Painting Process Begins!!

 Today I started the Painting process by spraying a sealer onto the main body.  Tomorrow I will finish the sealer on the main body (only a few spots left) and spray all the other body parts including, Hood, Fenders, Rear deck lid, Doors, Blinker housings, Gas filler cover ect.

 Once the sealer is done then I will begin to spary on the high build sandable primer.  It will get at least two coats of that, sanding in between them.

 I masked off the rear drum brakes since I will be rebuilding them and don't want sealer/paint all over them.

Its looking cleaner already....Robin is enjoying seeing this transformation.

More later....Jason

71 VW BODY WORK

 This is a view of my garage as it is right now....pretty crowded.  There is organization to this madness though.....I might be the only one who could make sense of it but it works for now.

 I spent countless hours working on repairing the hood because I was having a hard time finding a good aftermarket replacement for less than several hundrend dollars.  Since this is going to be a daily driver, not a show car, I decided to repair rather than replace it. 

 Once in a while I get a volunteer willing to help me for a few minutes.  Here Caleb was very excited to help as long as he got to use the power tools......A short time later he managed to wire brush his arm which put an end to his help for the day.

 Under the front hood is the storage compartment.  I have begun spraying on a rubberized lining to help seal and protect the inside.  

 The brakes were in sad condition.  The fronts I am converting to disk and the rears will be rebuilt completely new.....it will also get a new master cylinder.

 Front struts, springs, ball joints, sway bar and tie rods (hanging there) are all coming out.  Some will be reusable so will be cleaned up get new bushings ect. then re-installed.  Ball joints will be new along with tie rod ends.

I have the hood, rear deck lid, all the fenders and doors off the car and will paint them all seperately.

 The roof had alot of slight low areas....not dents (for the most part) but more like warping in the metal.  here I have used a finish bondy filler to fill the low spots and even it all out.  The thickest parts might be close to 1/16"....most is less.  The different colors you see are from several guide coats I sprayed on to help identify to low areas.

Another picture of the trunk area with the rubberized coating. 

I'm hoping to start sealing/priming it this week so I can have it in paint by the first week of Oct.

The goal is to have this car on the road by Thanksgiving.

More later....Jason

SHIFTING GEARS

About 3 years ago I purchased a 1971 VW Super Beetle project car.  Since we moved into our current house it has sat in my garage gathering dust.  After I had pulled the 327 V8 out of the 70 GMC Robin (the beautiful godess who married me and has a ton of patience with my projects) decided she felt it would be smarter to get the VW done and out of the garage before doing much more on my 66 Chevy.  I agreed....mainly because I really need the space to tear down the 66.

So.....I figured I would post some of the "before" pictures for you to see.  I will be posting more pictures soon.

 The hood had some very poor dent/rust repair done some time back....you can see the rust popping through the paint.

 The front fenders came with it but I just threw them away.  they looked like someone had beat them with a hammer and left them in the rain for several years.

 Overall the car seems pretty clean as far as the body goes.....however.....upon closer inspection I discovered alot of poor bodywork under several layers of paint.....I determined to take it down to the metal and fix it right.

 The interior was pertty beat up.....so, true to my nature.....tear it out, throw it away and make it new.....its the only way to go.

Now the engine.....this beast has a 1600 cc 4 cyl that at max output gets a whopping 48 horse power....LOL.  The guy I got the car from swore the engine was good but we'll see....rebuild kits are not expensive if I need to go that route.....she obvioulsy needs some TLC.