1989 C4 Functional Restoration

[SirReal63]

The door cards needed a lot of attention, thankfully it was over 90 degrees so the epoxy set quickly, instead of the overnight issue I had with the console pieces.

The passenger side was actually ok, some cracks and a little missing plastic but mostly intact.
Drivers side, broken, missing plastic, missing the metal brace, drywall screws holding it sort of together, etc. I think I can make this work again without drywall screws

Let's see if I can make a mess of the drivers door, I don't think I can make it worse.

Epoxy, wood, clamps, tape, Baggies, etc.

After round one cured,

After touching up and round two

Lots of sanding, shaping, drilling and a little paint. I did find the metal brace in the bottom of the door but no missing plastic.

 

[SirReal63]

Since I have the doors apart it was time for some maintenance and changes. I cleaned the dust and dirt off of them, only the driver side had a water barrier on it, the bottom of the doors were thick with dirt and misc. debris that I was able to loosen with a brush and vacuum out. The weep holes on these doors are huge and would be nearly impossible to clog up, good on GM for that. I cleaned and lubricated the window tracks and rods. The electric lock actuators work just fine but both doors had the rods removed, more things to ponder on this cars past.

I decided to make the speaker pods function with 6.5" speakers as I like the idea of using them and the way the old Boston Acoustics speakers were mounted was atrocious. Step one remove them, it was actually easy once the seal was broken, they just peeled right out of there.

Their design worked well for the small Bose speakers but the angle of the baffle meant putting a 6.5" in there would require some re-design and the port tube would no longer function, which is fine since the enclosure would not be tuned to take advantage of that port with a different speaker but it would add some rigidity to the area.

I cut down some ABS sheet to make a new baffle that would accommodate the 6.5 and figured out where it needed to be placed to add strength and heated up top and bent it to make the bend at the top. I used ABS cleaner and glue to bond the new baffle.This gave me a nicely sealed enclosure to mount the driver to.

The mounting hole had been cut and enough of the guts of the enclosure removed to fit the basket and magnet. I did further trimming after this pic was taken to ensure the driver sat perfectly on the baffle.

Driver mounted to baffle and enclosure with added Polyfill

Enclosure mounted and a little deadening added. I played around with the mounting position to get the driver as evenly centered in the door opening as I could which meant painstakingly measuring the existing holes and making new ones. In the end I will probably go back to the original holes, they were actually close and I wasted time fixing an issue that wasn't an issue. lol

Everything buttoned up, for the moment.

The sound improvement was dramatic, the mid bass tightened up and there is now actually bass below 50hz which it did not have prior as it was basically playing in free air because of the shape of the enclosure and the driver not being able to seal against it. I have ordered some Ensolite door barriers to replace the missing passenger and original poly one on the drivers side.

I put the brakes on this part of the project because I won a bid on a pair of Infinity Kappa 62iX which are discontinued and the new replacement from Infinity is a cheaper version of this driver that doesn't play as low, Harmon is making their Kappa line look better but built cheaper. When they arrive I am going to see if the will fit in the enclosure. I have used these speakers on a few projects, they are one of the best mid-fi car audio 6.5's you can get. On my Yukon Denali I ripped out the Bose LUX system and replaced the door drivers with these and a couple Kenwood KAC-M3004 bridged amps and the difference in SQ was incredible. I have doubts they will fit in the C4 enclosure but I will find out, I also have doubts the SQ will be noticeable, the Denali is whisper quiet inside so it is apparent while the convertible is anything but quiet inside. While I have no problem running the antique Boston drivers in this car, if I can make an improvement I will.

Once I have the enclosures finalized with the drivers I get to work on how to integrate that into the door cards and fit a round item into a square hole and make it look decent. The stock covers will not work with a 2-way design.

 

[SirReal63]

Early in my management career my mentor told me to never change anything until you know why it was being done the way it was. This advice mostly served me well for decades, but sometimes we get off on a tangent that was flawed from the beginning and didn't realize the flaw until we step back and look on things as a whole. I knew I changed the position of the center of the driver, which should have changed it's relationship to the door card. It did but not by as much as I thought it did, it changed it by 3/8 to 1/2 an inch, not the inch my brain extrapolated.

I just set the door card on the door and noticed two things, I can drop the enclosure down a half an inch and it will be fine. I can also use the original speaker covers, by mounting the driver to the face of the enclosure it is now far enough inward that minimal trimming on the cover will be needed to make it fit back like it is supposed to be.

This may not be the same with the Kappa drivers, time will tell.

