70 S, RHD, Signal Orange, UK->Australia->UK

[inaglasshouse]

That's what I was trying to achieve on my own pillar repair ,,,I'm just not talented like Barry !

Neither am I!
Full respect to you for the hands-on work.
Cheers, Richard.

[inaglasshouse]

Stripping by Hand

Because I chose blasting (not dipping or envirostrip), and because I asked them not to go crazy trying to blast away stuff that didn't want to shift, there were a few detail areas still having old underseal and sound deadening in place. For example in the engine bay, footwells and up behind the torque tube:





Those areas were stripped by hand. Barry's hand, not my hand. I had intended to do it myself but, strangely, never quite got around to it. Equally strangely I don't regret handing it over to a rather overqualified operator of the drill with wire brush attachment.

I know some people have used dry ice to get the sound deadening off - make it very brittle then hit it with a hammer. Like the banana in liquid nitrogen + hammer in the Big Bang Theory ("I couldn't find a knife"). I should have done that, it would have been fun. Will try to do some dry ice blasting in due course. BTW it really is true that you can buy dry ice in supermarkets in the US.

Anyway it all looked much nicer afterwards:

[inaglasshouse]

Underside Finished

The underside is now finished, including ARB mountings and other finishing touches.

[PMNorris]

Very impressive work on the front end with all the rightdating on the new panels. I hope my new front end turns out as well as yours.

Paul

[inaglasshouse]

Hi Paul,

Is yours now a full front end? Thought it was only in for minor fettling

Yes. Detail finish of the front end panels and welds, to mimic factory, are very good on mine. I'm pleased with how it's turning out.
Have you seen Gitesh's thread? Chesterton have also done a lovely job on his shell in the same area.

I'm sure your guys know what they are doing, but it's always good to have reference pics to make absolutely clear what's expected. Let me know if you need anything.

Cheers, Richard.

[PMNorris]

Hi Richard,
So far mine will have the front halves of both inner front wings, battery boxes and the petrol take surround, so a lot of the parts that Barry has been backdating, Hopefully that's all i need though.
Paul

[inaglasshouse]

Hi Richard,
So far mine will have the front halves of both inner front wings, battery boxes and the petrol take surround, so a lot of the parts that Barry has been backdating, Hopefully that's all i need though.
Paul

Sounds manageable. Hope it goes well and you get the car back soon. Sun is out!
Cheers, Richard.

[inaglasshouse]

Paint Spec

I wrote a specification document for the various painters I wanted to quote for my car.
It scared them, I think.
Contains lots of detail about what I want / consider to be correct. And made me look like an unbelievably picky customer who would never be happy.

In case it's useful for anyone else, I have uploaded it to my website:
www.safetycolours.com (see the links and downloads section).
Many thanks to those who provided help, review and photos. Especially Darren, Mike and Barry.

Let me know what I've got wrong.

Couple of words of warning:
1) It's only correct for 1970 MY cars. Specifically early 70 MY cars but after the summer shutdown (so built Sept-Dec-ish 1969)
2) Deploy with caution to your painter....

Cheers, Richard.

[911hillclimber]

Spoke to a painter for my blitza 911 in my garage in front of the car 2 weeks ago, a seasoned classic car painter.
All was going well until I said I would like the car painted in cellulose. That was not too bad but asking for the colour to be matched led to a pregnant pause...
The colour Iwantis roughly Champangne Yellow, but the colour I used in '89 under the sunroof was what I really wanted.
Material costs rocketed as a result.
Might be 2K yet.

[jtparr]

Richard

In a word, the problem with your specification is ....complicated....

Any decent painter is either going to just double their price or be afraid to quote as your level of detail is going to worry them you will aks for work to be re-done at their cost

Personally I would have found 3 painters maximum and asked them for a price based off a simpler spec....then with the one you prefer you sit with them and show them pictures and have a chat...ask them if the extra level of detail adds much and negotiate

Instead of giving them dozens of pictures to understand..if you had a simple plan of the underside, and side of the car and marked in a coloured pen where the paint finishes change...and show them a small number of images to get across the overspray in trunk and engine lid for example...then it would come across as a simpler task...just someone who wants a few special touches

Talk to DC Coachworks near to Barry..they will be a fair price I would think..

Best
Jonathan

[inaglasshouse]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for taking a look.
You are quite right, and that's what I meant when I say it scared some off. And "deploy with caution".

Current strategy is pretty much what you say - get to know them first, then introduce the spec later as a discussion document in case it's helpful. Should probably also say that I'm only talking to folks who have painted quite a few early 911s.

I've found that some painters welcome it. They know that, for these kind of cars, it's got to be right. But have suffered in the past when the customer has failed to accurately define what constitutes right.

But yes, generally agree - the spec has limited usefulness.
Darren and Barry said pretty much the same thing.
Perhaps I shall bin it.

I'm in contact with DC. Adam bigfoot, Mike 210 and Jonny the CDI, who as you know all have DC cars, have been kind enough to share their experiences - thanks again chaps.

Cheers, Richard.

[jtparr]

I used DC 10 years ago for the Carrera and will definetly talk to them about the E

[inaglasshouse]

I used DC 10 years ago for the Carrera and will definetly talk to them about the E

Could work well. They'll probably be out of the 911 painting business by then, if I head that way. Just not worth the hassle etc.
You might get a nice short waiting time for your Jag...

[inaglasshouse]

Gapping - what about that big heavy lump in the back?

As the metalwork drew toward a close, and thoughts turned to paint, gapping became a bit of a pre-occupation. More on that later, but I wanted to share the results of a little experiment.

One Porsche painter said to me that they prefer to re-gap with the engine and gearbox in the car. In their view, on some cars, the door gaps move quite a lot when that lump of mass is added, and they like to compensate.
That got us thinking. Barry hadn't heard of any painter doing that sort of pre-loading on one of his shells but, as you might imagine from someone whose email address is doorgap@, he wasn't inclined to let it lie.

So we did a little experiment.
First: find the required mass we could hang off the rear engine mounts to simulate the engine and gearbox in their correct places. A few calculations and...





... we concluded that hanging 80Kg off the rear engine mounts, with the front engine / gearbox mounts attached to the jig, would be a close enough simulation.

So after the first proper round of gapping, with everything looking quite nice, we tried it out.

[Tp81]

Don't bin the spec until I print it off for reference.