58 cay coral impala project

[58mark]

this is a project I'm doing with my Dad (73) I'm 40 and a working musician, but my schedule gives me the flexibility to drive to his house (30 minutes away) to work on the car about once a week.

little background... he bought the car in 1977, and it looked like this...
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s67/markfinley/IMPALA2.jpg

not bad, but it's painted like a bel air, and that wasn't acceptable to him. the interior was just in good, not great condition, and the wiring needed work, so in 1999, 21 years after he bought the car for $300 (!!!!!) he decided to start the ground up restoration himself

first, he gutted the interior, and prepared the car for blasting

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/early%20impala%20pictures/1999februarydisassembly.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/early%20impala%20pictures/1999sandblasted1.jpg

[58mark]

then he primed it

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/early%20impala%20pictures/2000juneveriprime.jpg


he then took the body off and did the work on the frame and rebuilt the suspension.
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/early%20impala%20pictures/2003frontsuspension.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/early%20impala%20pictures/2003rearaxle.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/early%20impala%20pictures/2003frontright.jpg

[58mark]

then he paid somebody to paint the removable body panels with acrylic lacquer. the guy did a good job painting.. but he used a lot more paint than we had expected, and it was hard to get in touch with him, and harder than that to get the parts back. for a while we literally thought he had run off with the body panels and paint.

I think the plan all along was to have this guy paint the entire car, but after all the headaches he had with them, he was out as an option.

It was here that the whole procedure came to a halt for years. My dad started to expereince major health issues, and his wife of years died of cancer. He lost all motivation to work on the car, and it sat dusty as is for years. :(

In january of this year is was becoming apparent that my dad was depressed.. He lives alone and jsut didn't much contact with many people throughout the week. I decided the best way to get him body and mind going again was to get him involved with the car again. At this point he assumed he would die with the car in a million pieces, and it would be up to my brother and I to decide waht to do with it after he was gone. I told him that I was going to dedicate myself to being the muscle and labor he needed to finally finish this 32 year old dream of his. With my wife's blessing and support, I'm going over there once a week (at least) and talking to him on the phone a couple times a day with ideas and brainstorming our next step.

This project has been great for both of us, it's exactly what we both needed. I recently got out of church ministry full time, and lacked the "project drive" that I thrived on in media ministry.


one of the first things we did was make sure the engine still turned... we turned the crank by hand and made sure none of the pushrods were going to stick
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/1-3-09/P1020359.jpg

he had painted part of the dash before, so we went to go finish the job
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/3-7/P1020374.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/3-7/P1020380.jpg

[58mark]

we also had to paint the rest of the interior trim the same color as the dash
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/3-7/P1020385.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/3-7/P1020376.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/3-15/P1020390.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/3-15/P1020393.jpg

[58mark]

then we worked on getting the roof ready to paint... arctic white

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/3-21/P1020396.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/3-21/P1020400.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/4-10/P1020237.jpg

[J-rod]

Good to see more of it, and get some history of it. Nice job in all. Keep up the good work.

[58mark]

just yesterday we started spraying coral on the body... we need to make sure the new coral we are spraying matches the old body panels... if it doesn't, we'll have to repaint those as well, once they are on the car.
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/4-27/P1020781.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/4-27/P1020777.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/4-27/P1020776.jpg

[Gibs07GTcpe]

Very nice work. What setup are you using and what type of paint? Enamel? Just wondering as I have thought of painting my own car also.


Gib

[58mark]

we're using an old supply of dupont lucite acrylic lacquer that my dad has saved for this purpose for 20 years. By setup, do you mean what's our equipment? nothing special... craftsman compressor, hvlp gravity gun, ect..

We might need to get some more lacquer mixed to finish the job. if we do, we'll get it from tcpglobal

[Gibs07GTcpe]

Sweet. I got about the same setup so I should be able to spray myself....I am not going to use acrylic enamel though....

TCP is right up the street from me. I was there last week.
Good guys. They gave me the internet price even though I was a walkin.

Your project is going well and looks nice. I like those cars of that timeframe.

Gib

[58mark]

Sweet. I got about the same setup so I should be able to spray myself....I am not going to use acrylic enamel though....

TCP is right up the street from me. I was there last week.
Good guys. They gave me the internet price even though I was a walkin.

Your project is going well and looks nice. I like those cars of that timeframe.

Gib


not using enamel either.. I'm using lacquer. it's more authentic for a car this old, and is easy to apply, but doesn't have the "care free shine" of modern paints.