 

[SirReal63]

It is now officially too dang hot to be in the shop for more than a few hours each day. I had originally planned on A/C in the shop but the cheap Janus doors and the hideous expense to replace them with insulated 10' doors made that a very long term goal. I could go out there in the evening but typically the evenings are our time together, dinner, movie, etc. I have been going out in the morning before the day heats up the shop too much. Those dang doors are a cold plate in the Winter and a hot plate in the Summer. lol

The Kappa's came in and they did fit the enclosure, not much modification was needed to get them in. I finished cutting out the port tube, leaving about 1/8-1/4" ridge to match the original for strength purposes.

Installed in the door, with some cheap butyl 50 mil sound deadening added in key places. The interior of the doors give a nice thud now instead of a ring, I will take that as a win for sound deadening. I was wrong, the difference in SQ was more than noticeable, it was stark, at least sitting still with the engine off but they do play lower and overall clarity was a great improvement as well as actual mid-bass.

With that part of the door refresh done, I also replaced the door lock actuator rod bushings and lubed everything up again. Everything works as expected now.

 

[SirReal63]

I had some time to kill while waiting on parts so I tackled a little issue, the black insert on the drivers door card only had 2 points of attachment at the top instead of all 3. I decided to try and correct that.

A piece of 1/8" ABS plastic, cut oversize, would fill in the missing piece of plastic the speed nut attached to. I sanded the area with coarse grit paper, used the correct ABS cleaner and glue and glued the replacement oversized piece in place. I replaced the speed nut and popped a new screw into it, it held perfectly. I did the passenger side as well as it was missing the same speed nut and screw.

I had ordered a pair of Ensolite door vapor barriers a couple weeks ago and the Post Office finally decided to deliver them. They are only 1/8" but will work nicely to seal the moisture out of the interior. I wanted to use butyl rope to seal them to the door but being foam I did not want them to rip if I ever take them off. I anticipate I will will have to get back in this door some day and do not like the idea of having to replace these again. I needed a way to seal these to the door and have them be removable. I decided on some clear Scotch Heavy Duty packing tape, the thick and sticky stuff. I applied it to the perimeter of the foam where the butyl rope will be. It works as intended, the butyl sticks to the tape but will release with a little pressure while keeping the butyl affixed to the door. The tape stuck very well to the Ensolite and I can remove the vapor barrier without damage.

These vapor barriers are supposed to be an exact fit but in reality they are not and I had to do some trimming and modifying. I ran out of the tape and have ordered some more, when it comes in I will go back over these and fix the areas that are not sealed to the inside, at least where I can.

My last problem to address is the round speaker with a square cover. The Boston speakers worked with the stock square speaker covers but the Kappa's do not, the tweeter sticks out too far. I had some old 6x9 speaker grills left over and played around with them, they will work until I think of a better solution or replace the door carpet. With the doors closed you do not see the corners and with the door open you have to really look to see they do not cover completely. I am waiting on some black nuts and bolts to secure them with as I don't like the speed nuts here. When those come in I think I can finally put the door cards back on the car and move onto something else.

I charged the A/C after finding the leak was the Schrader valve not being tight. I tightened it up and charged the system and used my little R134 sniffer and can find no other leaks, it blows nice and cold. My idle is still all over the place and A/C still coming out all of the vents at once. I probably won't worry about the vent issue now, though I do have the parts to fix it, most of my Summer driving will be with the top down so I can live with it. Getting under the dash is a job I am not looking forward to, my back is still a little twingy and I don't have to have A/C so it can wait a little while. The idle is something that cannot wait so I may be taking the whole intake off and looking for something obvious. It isn't a vacuum leak from the A/C or cruise control as I have those lines plugged. It is always something.

 

[SirReal63]

I am still chasing a high idle issue, after my check of the IAC and minimum air position, checking the TPS voltage and making sure everything is still plugged in correctly. I used my little injector pulser and all 8 injectors are pulsing, correctly it appears, so I bought a little clamp meter to see if something was shorting out but it checked out fine. The clamp has a DVM built in so for grins I decided to check the TPS with it, I am glad I did as my 10 year old Klein DVM gives a very wrong reading on the appropriate DCV scale. I set it with the new DVM and realized just how far off it was. This did not cure the high idle but for a while it would start at 1100 and after closed loop it went as high as 1800 rpm's. Now it is back to starting up at 700-800 rpm's and climbing to 1000-1100 rpms.

