Roller Paint Job Diary

Thanks for the update, Norm.
We don't hear from you nearly enough these days.

 

Howdy folks. My basement workshop is one dusty mess. I've been wire brushing and prepping parts for re-assembly.

Part of that might be interesting to our fellow Fox wagon and Mustang/Capri owners. Even Pinto and Maverick/Comet folks.

My sweet wagon has some minor rust issues, after being in Canada, for 15 years. Mostly on the suspension components, so I found a nice pair of Rear Lower Control Arms in Nebraska via this site:

http://car-part.com/index.htm

Mid-City Auto had them from a 1979 Capri. They also had a nice brake/clutch pedal assembly, and a very rare Police Sedan rear swaybar - all here and restored. good guys to deal with. amd they do ship via USPS to Canada. Ask for the Tracking Code and you can track it all the way through to delivery day!:
http://www.midcityautosupply.com/

Anyway, The Bushing adventure went fairly well. I got stock replacements, only all the Heavy Duty versions, from NAPA. They bought out Spicer's Chassis division. The front ones are more than the aftermarket Poly bushings, but they won't have the issues that many Fox daily drivers encountered with them. You don't have to maintain them or adjust, etc.

Fitting them in was a new task for me, but I bought a Bushing tool from Maximum Motor Sports, via the Canadian version of the US themustangshop.ca. In all fairness, its made for the Upper rear control arms, so I had to get longer grade 8 bolts and nuts. I could have drilled out the cups and spacers to handle a 1/2" bolt, and got grade 10 bolts. I broke off the 7" X 7/16" diam. that I bought at and had to buy 2 more to install the front bushings. I saw a video of a guy who used his old Milwaukee 3" hole saw cutter, and I used the one I have. I know you can find parts stores that lend them to you, but I also knew that its too cold to be bussing it to get to use one for a day or two, return it, and hope they have one when you're ready for the next bunch. 4 on the front, 4 on the rear upper arms, and 4 on the rear lower control arms. Which brings me to why so much detail:

Nobody seems to be selling OE rear lower control arm bushings for Fox bodied vehicles. The ones I got from Mid-City (above link) are in decent condition, but the rubber rot is starting to show. I'll need to change them within a couple years. The issue is that as good as the Raybestos chassis site is for dimensions (Moog only gives optional diameters for front bushings), you need to go one by one to find the right bushing collar diameter, and width. I've been looking on and off for 2 months. Maverick and Granada rear spring bushings come very close. 1979-1980 T-Bird/Cougar rear leaf springs are close too, as are the 1979-1980 Versaille bushings - all for leaf springs, not like our control arm link bushings. Not that it matters much, once they're bolted in. They won't move side to side.

Once I nail it down, I'll post and update on this issue. For now, here's what I did to these really nice Nebraska Rear Lower Control Arms:

They didn't even have surface rust, just some dirt road dust, I cleaned them up, brushed on some OSPHO, let them dry for a day, then sprayed on Cold Galvanize, then painted with Tremclad Satin Black:







This is a pair of HD front lower control arm bushings - each one costs about $43 CDN, before our dollar tanked. These are not for the TRW sports suspension - different diameters, these are for stock sedan/wagon chassis cars and Mustang/Capri cars.

 

Good to see you are still at it Norm! Hope all is well!

 

Valve Cover Painting

Although I'm doing some mild performance improvements to my humble I6, like the custom header, a mild cam, and a tri-power carb setup, there's a couple eye-popper things I have to do too.

The Carter YF/YFA carbs are a little shorter than the stock Motorcraft 1946 carb, but the aftermarket air breathers won't let me install the hood insulation, so I figured I'd modify both valve covers and make it look like an Inline 12!

One of the things is to get enough air into the carbs, so I figured I'd get a 1979-1980 T-bird set of air-plenums running toward the rad brace (stock setup, feeding the modified valve cover/air canister. Others have made up a square plenum using those T-Bird ducts, so why not?

Well I looked all over the WWW, and found all kinds of ways of painting the raised Ford Script, but I already had it primed and painted in Aluminum, and a coat of clear coat. When I tried that, it peeled off the lettering:







I was looking for my welding paint pens, and it hit me! Dupli-Color's scratch paint pens! Now, I'm pretty accurate with marking wood and steel, but my dear wife has decades of practice with Eye-Makeup brushes, and she jumped in!





Of course Dupli-Color don't make the Ford Engine blue, but Chrsyler's PBS blue is close enough!