I'm looking forward to the next day we have without rain over here... I'm itching to get back over to my dad's house and start painting again

[Gibs07GTcpe]

Oops sorry, I must read better. You did say Laquer. What is the difference in the painting technique with that vice enamel?


Gib

[58mark]

i'm not sure.. isn't enamel baked?

[J-rod]

Actually most paints can be baked. Enamel will stays wet longer than lacquer. You just can't beat lacquers quick drying times. Plus enamel has hardner.

Once again, nice work.

[58mark]

decent day today at my dad's... We put the trunk on the car to see how the color of what was painted years ago (by somebody else with different equipment) matches what we sprayed last week. The good new is it's really close, the bad new is it's not close enough to just paint the primed stuff and forget about it. We're going to have to try to blend the new paint in with the old. We're going to get a gallon of color matched paint to use as a bottom coat, and spray the paint we have as our topcoats. After blending, if he's still not happy with it, he's prepared to spend $1500 on two gallons of PPG Acrylic Lacquer paint to put a couple topcoats on the entire car, but at this point I doubt that will be needed. I bet we can blend it well enough to make it look very nice.


here's the pictures showing the new and old... it's REALLY close...

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/4-27/P1020798.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/4-27/P1020799.jpg

[J-rod]

Not to to bad, and $1500 for 2 gallons? Wow!

[58mark]

that's the PPG price at tcpglobal... wow...

[58mark]

been a while since the last update...we've got 4 coats on the body, and put 4 more coats on the roof because it just wasn't thick enough to stand up to polishing

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/5-30/P1020806.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/5-30/P1020805.jpg

last weekend we painted the belt that goes on the back side of the roof.. it turned out great... Tomorrow morning we put on the second to last coat on the body, and then get ready for the topcoat. We should be done painting by the end of the month (at least until we find out of we have to blend anything)

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/7-3/P1020855.jpg

[J-rod]

I was wondering what you were up to...........Good for you, looks good, can't wait to see it all done.

[58mark]

OK, good day today... mostly..



We have a problem with the air gun that we eventually figured out, and we managed to get the second to top layer of paint (the first layer of dupont lucite) on the car. We sprayed two topcoats on the belt so we could remove the tape, and for fun put the dummy roof vent in place for a photo op.



We're pretty tired (it's almost 100 here today) and we have a lot of clean up to do before we're ready for the final coat, but things are going pretty good.


http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/7-11/P1020870.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/7-11/P1020875.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/7-11/P1020878.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/7-11/P1020882.jpg

[58mark]

just an update....

we didn't have enough paint to finish the car, because it turns out the body panels that were painted by the "pro" we painted so thin you couldn't polish them without hitting primer.

We had TCP match the paint we were working with, but it is a little darker, so we ordered 3 more gallons and started the car over again. It's totally painted now, so now I'm starting the buffing and compounding stage. So far it looks great, the paint is less pink than the former shade, which I like,and it looks like we will have a full gallon left for future uses, which I LOVE

I'll post some new pics when I get more of it buffed out, we've also been doing some work on the dash, it's coming along just fine

[kevink1955]

Wow, looks great

My son and I are also doing a project, It's kind of the other way around. My sons car is a 67 mustang, he purchased it when he was 17 (now 24). He told me when he found it that it was in primer and just needed paint.

When I went to look at it you could stick your fingers into both front frame rails. He purchased it anyway as we felt that any mustang in this area that has not had full underbody replacment needs it anyway.

So 7 years later it's almost done, we have bonded in a way that most fathers and sons have not and hopefully will get many years of enjoyment out of this car.

I, on the other hand have to return home and start on a 7 year old "Honeydo List" as I have lots to do at home. Good thing I have a understanding wife.

Glad we did it together, hope he has garage space to take my 56 when I pass on (not for a while I hope) He was around 8 years old when the 56 was being done and he still talks about the car he and his dad restored

[58mark]

gotta love these father son stories!

I'm really enjoying the time spent over at his house. He get frustrated that his health doesn't allow him to do more, but as long as he's able to tell me what goes where, I'll do all the labor cheerfully

[58mark]

I finally finished up the painting and buffing of the car... I'm very happy with it...


http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030036.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030037.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030038.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030042.jpg

[58mark]

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030045.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030047.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030048.jpg

[58mark]

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030051.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030055.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030062.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/november%2009/P1030063.jpg

[58mark]

had to colorsand and rebuff the trunk lid. It turned out fantastic the second time

thought I would post some more recent pics

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/jan%20to%20april%202010/P1030235.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/jan%20to%20april%202010/P1030237.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/jan%20to%20april%202010/P1030200.jpghttp://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/jan%20to%20april%202010/P1030228.jpg

[55chevrolet]

Awesome! Keep it up!