I have never checked base timing on this engine, or any engine in decades, so I bought a cheap inductive timing light and set about that task. It wasn't as easy as reading the timing, the indicator tab and balancer were both rusty messes, really rusty and impossible to read/see. I got the balancer cleaned up with some 400 grit sand paper and a piece of long and flat wood, gently polishing it with the engine running. (I will not recommend that method as it has hazards associated with it, but it worked perfectly, for me.) Getting the tab cleaned up was another matter, I soaked it in rust remover and that kind of cleaned it up, but not enough to read the timing marks. I went after it with sandpaper, emery boards and brake clean. The indentations are very faint/non-existent. I painted it white and used the emery board again to hopefully remove enough paint to expose the indentations but that also did not work. I went searching around on the internet to find another example the same as mine, with the deep cut at 0 deg. I finally found one on a YouTube video that was the same and could see the first peak from the zero valley was 4 deg. and the next peak was 8 deg, meaning the valleys fell in between. Perfect, so now I know where 6 and 8 degrees are, time to mark them in black, unplug the EST and hook up the light.

I found the base timing set at approx. zero deg. so I went looking for my distributor wrench, didn't find it which wasn't a surprise as I haven't see it in a long time. I ordered one from Amazon and it arrived and was put to use. It did loosen up the bolt for the dist. but was not really very easy to maneuver. I reached in the toolbox and pulled out a 9/16 ratcheting wrench with an adjustable head and used it for the bolt, worked perfectly, tossed the distributor wrench in the box, it will probably never be used again. I set the timing between 6 and 8 degrees, it bounces a little, tightened the bolt back down and checked it again, it didn't move.

Yay me, I wasted a couple of weeks with an inaccurate DVM, delivery lead times. At least all of these tasks will be easier next time with no waiting, so I call it a win.

I had decided months ago that I wanted to be able to data log what was happening with the engine, but that required more collecting parts, the bane of my existence lately. There are numerous choices from commercial made mechanic specialty tools like the Snap On MT2500, the OTC 4000 series, etc. but not really any new pieces of equipment. I considered ALDL Droid as I have numerous Android devices but file transfer between formats is a pain. I decided on a laptop but I wasn't going to spend the money for a new one when the only thing it would do is data log from the C4. It took me a week of shopping to find just the right tool, a ThinkPad T490 from 2019 that was in pristine condition. It was only slightly more expensive than others on Ebay and Marketplace and it had all the specs I wanted, 500g NVME drive and 16 gigs of Ram. The local Marketplace options were downright silly for what you are getting, I quickly passed them by and I won't buy a Dell, HP or other brand. I scored with this laptop, the battery has 90% health and the device itself has zero wear. It looks like it came out of the box brand new and functions perfectly. Typically the cases are scratched and the touchpads worn, this one has none of that, it looks like it was never used and came with a brand new Lenova charger. A nice score for $200 and I also got a pristine UltraDock for it for another $25. I will take it.

I ordered two different ALDL cables, the Red Devil River one that took a week to get and the BoostedNW one that is supposed to be the replacement for the Moates ALDU1 but there is no telling when I will get that, the company is horrible with communication.

I downloaded WinALDL and after configuring the ports got a successful data log but it was a pain to read and reminds me of 1995. I also downloaded TunerPro RT v5 and have been trying to take on the steep learning curve. Today I did manage to get a couple successful connects and logs and I imported them into Log Analyzer v32-18, such a better log viewer. The good/bad news is I cannot find anything obviously wrong.

I haven't driven it and logged yet as it is raining and muddy here and will be for another week, my logs have been idling in the shop so things may change when I drive it or learn more about what the correct parameters are.

Nothing beats new toys and the chance to learn something new, well, old and outdated. The good news is I can also get a deeper scan into our OBD2 vehicles with the same software and laptop.

 

[SirReal63]

Overall update from the work I have done since October to August.

I took the car out on one of our very bumpy back roads and I have no rattles of any kind, top up or down. No dash rattles, no door window rattles, no rattles of any kind. I can say without a doubt to take the time to repair any broken plastic in the dash, lube and go over the door window and lock components to correct any broken clips or missing plastic and check function. It is amazing the difference in how a car feels when it isn't rattling, it went from feeling like a tired old 80's car to a much newer and higher quality car.

The sound deadening and insulation made an incredible difference in how quiet the car is with the top up. I was surprised, though I have done this treatment to several of my cars in the past, it made the biggest difference on this car. I am not ready to take it on a long trip yet but I do know it won't be a tiring drive. With the windows up or down the stereo now sounds decent, I want more lower bass but that is only going to happen with the addition of a sub which is a low priority right now, it is passable as it is.

