First Part of 1999
After such a successful 1998, performance wise, I decided to leave the power train alone and focus on the looks of my car. I decided to totally refinish my car. It will be the same colour, because of the engine compartment being painted last year, but that's ok.
It started just before Christmas when I gutted the entire interior except for the dash. This was necessary so my uncle could weld on a new roof skin. My old roof, with the factory sunroof was beyond repair. It was too rotten. So, we got a roof section from a hardtop Mustang with NO sunroof.
After that was done, and the roof primered, I began work in January. The month of January was spent disassembling the car, and doing the necessary body work. Surprisingly enough, there wasn't all that much body work to do. I welded up some holes in the fender lips (where some mud flaps used to go), welded some holes up on the rocker panels (where some clips were to hold on a now non-existent piece of trim), welded up some holes in the hatch lid (where some dealer emblems used to be), and did some major work on the driver side rear wheel tub. I had to cut out all the rust and ended up putting in 4 patches.
All of February I couldn't work on the car because the shop was too full of company jobs. But, in March, I knocked the whole car down with 400 grit paper and then shot it in high solids primer. After block sanding with 220 and doing some necessary puddying, we primered it again with the high solids, and then block sanded it with 320. Then a few more areas needed to be puddied, then we shot those areas with the primer. Then another round of block sanding with 400, then a final wet sand with 600 grit. What a long and tedious job!
Now it's April, and I spent the last week prepping all the trim, molding, etc. And now everything is ready to be sprayed. The door jambs, hatch jamb, and underneath the hatch lid were all painted a week ago, and now all I have to do is wetsand the entire outer area of the car and spray it. Then a final wet sand and polish.
I knew a total refinish like this was going to be work, but I had NO idea it was going to be this long and drawn out. I can't believe I've spent 180 hours working on the car. But, it's going to be worth it. And doing practically everything myself will be very rewarding. Now I can do just about anything on cars, being mechanical, electrical, or body work.
