is stunning…..
Lots of time spent getting all the last loose ends taken care of. Headlamp washer jets fitted, mirrors painted and mounted, correct lenses fitted to front blinkers, and much more.
I’m ready for a drive!
The final result
“if at first you don’t succeed…”
we tried again. Looking better this time, but only measured and trial fitted so far.
The rear bumper finally looks like a bumper, integrated with the body, whereas before it was more like a shelf sticking far out from the rear. At least it was handy to sit on at picnics 😉
Now to strip all the paint away, cut the mounts out and move them to the new positions, weld everything back up, prime, shape and prep the areas for paint.
Glass
Windscreen and rear window fitted, as well as most of the door glass, along with chrome trim surrounds.
While the doors were apart to install the glass, we went ahead and removed the old (and pretty far gone) insulation and installed new rubberized asphalt sound/vibration insulation. The old stuff had crumbled to a point beyond recognition, which has it’s advantages, as it’s hydrophilic and a common cause of serious rust in these cars. Due to the way the insulation is mounted, the doors or body could rust through from the inside without any warning to the owner until it’s too late!
The rubberized mats are completely waterproof and offer much better sound deadening properties than the original insulation used.
Body panel gaps
Doors now test fitted and adjusted for proper panel gaps all around.
She’s slowly beginning to come together, and is looking pretty good if I do say so myself. Looks a bit weird without the bumpers though.
Interior and trim
Parcel shelf covered with new leather, matched for color and grain:
Whomever did the previous respray, which must be at least 20 years old, didn’t pay as much attention to masking off parts. Each part must be hand cleaned and polished before being put back on the car.
The lower front grilles had been painted the same color as the rest of the car, which meant stripping, priming and repainting in the correct color (black) before being put back on the car.
Quite a lot of time was spent polishing and refinishing the headlamp surrounds and steel trim. The front of the car looks brand new (actually it is brand new)
All the old foam and glue under the roof was removed and replaced before the headliner was remounted
And tags and door strikers re-installed in the painted door aperture. What’s not clear from the pictures is that all seals and gaskets have been replaced with new ones, as will the doors for the window channels and water seals.
Lastly, fuel-filler cap and opposite side blanking plate have been repainted, polished and refitted to the car
And since we’re paying extra attention to detail, look at the care and effort that went into making the fuel filler area look brand new:
Deep Blue
Color on car. Bits and pieces being polished and added. Everything looking very good. I was looking for a deep color that would “pop” with the chrome and interior, I think I found it…
The BIG decision
What color to paint the car?
I’ve been leaning towards the original “blu sera met.”, a metallic midnight blue. Personally I think the car suits slightly darker colors to lighter ones, although I must admit it looks really nice in silver. Dark grey, metallic burgundy, even the metallic bronze all compliment the car nicely.
The older 60’s blu sera is even deeper and richer, with finer metallic flakes than the 80’s vintage, as technology changed (improved?), flakes became larger. Here’s an example of a Maserati 5000GT painted in a mid-60’s blu sera:
Here are a few paint chips. Ferrari blu sera top, my original blanking panel left middle (not sure if you can see the difference between the color where the trident was and the rest, but it’s there), and the model year-appropriate Maserati blu sera on the bottom:
There’s still time to consider other colors before paint hits body.
What color would you think shows off the car best? Comments are open!
The usual suspects (rust)
Rumor has it that the communist government in Italy during the 70’s – 80’s made a deal with the USSR for steel to supply their automobile production, resulting in cars that rust more readily than their competitors. Hopefully any historians in the audience will be able to verify or refute the accuracy of the rumor, but as anyone who’s ever owned an Italian car knows, they rust like no others. I don’t even think that a Jag could rust faster, and that’s saying something.
Meaning that 33 years on, mother nature has had her say in the matter, and the results aren’t pretty. The expert’s assessment is that this is no big deal and pretty common and far from the worse they’ve seen, and I’m comforted by the fact that they know their way around a pair of tin snips and welding machines. Blindfolded.
E.g. “The car is pretty well as I expected, PLEASE don’t feel in any way downhearted at the seeming extent of the metal repair work………….this is very much the norm.”
“First few pics show the stripping completed (including the ‘detail’ stripping of the body suages, glass reveals, rain gutters and all of the other difficult areas).”
“As you can see I have begun the metalwork on the most complicated areas…….the lower front wing/sill structure and having cut away the corrosion on the left side we found the lower A panel support had rusted out also, so removed a larger section of the front wing to enable access to cut the rust out and repair properly. I have also drilled a hole in the support panel so that we can fully protect it with a cavity wax at the end of the job. Finally new sections made for the outer panelwork (sill and lower front wing) and welded in.
Next stage is to do the same on the right side.”
Excellent work. I’m looking forward to seeing how this continues.
Progress
“some more stripping done……..front end now completely bare steel”
“more stripping done……….roof completed and right rear quarter done”
“nearly there on stripping……just three doors left”
Work is moving along at a good clip. This was up until around the end of May, when problems surfaced…
Stay tuned.