I have spent the past few weeks trying to learn OBD diagnostics to figure out why my idle is so crazy. I have a pile of logs both driving and idling. With the help from some good people on a EFI forum and looking over my log files there does not appear to be anything wrong mechanically but there is a high probability that there is something wrong in the ECM as the Desired Idle is set at 1050 and the car does what it is supposed to to keep that idle speed and it does. I do run lean more than rich and the ECM adds or removes fuel as it is supposed to. I am not far from adding in another system to control the engine, whether that is Holley, FiTech, EBL or ??? I am leaning towards the FiTech Ultimate TPI as it appears to be the most user friendly and plug and play system and has the added benefit of being the cheapest with the least amount of work to install and tune. I will leave it as it is for now, I hate for things to not work correctly but it also isn't the most important thing to worry about right now, it is just annoying.

I am not sure where I am going next with this car, paint and body work is probably going to be next but I really want to wait for cooler weather before taking that task on.

 

[SirReal63]

Time for a short update, (short on work and long on words)...not a lot has happened with the car, too dang hot, but I have done a few things.

I replaced the sun visors, this has been on my list since day one, but hasn't been a priority. I had considered rebuilding them but with plastic insides instead of the hardboard the originals had. I could replace the fabric/foam easily enough but the hardboard structure has disintegrated. I also considered just replacing but most places wanted $200+ for new ones, which I find silly as there is no value in that. Another member here found a set on Amazon that were half the price and looked just as good. I had these in a shopping list on Amazon and saw the price had dropped to $65 for the pair and I pulled the trigger. I did not expect them to be a quality piece, but that didn't really matter as these are more of a wear item with the amount of sun exposure they get. I was surprised, the quality appears to be every bit as good as the stock ones are, even the weight is about the same. At $65 bucks if they last a year they are still a bargain but I suspect they will last many years.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMLFDPWP

I had recharged my A/C but it only lasted a little while, which did not surprise me one bit. I decided to learn a little about what my Dad did not want to teach me and bought a cheap set of gauges and a cheap vacuum pump, I have two other better quality vacuum pumps but they are for our food freeze dryer and I wasn't sure about cross contamination and the $108 kit came with a pump, so I could leave my expensive pumps out of the equation. I already had a refrigerant "sniffer" and found no leaks other than the low side port so while the system was uncharged I replaced all of the o-rings with the correct R134 compatible ones, the only exception was the manifold to compressor ones as my kit did not include the correct ones. I did manage to find what appears to be the correct ones but it would be weeks before they arrived and the original ones were in great condition so I put them back in. I relaced the orifice tube with an ACDelco 15-50122 .0165 tube and noted the old one was in perfect condition, no dirt, no black debris no clogged screen but also no markings to tell me what it was so the new one went in.

I pulled a vacuum and found no leaks, it held a steady -30 inHg for a few hours, all should be good. I replaced the accumulator/drier and added about 2 oz. of Esther oil to the drier as well as a smattering of dye. The system called for 2.25 pounds (or 36 oz) of R12 so I added 80% of that ( approx. 28.8 oz) of R134. With the system all buttoned up I was only getting about 60 degrees out of the center vent, with an ambient temp of 105, which is a 45 degree delta, not bad but also not great. I had wanted to change the condenser as I am certain it is the original one designed for R12. I had been shopping for a Spectra Premium 7-4020 parallel flow unit but they were out of stock everywhere except Canada and the price was ridiculous so I passed. I noticed this morning the Spectra unit is back in stock in a few places so I ordered one for $90 bucks dlvd. which is way better than the $210 Napa version that could be special ordered. (This is why I almost never buy anything from Napa) The new condenser will be here later this week, so I have it and the manifold gaskets on hand if I want to try and get better cooling.

I have been making preparations to paint my doors, which is going to be a fun learning experiment. Step one is getting the excess junk out of the shop that was never intended to store it. I was going to build a 12x24 pole barn structure out by the well but started looking at other options. It would cost me about $2,000 to build my shed and most of that was in steel. We have challenges with building on this property, we have anywhere from 6" to 16" of topsoil and below that is solid limestone in most places, kind of tough to sink poles into solid limestone. I had hired a guy with the proper equipment to do our fence posts but he got out of that business and my antique auger will not do it. I started looking at portable garages and decided on the 12x20 Harbor Freight one. It is not a durable structure but it can be made into one once the tarp material disintegrates. That is the short term and long term plan, use it as is until the tarp material goes away then cover the structure in steel roofing.

I needed a somewhat solid structure to put this on. Our property is not level, it has a slight slope from North to Southwest and when it rains hard the watershed can be substantial. I decided on 4x4 treated posts that had been leveled on each side, 3.5" on the North and 5" on the Southwest side. This gave me a mostly level surface to put the frame on. To keep water from flowing under the 4x4's I added 2x4's dug down about 3" all around the perimeter. I was initially going to pour a concrete base to hold the frame but the cost was too high and my old body could not stand the digging in 105 degree weather. It would also have been mostly permanent and the treated lumber was about a quarter of the price, could be removed and moved easily and my old body could do it. I got lucky, after the 4x4 base had been built, my wife's workers came in and dug the perimeter for the 2x4's so I ended up digging almost zero of this brutally hard clay soil.

