Wot, not another '79 Targa resto thread

[PeterK]

Decided to guide coat the epoxy. Starting with the tub


Then the front wings and doors


Lots of ruby, ruby later


A little bit of glaze / putty / scratch filler and we had


Then tidy up, remove all old masking


And we’re ready for new masking and a couple of coats of primer filler.


Next day, a few hours activity and the car is masked afresh and the walls and ceiling are covered in plastic sheeting


Now off to wash the cars – appears that I have got paint or sanding residue all over them !


A new day, and poised ready to go spraying


For those that don’t know me, this is what I look like


Three coats of 2k primer filler, with 10/15 minute flash off time between (that’s how long it took me to get around the shell)



On the rear quarter you might be able to make out some bubbles. The water trap on my spray gun did a great job of separating out the water vapour. Unfortunately, when I was contorting with the spray gun to get to the forward side of the scuttle (?) in front of the engine lid, it decided to empty itself . Hey, ho – it will sand out, and I can give it a quick blow over.

Onto today, and time for the doors


and front wings


They’re where I sprayed them, although the small compressor and blowing fan were outside when I sprayed

To ensure I had enough air I’ve daisy-chained the small (8cfm ?) 25l compressor into my pipework, joining the 14cfm 100l main compressor, plus the whatever cfm / 200l old compressor. I had enough air
For my working environment, I use an air-fed mask, plus have the blowing fan above, chucking fresh air into the garage with an explosion-proof extractor fan taking it out through a filter. Hopefully this stops me killing my neighbours (can I say that, having commuted into and across London on my motorbike for 8 years, I'm less worried about the self-centred cyclists that ride past noisily )


That’s it for a couple of days now. I want to let the paint harden a bit and settle over any filler (although 2k primer filler shouldn’t settle that much compared to celly paint), although I may refit the doors and wings in the interim. I’ll also refit the engine lid and froot so that they can be adjusted. I can add any necessary filler where the corners were bent, but double skinned preventing proper tin bashing. I’ll do that before I flat off the front wings and doors, just in case I need to tweak anything.

[PeterK]

Deleted duplicate post

[The Garage Bitch]

Having had the 'pleasure' of the cyclists passing your place I suggest turning the fan up to Max and pointing the spray gun straight at it :D

[911hillclimber]

See, if you had tried harder, colour would be on the cards!

I too regularly have the MotOGP passing my back garden most days now, empty roads and off to Wales.
Lock-down means different things to some.

Car looking so good, press-on!

[PeterK]

Couldn’t keep way, so refitted front wings and doors



The masking tape is where I have shone a light and noticed areas needing attention, be that small sags / runs, low spots, debris in the paint, etc.

I then trial fitted the engine lid and froot




To get the froot to line up with the wings and scuttle better, I have lowered the rear end fo the wings slightly and so will need to dress the top of the trailing edges of the wings.

After just a quick play, the LHS is looking good now, but the RHS needs to go down further. I tried setting the froot lid higher, but the gap to scuttle becomes unacceptable.


The corners of the original froot were bent from what appears to be the lid opening to the windscreen so I decided to try fitting my spare froot. This had a number of minor damage to the edges, which turned out to be chipped paint. Tickling the areas with a wire brush in an angle grinder showed alarmingly thick and multitudinous layer of paints of various colours. Further inspection showed at least one area of filler, so I decided to strip the lid before I went too far.
This was the first are of filler that found


About 45 minutes with the angle grinder with wire brush saw the driver’s side mostly stripped. There seems to be filler over all of the lid - a very US style of bodyworking.




I had a day off today, but plan to fit the spare froot lid without any further stripping, just to judge the overall fit. If it’s similar to my current lid, then there’s no point in wasting time stripping the spare. If, however, it is a much better fit, then more stripping will follow.