[Len]

Great job. It looks like your dad is enjoying the work.

[58mark]

Great job. It looks like your dad is enjoying the work.

It's been great for both of us, it's brought us closer together, and given him direction and purpose in his life.

BTW, I love working with lacquer. It's so easy to do touchups on, and after I got my technique down for spraying metallics, I can get an amazing finish with it. Of course this car won't be a daily driver, so I think one good paint job should last many years in the environment it's going to see.

[Mooch]

Great looking car those 58 Chevys and yours is coming out nice . Man they had a lot of trim in 58 as did the olds .

Mooch :)

[58mark]

the progress is still going nice, today we had a little snag while putting the engine in..

got under the car to jack up the tranny, and I found rust forming under the rockers... some of it pretty bad.

My dad wants to scape off most of the rust and shoot it with extend, because the can says there must be some rust on the surface for that stuff to work.

I would rather take it down to bare metal, and prime it back before painting it again.

Which is the most effective way to battle the rust?

latest pics of the car


http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/jan%20to%20april%202010/P1030340.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/jan%20to%20april%202010/P1030341.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/jan%20to%20april%202010/P1030345.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq97/gsfinley69/jan%20to%20april%202010/P1030348.jpg

[Len]

Wow, that's coming along nicely, your dad must be loving it. :)

I'm not familiar with the quality of Extend so I can't commend on how long it lasts over different types of prep work. If you can remove the loose material then convert the remaining rust using a product like Picklex 20 then apply two or three coats of Zero Rust it will hold up quite well for a long time.



http://autobodystore.net/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/P20asst.jpg
Picklex and Zero Rust Link (http://autobodystore.net/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=RCAC)

[cadillacbart]

Too bad, I'm really enjoying reading this thread. Hope all is well.

[58mark]

I didn't figure many were interested after I finished the painting, but for those that want to see the updates, I now have a website..

http://ourimpala.com

enjoy! the bad news is Dad almost died in April. The good news is he didn't, and is mostly recovered.

[Len]

I didn't figure many were interested after I finished the painting, but for those that want to see the updates, I now have a website..

http://ourimpala.com

enjoy! the bad news is Dad almost died in April. The good news is he didn't, and is mostly recovered.

Did you also restore the interior? The 58 Impalas had a unique interior.

I hope your dad has the health to enjoy the car for a long time.

[58mark]

yep, it's all ready to put in. Seats, door panels, carpet, the works. Right now I'm working on hanging the doors (not that easy) then we'll do the front clip, and then the interior and back glass

they weather has slowed us down quite a bit... too darn cold to work in the building, especially for my dad

[iwamaryu]

58Mark, that is a really nice restoration! Can I ask you some details in the gear you were running. Nowadays everybody is painting urethanes so there's not much info out there on acrylic lacquer painting.

I would kindly like to know:
what fluid tip size did you run,
what pressure did you run at your spray gun,
Did you use a HVLP gavity gun,
Did you have to thin the acrylic out the boundaries of the manufactures thinning ratios to get it to spray right?

I've got a project that I'm doing in acrylic lacquer. I'm waiting for my devilbiss finish line 3 to come in the mail. If you could give me some direction to whether there is any special consideration that I should take in painting acrylic lacquers. thanks in advance

Mike

[Len]

58Mark, that is a really nice restoration! Can I ask you some details in the gear you were running. Nowadays everybody is painting urethanes so there's not much info out there on acrylic lacquer painting.

I would kindly like to know:
what fluid tip size did you run,
what pressure did you run at your spray gun,
Did you use a HVLP gavity gun,
Did you have to thin the acrylic out the boundaries of the manufactures thinning ratios to get it to spray right?


I've got a project that I'm doing in acrylic lacquer. I'm waiting for my devilbiss finish line 3 to come in the mail. If you could give me some direction to whether there is any special consideration that I should take in painting acrylic lacquers. thanks in advance

Mike

If I was spraying lacquer I would thin most products until I was spraying with 50/50 paint/thinner and make sure it's a "good" quality medium speed thinner. For a full paint job using lacquer you'll probably need at least two gallons of lacquer but most likely three or four gallons and an equal amount of thinner.