I did not want to store anything directly on the ground so I built a 2x4 treated subframe and glued and screwed 3/4" plywood to it for a floor that won't get water on it if hard rains manage to flow under the base. I painted the floor white and will go over that with some Varathane for added durability.

All that will remain is some shelving and to fill it up.

I have more bracing to add, and I did drive 36" rebar at an angle through the 4x4's into the limestone with a sledge and the screw anchors as far down as I could get them into the soil. Ratchet straps hold the entire structure to the ground, it will take a serious wind storm to uproot this.

Now I can begin collecting more painting supplies and go through the shop junk and move what I want to keep and toss the rest.

I have been putting some miles on the car, it is currently filthy which is a good feeling, getting miles on it, cranking the tunes and happy that there are currently no rattles.

 

[SirReal63]

Time for an update though I have done very little to the car in the past month. I have been collecting parts, paint supplies mostly and I managed to get a parallel flow A/C condenser, well, actually 2 as the first was somehow run over in transit. UPS is really good at delivering labels. no matter what happens to the package they are shipping.

This was hanging halfway out of the box with a tire tread over it. Fortunately Amazon promptly replaced it. I was in a panic, the Spectra 7-4020 units seem to always be in short supply and I was concerned a replacement might not be available for a while. The replacement came in and was in pristine condition. The original was pretty mangled and banana shaped. It is not installed yet but I at least have the right one for when the time comes.

Time to address the mis-matched paint. If you remember, the car had been repainted prior to my ownership, poorly painted and they did not paint the doors, for some unknown reason. I had concerns about getting a decent enough match because I had no idea who painted the car and if they got a good enough match to the original Brilliant Red Metallic 68/WA9239. I took the front license plate cover off as we are required to run a front plate here in Texas. I used it to compare the color on the rest of the car. It too had been repainted and there are several different shades in the repaint. Great, it is going to be fun making this look halfway decent. The goal is not a perfect paint job, the goal is a close enough match to the existing paint. I would love to strip the whole car down and paint it all at once but that isn't going to happen, at least not at this time. I am ready for criticism, laughter, jokes and for someone to poke me in the eye for doing this.

I ordered 5 cans from PaintScratch.com and a can of primer. I won't need the primer for the doors but I may for other areas and it is always good to have primer on hand. Five cans is probably way more paint than I need but I figured I would need to do some testing to see if I could make it match close enough. Spraying metallic is a gamble, and I knew this going in, it is a mistake to spray heavy coats as the metallic particles can rise in the carrier before it dries and the color of the base will effect the end result. I decided to do what was probably done when the repaint was done, sand the original enough to get some "tooth" and paint. Looking at the areas where it is chipping, like around the antennae, it looks like that is exactly what was done. If I have any hopes of this matching close enough then I need to follow the same procedure, no matter how much I do not want to.

I had planned on using a 2K clear coat but decided to not as I understand it can be difficult to work with and the guy at PaintScratch suggested a 1K product. I think he may be right, the clear that is on the car probably isn't a high quality clear, it has failed in a few places and will be easier to remove if I need to. As far as I know this could be a Maaco paint job as it wasn't done very well. I ordered some Eagle Abrasives Super Assilex paper in a variety of grits from 600 and up. I decided against the Mirka product based on the recommendation of a few videos I watched on this process. I got a 3M 6211 mask, tack cloths, a variety of blocks, 3M taped plastic drop cloth, a comfort grip to hold the cans and give my arthritic fingers a break, paint-prep wax and grease remover and SprayWay cleaner. I have enough to stuff to do the first test.

The problem before any repair attempt is made, just de-waxed and clayed...

A little masking...

A little paint...

It is clear that I need to do a little more sanding in a few places and move up in grit as the 600 grit scratches are visible under light, thought they are not visible with the naked eye. Next is a little Upol Clear and a prayer it is a close enough match.

 

[SirReal63]

I experimented with some U-pol 1k clear last night, it was a disaster. It was around 72-75 degrees in the shop and the stuff just would not lay out correctly. I had a lot of dusting and uneven spray from drying way too fast. The only way to get a decent coat was to be about 3" from the surface and at that distance it tiger striped excessively, as expected. It was warmer when I sprayed the base so I suspect some of the issue is the nozzle on the clear, it is way too wide of a pattern. It took one 12 oz can to do the door and the battery cover, 75% of that was on the top half of the door. I ordered some SprayMax 2k gloss that will be in this weekend, I will give that a try.

