to continue the work.

[bluestang67]

Find out who the kid is with talent and get him to do it . Heck he may be a natural with the passion . With the new instructor have no autobody experience i hope they get someone soon .

But i thought your car was shot silver and flamed .

[youther]

Find out who the kid is with talent and get him to do it . Heck he may be a natural with the passion . With the new instructor have no autobody experience i hope they get someone soon .

But i thought your car was shot silver and flamed .

It was and is (painted twice).....LOL! I'm tellin what happened during the process. There is much more to the story....LOL!

[bluestang67]

Ahh ok well I'll sit back and enjoy the story and cringe at the right points .

[youther]

Next Chapter............

So as I leave the vo-tech another kid stopped me and gave me Steve's cell phone number and said that he wanted me to call him. So I gave him a call and talked to him about the situation. He still wanted to paint the car, but he could only do it in the evenings, which was going to work with Mr. S, but I wasn't sure how that would now work with the sub teacher.

So the next day I go by the vo-tech to talk to the principal. He understands my problems and agrees to allow steve to come over and work on the car during the adult evening autobody class which meets on tues and thurs, just as long as the evening instructor is ok with it.

I go and meet with the evening instructor and he says that it is ok and I go back to the principal and advise him that the instructor is ok with it. So the principal says that he will have the other kids get the car to primer and steve can take over and do the base and the flames.

[youther]

So the story continues and so do the problems............

I get word that the car has been primered. I go by to look at the car and I'm no expert when it comes to paint, but I notice immediately that something is wrong. I walk up to the car and the entire car is orange peeled. And this aint just your normal orange peel, it is super thick.

So I call steve and tell him what has happened. He comes over to look at it and his mouth drops to the floor. He tells me to go out and by sandpaper and lots of it.

We start sanding and sanding and sanding on it two nights a week. It seems as we are getting no where. I even bring it home over the easter break (for a week) and sand on it everyday. I know, you thinking I should have know better right!?

Finally we get it completely sanded and wet sanded and prep it for another coat of primer.

[youther]

Steve gets several coats of primer on the car and does and excellent job.

[youther]

We wet sand the car and prep it for the base coat. The base coat and clear coat goes on the car and Steve again does a great job with the exception of a few runs in the clear coat. Steve tells me that the runs are ok, they can be sanded and re-cleared later.

This is where I should have put the brakes on everything and took the car home and forgot about the flames. But I didn't.

[youther]

Feel free to comment everyone, trust me it's not gonna hurt my feelings....LOL!

So here comes the flames..............

Oh I forgot to mention that my hopes are to have the car finished by mid May for my eldest son's senior Prom. Which I am told that it should be no problem to have it done by then. We have about two months.

The long process of laying the flames starts. Steve free hands the flames with blue tape. Then the very long process of taping off the flames starts. I help and it takes FOREVER!!!! LOL!