Most unhardened lacquer is a "trapped solvent" type of finish that will dry on top trapping the solvents in the deeper layers. This means that it can take months to dry and continually become dull as the solvents leave the paint. The best way to conquer this is to apply two or three coat then sand it with some 600 grit and wait for a week or two then apply another three coats, sand it again, wait again then apply a final three coats sand it with some 1000 grit and wait for a couple weeks then polish it. This process does two things.... 1.) it stops the continual dulling until the solvents are gone because you're allowing the solvent to escape between paint applications and... 2.) it helps eliminate the surface tension that causes lacquer jobs to crack as they age.

Almost all paint jobs look good right after they are applied but as time passes the quality of the paint and the quality of the application make a big difference.

[58mark]

When we sprayed I think we waited a full week between every coat. We shouldn't, and haven't had any problems with pop

I used a 1.5 on a HVLP gravity gun

I think we were about 25 pounds at the gun

We just thinned as per the data sheet from TCP global, and I think that wound up being about 18 seconds with the cup

The thing that almost killed me with the lacquer was getting the metallics right. Too heavy, and you can't color sand at all.
Think light coats, but not too dry. as long as you don't let the metallics settle in a layer of wet, you should be fine to colorsand and buff

If you are planning on colorsanding and buffing.. I would use at least 6-8 light coats. Don't try to get by with just 4, you'll burn through it in a hurry

I did the 58 that way because those were my dad's wishes, but if I had to do it all over again, I would probably use BC/CC.

[Len]

When we sprayed I think we waited a full week between every coat. We shouldn't, and haven't had any problems with pop

I used a 1.5 on a HVLP gravity gun

I think we were about 25 pounds at the gun

We just thinned as per the data sheet from TCP global, and I think that wound up being about 18 seconds with the cup

The thing that almost killed me with the lacquer was getting the metallics right. Too heavy, and you can't color sand at all.
Think light coats, but not too dry. as long as you don't let the metallics settle in a layer of wet, you should be fine to colorsand and buff

If you are planning on colorsanding and buffing.. I would use at least 6-8 light coats. Don't try to get by with just 4, you'll burn through it in a hurry

I did the 58 that way because those were my dad's wishes, but if I had to do it all over again, I would probably use BC/CC.

I've always sprayed lacquer very thin and a 1.5 tip would have been much to large. We usually used a 1.2 on a full size gravity feed gun or a .8 on a detail gun.

[BRP]

Mark,
Nothing better going on today so I watched the whole thread including the videos. Nice work all around and I hope your Dad has a chance to enjoy it.

One thing I'd forgotten was how big those old tanks were. On the maiden voyage turning onto the street from the driveway I thought "man if the front clip had been on he'd have taken the neighbor's mailbox down".... Yes sir, big old boats they were....

Again, nicely done and I about fell over when $1500 for two gallons of lacquer was mentioned.....

[iwamaryu]

Thanks Mark and Len for the advice. I find asking advice from different people, everyone gives a different answesr or opinions which makes things more confusing,haha. I guess I just need to practice and make my own adjustments.

I'm using Hi-chem motospray acrylic lacquer(Australia). The manufacture recommends a 1.9mm tip but a lot of people are using 1.5mm, so i might need to experiment.

It makes sense in waiting 1 week for solvent to fully evaporate and this is the first that I'm hearing of this technique , but this seems so impracticable. Is that how a lot of professionals painted lacquers back in the day?

[Len]

Thanks Mark and Len for the advice. I find asking advice from different people, everyone gives a different answesr or opinions which makes things more confusing,haha. I guess I just need to practice and make my own adjustments.

I'm using Hi-chem motospray acrylic lacquer(Australia). The manufacture recommends a 1.9mm tip but a lot of people are using 1.5mm, so i might need to experiment.

It makes sense in waiting 1 week for solvent to fully evaporate and this is the first that I'm hearing of this technique , but this seems so impracticable. Is that how a lot of professionals painted lacquers back in the day?

When acrylic lacquer was used in a collision shop to repair a damaged vehicle it was applied in one spraying session because it was faster than multiple applications. However that didn't mean that it was the best way of doing the job.

[BRP]

Okay Lenny boy,
Test those grey matter cells and explain what happenend on those old show cars where they talked about a bazillion coats of hand rubbed laquer? Sounds like a lot of coats and a whole lotta rubbin'....