The only part that came out good was the rear view mirror, the rest is not good at all. I don't mind orange peel, it will get wet sanded when I wet sand the rest of the car. In a couple days I will sand this clear mostly off and get ready for the 2K. I still need to mask off, sand and paint the passenger door so I have plenty of work to do before the 2K clear gets here.

The most flattering shots I could take. The bottom of the door looks like sand was blown all over it because of the dusting.

 

[SirReal63]

I did most of the work on the passenger door. It has been clayed, cleaned, sanded, cleaned, painted and cleared. The SprayMax is such a great product, minimal orange peel and the nozzle is just about perfect for a spray can.

The passenger door with the first coat of paint and nib found.

I am going to re-sand this mirror, it doesn't show in this pic but it has a lot of spider cracking, the same as the driver side.

Nib gone and second coat of paint.

First dusting of clear.

First and second coat of clear. I will need to wet sand and buff this to remove the nibs and orange peel.

I believe this was the final coat of clear. I have a very nice thickness of clear. Not shown was the splatter mess after the first coat. My arthritic trigger finger was hurting so I used one of those spray paint guns and did not realize the can would rotate from the angle on the nozzle and the spray hit the edge of the gun and splattered. I let it dry about 7 hours and sanded it out, then continued with the clear.

I was concerned about the old hood matching the new door as this car has a multitude of shades on it. This morning after the clear had overnight to "cure" I buffed a section of the hood to see if I was going to have to paint the hood as well. I don't believe I will have to, the color is pretty much spot on. The lights and reflections shows a slight variation but with the eye none is seen. (ignore the reflection, I typically do not wear a shirt in the shop and yes, I need to exercise more.)

Pretty close, it will help once I am able to polish the door.

The four corners, the top and bottom of the door, the skirt and the hood. Only the hood wasn't wasn't painted. It looks off but it is a trick of the light and reflection.

You can easily spot the orange peel on the door but not much on the hood. Prior to buffing this small section of hood, the color wasn't very close. After a dose of 105 and 205 and a polishing cream it is going to be just fine. Now I will have to do the rest of the hood.

I got the driver door sanded down most of the way and corrected the rear view mirrors. I am waiting on sanding supplies. I have 2 cans of paint left but am going to have to repaint both bumpers and the entire back of the car so I am going to order more and make sure to have some left over.

 

[SirReal63]

The side mirrors were really sun baked and cracked in the paint. The cracks went all the way to the primer but I stopped just shy of getting into the primer. With a bright LED I can still see remnants of them but the eye cannot without a bright light source. At any rate I won't re-do them, they are more than good enough.

I have one can of paint left, not enough to do what remains so I will order more and focus on polishing until it arrives.

 

[SirReal63]

My old arms hurt, lots and lots of sanding this past week and more to go. I have been working on the rear of the car and it has been way more work that the doors were. The doors had almost no defects but the rear lid and back half have a lot of little pock marks that appear to be something like gravel damage, an impact point of some kind. I could see some of them prior to sanding but sanding revealed a lot of them, 13 that needed to be filled, to be exact. I was able to sand out a few of them as they were not deep but others had to be filled prior to painting.

I dissembled everything on the lid, found broken rivets and missing clips but it was overall in good condition. The gas tank lid is not so good, there is some edge rust that needs to be taken care of that I hope isn't too bad underneath, at any rate, it is going to take some work to get right (ish).

The gas tank lid...dirty underneath and rusty. I suppose this could be worse but it is bad enough. This is really the only significant rust I have encountered on the car, a little on the floor pan and the harmonic balancer which doesn't count

.

I found this kind of cool, the date and info cast into the panel under the gas tank lid as well as the paper tags from the deck lid black trim piece. The car had a mfg. date of 07/89

Now, the pockmarks that took most of my week. I probably could have left a lot of these and no one would have noticed them, but I would see them every time I got gas and it would bother me.

To fill the ones that did not sand out I sprayed a little high build primer into a cup and used a fine tip artist brush to place a drop of primer into the cavity. Every few hours I would add another drop until the cavity was filled and higher than the surrounding area so I could sand it flat. The high build primer does shrink slightly so it took multiple "drops". I did this to all 13 cavities and filled a few scuffed areas along the edges of every piece on the rear of the car. This took a while as you might guess. Good thing I am retired and have no life.

 

[SirReal63]

I also had some slightly more difficult body work to do. One of the reasons I had to tackle this work, other than the unpainted doors and variety of shades of paint there was this scrape...