My concern is that I previously thought that the RHS scuttle repair patch was set too high, even though it was set as low as it would go. I made a small slice and lowered the top edge of the scuttle, but when fitting the wings, I thought that I could raise the scuttle back up, so inserted metal. I am now thinking that my first change was the right move, so will need to make an adjustment for the third time

[Phill]

Blimey Peter, one step forward and lots back again! It will be worth it in the end though. You are at the "frustifying" stage. Frustrating but satisfying at the same time (I just made that up, did you guess?) Nice to see it looking like a car again though.

[911hillclimber]

Peter, have you the gas struts fitted?
I had trouble with a similar mis-alignment until I took the struts off, The beefy hinges are not all that stiff and can give position quite readily in my experience (limited to my car alone).
If still not quite right, loose-in the bonnet seal before you finally say it is correct, a lot of rubber to compress esp if the seal is aftermarket/new.

Bonnet fit is the hardest panel to get right imho.

[PeterK]

Thanks, both (and to the Garage Bitch for pointing out that my rego plate was visible in one photo).
At the moment, neither struts nor seals are fitted. My thinking was (is) that minor height adjustments of the froot lid can be dealt with by shimming the hinges, etc, but my main focus, for now, is the alignment of the froot to the scuttle. The RHS is not good enough, so current thinking is ...
Step 1 - slice and redo the scuttle end (the Dansk repair panel) and get the scuttle matching the froot
Step 2 - match the front wings to the froot
Step 3 - trim / adjust / match the rear wing edges to the door

In the picture of the froot lid showing above the scuttle, you can see what could be a bend in the lid in front of the steering wheel area (the froot lid is above, then below the scuttle). That could be a bent froot or it could be a mis-placed repair panel. So, before I launch into slicing welding and re-doing paint, I want to check that the issue isn't my original froot lid (with its previously bent corners), hence trying the spare froot.

At least I was doing a final assembly check (good job I knew that the froot needed a skim of filler in one rear corner) before committing to final paint.! I had checked previously, but things have been separately 'tweeked' since then. Not my smartest move

Watch this space.....

[PeterK]

Like a soap opera this, but without the celebrities..

So, once more into the garage dear friends …

This is the alignment of the scuttle to original froot and front wing.


Time for the spare froot lid.


Just the same . Well the bad news is that I’ll have to slice and move the scuttle end, but the good news is that I can stick the spare froot back in the loft and not finish stripping it (well, yet anyway).

So, mark up time. You will not believe how many times the froot lid and front wing went on and came off . Measure a squillian times, then measure again. I’ll still cock things up, but less so than if I rush in .


Brave pants on, and off we go. I sliced the scuttle gave it a bit of a bash, forgot to take any photos, and trial fitted the original froot. Much better, but the gap (front to rear, scuttle to froot), closed at the outer edge. So, not only was the repair panel too tall, it had the wrong shape.
So, I cut out a chunk, made a patch, still forgot to take more photos, welded it in and finally, ground and linished. This is where I finished the day



The froot isn’t fastened in any way, but the alignment to scuttle and the wing is significantly improved . Onto the front and upper edges of the front wings that need a little of my build-up, taken off, but not today ....

[PeterK]

… and so onto the front wing /door gaps…..

Well, started with the froot actually. Took an age faffing around with the hinge on the RHS, but eventually got it somewhere close. Then RH door back on, wings loosely on, and it’s time to mark-up and start trimming. Wings then bolted on properly (well properly, but not with all the bolts), some more trimming and gaps now looking much better.


It looks a bit manky at the top of the door in the photo above, just above the mirror mounting holes, but that is just where I caught the paint and had to sand a little. It's better in real life, trust me (please)

..and even the froot is looking more comfortable


I’m waiting for a panel gap stick to arrive before I can finally finish the tweaking of panel gaps - I have been using some tongue depressors (paint stirrers) taped together – 2 (3.2mm) is too tight and 3 (4.8mm) is just on the wide side.


Next, I went around the car sanding out any debris or sags, and added some body putty to a few places. Then off came the RH front wing off again, so that I could clean up the scuttle and apply (by brush this time, as there was only a little to do) some epoxy mastic to both sides of the scuttle (topside and underside).