Still got another couple hours of fiddling for her to finish up, then I can sand it with 2000 grit, and 2 coats of clear coat.

 

Oye! Con la Buena comida Mexicana, no hay duda!

Man she made Bunelos, Tacos al vapor, Tamalles. You'd swear you were strolling along a street of Mexican cafes!

Nice to hear from you.

 

Jaja! Por eso estamos, como estamos, Compadre!

 

I walk my wife to one of two different bus routes, depending on when she starts work.

I surprised both of us the other day when I said, "Darle que le darle, nos vemos mas tarde!" She laughed, and got on the bus!

When I was a kid, I used to write poems in French, because I really enjoyed the challenge of learning new languages. I had spent all my early teens in English schools, so when we moved to Quebec, my mother insisted that I go through the French Catholic grade and high schools.

By the time I graduated, we were moving again back to English Canada, and I tried getting into college. NOPE! No English Authours, No English Canadian History! They dropped me, from the equivalent of grade 14 (1 year pre-university) to grade 11!!!! I also spoke, wrote, and read Ancient Greek and Roman Latin, as well as French and English.

So I meet my Mexican rose, and we get married, 3 months later. She can't speak English. We used bilingual dictionaries to talk, and I had software to translate her emails. I also had other software to help me learn to speak and write Spanish. By the time, I went down to Monterrey for the wedding, I could barely converse in Spanish. I bought the biggest Spanish-English Dictionary I could find (Larousse) and during the day, I'd be in their home waiting for her to come home from work. Her father, after a week or so, came into the front porch and said, in perfect English, the only words he too was trying to learn, to speak with me! He said, "You don't speak Spanish, I don't speak English... How are we going to communicate?" It shocked me so much, that I answered him in Spanish! "Don Ramon! Estoy listo a hablar con usted!" He hugged me, and told me, "Bienvenido a mi casa, hijo!"

We spent the afternoon communicating, and every afternoon until the wedding day.

Son sin equivalente, los Mexicanos!

 

Don't have much done on the body, so not much to report there.

However...

My bulldog, earth-scorching search for parts has paid off!

I found an NOS amp booster switch, most of my coil spring insulators from the same place, and the last 2 in the same place from an NOS vendor in California. Two other NOS vendors have one each of that insulator, but one won't ship to Canada - go figure.

The OEM insulators are rubber, the aftermarket ones are polyurethane. I know the rubber ones will last 35 years. In our cold weather, I haven't followed how Polyurethane stands up, to protect the car body like rubber.

There are some Rubber insulators around for Fox-body Mustangs that would work, but they have a steel insert sandwiched in the rubber, and the vendors seem to be selling a lot of them - I guess they don't stand up.

I'm happy with NOS. They were used from 1974 to 1989 on Mustangs, Capris, T-Birds, Cougars, Granadas and LTD vehicles.

Finding OE coil springs was a bear too, especially the heavy duty rear constant rate springs. Seems the manufacturers are pushing the cushy variable rated springs. Anyway, a Canadian warehouse had a pair.

 

I decided to add some pearlescent to the Canadian version of Rustoleum's Automotive paint. Its called Tremclad here in Canada. The weird thing is that until today, not one store carried the Clear Gloss in quarts! Home Depot and Canadian Tire won't even do a "Special Order" and they helped make it popular across Canada!

Well the other big box building supply store just got their first shipment today. RONA.CA!

I'm not rolling this time. Its going to be sprayed on. I found the pearl flakes from this specialty vendor. Emailed them and they replied within minutes!

http://www.paintwithpearl.com/

House Of Color's flakes are too much product for my car and way too many dollars.

2 small bags for 3 coats of pearl finish (its mixed into the clear coat) They recommended their Gold pearl. About $22 USD$ plus shipping.

So, instead of 8 thin rolled on coats, it will be 2 coats of primer, 3 colour coats, 3 pearl coats in clear, and 3 coats of final clear.

EDIT: The Primer, paint and clear are all from Tremclad (Rustoleum), I'm using 10% hardener by ProForm, made for Acrylic Paint, 30% Acetone, 10% Mineral Spirits, in every coat. It flashes faster and dries to the touch in 2 hours, not 4 hours. The Mineral Spirits will let it flow and maintain some shine. This time, since I painted over the original factory paint with the rolled on Tremclad, I've stripped all the paint off on all but the roof and sides of the main body shell, which I will strip as soon as the temperature lets me. When I get to the final clear coats, I'll change the recipe to eliminate the Mineral Spirits, but I'll use the hardener and acetone. It has to 'cure' for 6 days before I do the last 3 coats, and 3 weeks before I buff and polish.