The area was actually slightly rippled. I checked the backside and it fine, same texture as the rest of the panel but the surface had enough ripple to feel so I knew it could also be seen. I sanded the majority of the ripple out, coated the one burn through on the highest spot with epoxy and used the high build primer to level the surface out and after multiple passes I can no longer feel any ripple. I tried to check it with a straight edge, and the areas that were flat enough to lay a straight edge on showed no ripples.

I am tired, lol. The rest of the paint will arrive later this week and I have a ton of masking to do. I am going to have to rig up a makeshift booth. Painting vertical panels like the doors are pretty easy, painting horizontal panels is a little more challenging as dust/insects and whatever else is in the air can easily settle into the paint before it dries enough to resist it damaging the finish. I can remove them from the clear easy enough but you cannot really sand the actual paint before clearing, it ruins the sparkle.

I haven't touched either of the bumpers yet, it is going to be a large undertaking and I have a lot of research on urethane repair and painting before I begin. Fortunately there do not appear to be any holes, just gobs of filler that did not stick and a couple whiskey bumps.

 

[SirReal63]

This will be a large update, I got a lot done in the past week. I may disappear for a few weeks as I need an impromptu vacation from the car and the farm. We had someone steal chickens out of their coop and lock it back up so I also expanded the CCTV out to the animal areas, something I wasn't really ready to do but I do now have 4-4k cameras covering the area, and each other. (I hate thieves.) The hardest part was the multiple runs of Cat6 direct burial wire and expanding the network in the guest house to accommodate the new cameras. Now on to the part that was actually fun...

The gas filler lid, it was a rusted mess underneath, I sanded the high spots off, rust treated it with Ospho, primed, painted and cleared it.

What it was...

To what it is now...

The deck lid took quite a long time to remove the damage from them. It too got filled, sanded, painted and cleared. It isn't perfect and like the doors will need a paint correction to remove the orange peel. Fortunately it has 4 good coats of clear on it so I should heve more than enough depth of clear to correct and still have plenty for UV protection.

After a couple coats...

Final coat...

It took a lot of work on the rear trunk area, lots of dimples, low spots, etc. I had a difficult time spraying the clear, the paint went on beautifully but the angle you need to hold the can makes it easy to build up around the lip of the can then spit a glob of clear out. I had 3 of them to sand out the day after I sprayed the prior evening. By the fourth coat I had a system figured out that worked. I raised the front of the car on stands which gave me just enough angle to make it a little easier. Unfortunately on the fourth coat I had a few gnats land in a very conspicious area so I sanded them out and dropped on a 5th coat. I got one gnat in the fifth coat but it will be easy to remove that one and any other defects and the massive orange peel after it cures completely.

I believe these pics are between the first and second coat of paint...

I have no idea which coats of clear these are but they were prior to the fifth coat...the clear was a long painful process that spanned a few days...

After the last coat of clear...

A few things that make the pics look strange, the ridiculous shine reflects on everything inside, flash on or off made no real difference. To the eye the color match is better than i could have hoped for, to the camera it appears different depending on the angle you take the shot from. I will know better in a few days after I get the car put back together and out in the sun.

 

[SirReal63]

I worked a little more on the hood, I clayed it and hit it with some 105 and a wool pad. It is going to take a 2000 grit sanding to remove the scratches, I had hoped to not sand the hood as I have no idea how thick the clear is. If I burn through I will have to paint and clear the hood. I am not opposed to doing it, but I would rather not as small panels are actually easy and a large panel more of a challenge.

After a cleaning and clay to remove surface contaminants...it is pretty rough...

Before the 105 and wool...

After...

I haven't touched the bumper other than some excavating to see how bad it is going to be. The rear is going to be bad and the front not as bad. I am going to have to pull out the 80 grit and take it most of the way down to remove the filler mess that has accumulated there. You may have noticed the rear bumper was not painted this time at all, not even the sides as I wanted to paint the bumpers as a whole and not try and blend them.

I need a break and further research on urethane refinishing.

I am going to wait a few days for the clear to outgas before I move the car into the sun for pics. It will be tense until then as my anxiety level is high over how well it will match. In the shop it looks great to the eye but the sun will be the true test.

 

[SirReal63]

I went ahead and moved the car out of the shop, SprayMax TDS says 12 hours to cut and buff and it has been well over 35 hours so I moved it into the sun to do any last outgassing.