Tomorrow's focus will be filler on the scuttle end, one corner of the froot lid and a very small patch on the engine lid (where I cracked off previous filler trying to knock through a blocked letter mounting hole). Then it will be time to sand (again) and to make it uniform grey (again).

[911hillclimber]

Peter, there is a plastic filler strip between the wing/scuttle by the screen, pop those in to check you can keep the gaps and the flush fitting of wing and door skins.
They do not crush to nothing.
Will you use the 'factory' calking tape between the inner/outer wings? This could hold the wings wider to the bonnet, possibly an extra 1mm each side, can give some 'paint room'.

Dansk panels need to be used carefully...I was there in 1989 and again in 2019, a lot of fettlin', their front wings are tricky and I never got mine as I wanted them. At least you don't have that issue.

[PeterK]

Thanks, I’ll try that.
I’m comfortable with the wing / scuttle join but the wing / froot gap is more worrying. The gap is plenty big enough now, so i’ve not been looking forward to how big it might end up (yes, I will be using the factory strips).

I’ve spent time looking at other cars - some have quite large froot / wing gaps. My spare froot lid is the same width as my original, so no options there.

[PeterK]

And so begins the slow slog of fill, smooth, more fill, more sanding, get all panels flatted, guide coat, more flatting, etc, until I’m happy enough to start colour.

I started with the scuttle and froot lid (with a quick sojourn at the engine lid). The front wing was on and off too many times to bore you with and much ‘fun’ was had with setting the froot height again. Dropping the froot lid into place without hinges attached, I realised that the froot hinge was impacting the stop too early, so the stop was ‘adjusted’ with the BFH. The froot is also touching the RHS strut top. The RHS is maybe 3mm more inboard at the top than the LHS, but the whole suspension needs setting, so I’m not moving it anywhere just now. When the froot perimeter seal is fitted, it will raise the froot slightly, but I will need to keep an eye on this area.

Having got my personal triangle of doom (front wing, froot, scuttle) aligned, I added a skim of filler to various places, then removed the froot and front wing once more. Some filler also made its way to the engine lid, where I had chipped previous filler trying to open out one of the badge mounting holes !. A quick rough sand of the scuttle preceded refitting the front wing, and another skim of filler to the door and scuttle. After a rough sanding of the front wing, it then came off again.


My panel gap tool has arrived, so the gaps were all adjusted to about 4mm-ish

Meanwhile the froot was looking on forlonely.



Back again ….
More filling and smoothing followed

Honestly, the filler on the scuttle isn't as thick as it looks in the photo



until the panels were ready for another coat of epoxy primer



And ready for a flattening and more filler primer (before more flattening, etc, etc, ad nauseum)


Well, that didn’t go as planned. Went back into garage for a tidy up, realised that the froot lid was unstable, so decided to bolt it back on. Unfortunately, I hadn’t allowed enough time of the paint to harden, and I messed up both the froot lid and the scuttle . Hey ho, more sanding. Also, I had used up the last of my Rust Buster 421 epoxy primer. I've ordered some Jotun Penguard HB, as I understand it is the same as RB's 421, but half the cost. I've bought absolutely loads of the Rust Buster products, so don't feel guilty about buying at a cheaper price point for the last panels (valences, sill modesty panels, etc).
Never mind, another day and I flatted back my mistakes, then started on flatting back the entire RHS.

After an inordinately long time, we got to here

And then finally the entire RHS was flatted. I have gone through the primer in a couple of places, so they will need a touch up before I respray the entire car with a thinned primer filler. Hopefully I won’t need too much flatting after the next coat of primer filler. Still got to do the LHS before I can break out the primer though.

[911hillclimber]

Hard work.
Painful progress, but many steps closer to The Colour.

[Phill]

Excellent progress Peter, the ménage et trois looks great! Good tip on the Jotun Penguard HB too