I found a couple nice pics of a couple Fairmont wagons. Both are Squire models, with an approximate colour on the lighter colour. Where the woodgrain is, that will be a Chestnut Brown, a bit lighter than the woodgrain. And my body trim will be polished aluminum, not wood grain this time. I haven't decided if I'll get a wide pin stripe to run in the trim cavity.

Now the first wagon is also a Mexican Squire.




This one looks closer to my Sand colour. I don't know where its from in the USA.

 

Now that the weather is warming up, I'll be getting outside to work on the sheetmetal. In the meanwhile, I've been sleuthing parts, mostly suspension related.

A lot of FOX Mustang, Capri, Granada, Cougar, TBird parts fit, right up to 1993, but the Mustang crowd have grabbed a lot of Fairmont/Zephyr parts, because they weren't as popular.

Secondly, the Mustang/Capri suspension parts were upgraded in the Aftermarket industry, using very hard materials, to replace the OEM parts, like Spring Insulators, and Control Arm Bushings. And like all good things, the Fairmont/Zephyr parts sources were dwindling.

Rear wagon springs of the same rating were/are disappearing. They only offer sedan springs, unless you can find the MOOG 8599 coils. Higher rating, by 120 lbs. The coil spring insulators for Mustangs, etc, all fit, but they're made of harder Polyurethane. Trouble is that the metal that supports the coils is OLD, maybe rusted out, and can't take hard shocks. Well I lucked out, and found the last 2 NOS rubber upper front coil insulators in the USA, and got all the rest, also NOS, from Green Sales, in Ohio.

Got all my rubber bushings for the control arms from NAPA, made by Spicer Chassis (bought up by NAPA, a few years ago), got new Universal joints for my Mexican driveshaft (much different than the US/CDN units)

New Monroe Load Assist rear shocks and front struts, new coils for the front too.

AND, a real score for me, the Premium Sound Amplifier switch, NOS from Green Sales.

They idea was to ensure that the suspension would be optimal for another 35 years (I should live so long...)

Took a lot to identify the parts, by number, locate the vendors, and prepare the control arms (de-rust, protect, prime, paint) ready for reassembly.

Needles in the haystack, and I found them at decent prices, better than the new upgraded aftermarket stuff prices. She's gonna have that New Car Ride, again. At least I got most of them before our Canadian buck sunk like an oil-price anchor.

 

Roller Spray Paint Diary

You're getting a lot done on that old wagon. Should ride and look like a new one. But this roller diary has changed into a spray diary now. Maybe you can roll up your shirt sleaves and pant legs while you spray!

 

I'd have to shave my legs???

Well, there's method to my madness. Rolling it on, doesn't allow for using hardener and acetone in our Rustoleum TREMCLAD paint. It flashes too quickly and dries in under 4 hours. The rolled on method works great, but the paint on the roof fades without a hard clear coat, also TREMCLAD, with the hardener and acetone. A lot of Roller guys need to see the difference. And I'm adding a new twist to it, by adding pearl flakes in between the colour coats and the final clear coats. I'm also adding hardener and acetone to the primer (TREMCLAD), which will bind a lot better, since all the exterior sheetmetal is stripped naked. This thread pops up often in the major search engines on roller paint jobs, so we might see more folks sign up just to see all the pics, my booboos, and my successes...

 

Yes shaving legs when spray painting is very important when wearing shorts or nothing at all. Those curly hairs are difficult to remove from clear coat.....Sorry no pictures available at this time.

My 55 Chevy wagon now has tiny metal flake in the clear. I sold it once and the other guy had the wagon pinstriped and clear coated. I really don't care for it but at least my original colors are under it.
Clear on the flat black door trim just don't look right however.
Never ever sell a car you love then buy it back.:banghead3:

 

Ain't no selling this honey! When I had my fender-bender in 2010, I wouldn't even let the public insurance have her to inspect. They'd write it off and offer me squat!

When we go to Mexico to buy her twin, the wife will get this one, while I tweak the new one. Man, are they in nice shape down in Central Mexico (Guadalajara, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato). Anywhere from $400 to $1,200 USD$. No rust.

 

They probably don't use a lot of road salt down there in winters except on the edge of their glasses.