I took the opportunity to take a few shots of the color. Ignore the orange peel and overspray, those will be gone once I color sand and buff in a few days. Keep in mind the only thing that has been done to the hood is a little cleaning and buffing. Depending on the angle, the color is either clearly different between the rear to the door and the hood. In some shots it is the same color and others the difference is easy to see with the hood being a lighter shade. Kind of maddening. lol I have been working on not being so detail oriented (****) for the past couple of decades, I used to be horrible about it but today it doesn't bother me as much, but deep inside the slight shade difference bothers me.

I am looking for opinions here, criticism, laughter or whatever you got. I don't know if I can leave it like this, my wife says not to worry about it as it will bother me way more than anyone else, if they even notice it.

I have also been refurbishing the deck lid hardware as most of it is rusted. I used a 30 minute bath in the ultrasonic cleaner, rust reformer and flat black. Though no one will ever see it, it is nice to stop any rust where I can.

I should be safe to sand with 2000, 3000, 5000, compound and polish in a few days. I am seriously considering making the black door handles and the cover plate for the top pins body color. I have intentionally left them alone because to me the black distracts from the body lines and black belt molding. I tried to find pics on the interwebs of that and found none.

 

[SirReal63]

As for the handles and pin latches, no matter what color I paint them, I will have to completely strip and sand them as they are hammered. I considered briefly just replacing them, they are all available but that kind of defeats the purpose of this thread and these are the original ones, I suspect the aftermarket are not the same quality.

I started wet sanding on the hood as well as a few spot checks on the fresh clear coat, I am going to wait a few more days on the clear but can proceed on the hood. This is a spot after 1500, 2000 and 3000. I started with 2000 but it did not work fast enough so the 1500 came out. I thought I had some 4 and 5000 but I do not, at least until this weekend then I will be able to take it beyond 3000 grit.

 

[Tonyrodz]

Ive never been a fan of Corvettes, but I can appreciate all your hard work and knowledge that went into your restoration--Plus I love a good build thread! Sub'd

 

[SirReal63]

I made a lot of slow and painful progress this past week. I had concerns about the quality of 2K clear out of a can, those concerns were unfounded. This is the hardest clear I have ever touched. I made a mistake by waiting so long to wet sand, this stuff was so tough in a few places I had to grab the 400 grit to break the granite hard outer later. I have never had to use 400 grit paper on a vehicle's finish. Once the outer shell was taken down the 600-800 worked perfectly to smooth it out. I ran the gamut of paper, from 400 to 600,800,1000,1200,1500,2000,2500,3000,4000 and 5000. The 400-800 were 3M brand and performed beautifully, I also used some Dura-Gold for the 1000 to 2000 and I tied "Serious Grit" in 2500 as well as the Dura-Gold. Both of these papers were adequate, I bought both 6" round for the Porter Cable and 5-1/2"x9 for the hand blocks. The 3000 grit was Dura-Gold and Mirka Abranet 6" foam backed disks (great for hand sanding) which I had both 3 and 4000 grits that were 6" round. The quality difference between the Dura-Gold and the Abranet was substantial. The Mirka was quite a bit finer than the Dura-Gold though both were "3000" grit. I bought the 5000 grit because I didn't want to try and buff larger scratches out of the granite coating of clear. I believe it helped. I started this whole process with a Job Pack of Super Assilex 600,800 and 1200 grit dry sanding paper, 2 half sheets of each. I am still using it and it hasn't really lost much grit at all. If I had to do this all over I would only have used this stuff and the Abranet but would have bought much more.

I got all the way around the car up to 5000 with the exception of the rear tail light area which I only got to 2000, most of it will have to hand sanded though I did try some 3" Uxcel from 600 to 5,000 grit ( I only used the 3000 grit so far) for that area on a 3" foam pad and a slow cordless drill. It worked ok, not great so I will probably finish that area by hand with Super Assilex. I am deeply impressed with that paper. On to some pics, of which I did not take enough, I just wanted to get through this, my old body is officially worn out.

The worst area, the deck (top) lid, I cleared this in very poor light on the other side of the shop and that was a mistake, I had more dusting and orange peel here than anywhere else, mainly because I could not see just how bad of a job I did with the clear. I must have been high when I sprayed the last coat. The flash makes the pics look 1000x worse than they really were and this is the spot that took 400 grit.

In process, this is during the 400 grit fiasco.

After the 400 taken to 2000. At one point in the week the entire car looked like this.

After the 2000 with the random orbit I noticed a few pigtails so I then switched to 2000 and up by hand on various blocks. My arms are ready to fall off after numerous passes with finer and finer grit paper. I am pretty sure I will need to go over the rest of the car closely with a bright led to find any I missed.

Taken to 4000 by hand

After the 4000-5000 I used a heavy cutting pad with some 105, some of these are with and without flash.

A pretty cool difference between 2000 grit and 4000 grit.