My new '63 Falcon

Good choices! Probably not going to see much of the roof anyway, it's that Blue that's going to sparkle and get everyone's attention!!!

Have you got any updates on this? I love a bit of flake

I've got the roof painted but having some problems with fish eyes.  Trying to trouble shoot, but not having success.  Runnning fish eye eliminator, multiple filters including a desiccant hose, got a nice new gun and cleaning surface extra good.  I'm gonnna borrow a air compressor from work and see if that's the problem.  Very frustrating as I painted my hot rod without any of these problems.  I feel like it might be oil blow by on my air compressor that is causing the contamination because I've shot test panels on various plastic pieces and am still getting them, which leads me to believe it's not just some silicone residual on the body of the van.  The interior is next for paint with another compressor, I'll post up some pics after that.  Thanks for the interest.

Finally back on this project.  Winter slows down my work schedule so I can start getting things done again.  Bought a new air compressor which seems to be working out well.  Got the inside prepped and painted.  Took way longer than I would have thought to mask everything off.  I'm going to shoot the floor with that spray on bed liner stuff, hopefully next weekend

Nice work! Thanks for the update and keep them coming...Please and Thank You!

Got the inside masked up and taped.  Re-scuffed all the over spray areas with a red scotch bride pad and then wiped down with some wax and grease remover



I'm using the Upol raptor liner.  Very easy to mix and use.  I'm pretty happy with the results.  Just make sure you pull up your tape before it hardens up, I only had to wait maybe a half hour and it was dry enough to handle without making a mess

Man, that floor turned out Super Nice! That's gonna be a real Head Turner when it's complete!!!

Thanks man, appreciate it

vanny wrote:Man, that floor turned out Super Nice! That's gonna be a real Head Turner when it's complete!!!

Do you mean to tell me that some people actually finish these?? I thought this was kinda like an "ongoing illness" with no cure or relief in sight.

Jim

JR, you’re too funny 😂 and you’re probably correct...there’s probably just different degrees of completeness

Looks great!

Thanks.  Here's something new I'm trying out which is working pretty good.  3M car masking tape with plastic sheeting already attached.  The small roll expands to like 18" and the large to around 60".  Makes a pain in the butt job a little easier.  I got it at Amazon and it comes in several sizes.  Tomorrow is paint day, fingers crossed

Thanks for the tips, you can NEVER have too much information!

Well I pretty much got my butt kicked.  Just about every problem happened.  Started off with fish eyes, then got some metallic molting.  Then got some splotchy areas that I didn't see till the paint was gone.  Hit it with two types of flake and then the clear orange peeled pretty bad.  By then it was getting close to noon and the bugs were trying to use the van as a landing pad.  Ugh!  



Splotchy areas around the mid section.  Gonna need to sand and re spray





One bit of good news, I dig the effect the flake has when the light shines on it

Few more pics. Gonna regroup and come up with a game plan for fixing the paint.

Man, after all that work! Sounds like you have the right attitude to get it how you want it next time though. Good luck.

Sorry to hear about all the issues but I have to say, it still looks pretty decent to me...I think you're doing the right thing to take a moment to stop, reassess and then come up with a plan of attack. Love that color blue. Please keep us posted on your progress. Best of Luck with the respray. No bugs around here right now but with temps below zero, probably wouldn't be the best weather for painting...at least you have the nice weather!

Looks pretty good for a driveway paint job. I'm sorry you had some problem areas. Finding holidays when the paint is gone is a bummer. What are you going to do?

I'm thinking I can sand down a bit on the drivers side, 200-300 grit and blast a couple new coats of the blue.  I'm not happy with the orange peel on the clear coat so I've gotta do some research and see why that happened.  Might have been the wrong tip on the gun or wrong psi.  Anyways I will lightly sand down the whole thing to flatten the clear and then hopefully do a better job laying down some new clear.  Might need to color sand and buff when I get the problem areas fixed.  This is all new to me as I've only messed with single stage paints in the past.  Metallics seem to be extra finicky.

Ok, spent several hours on YouTube last night and have changed my plan a bit.  Still need to re spray blue on the drivers side to even out the coloring.  The passenger side as well as the front and back are good enough.  The paint went on smooth, it was the clear that orange peeled.  I'm going to wet sand those areas with 1500 grit and then use rubbing compound on a dual action sander.  That will really flatten out the surface and make it shine.  There are a couple smaller areas on those sides that would benefit from a full re spray but I'm thinking it'll be good enough.  When all else fails, lower your standards!  Just gotta realize, I'm not Chip Foose and the front of my barn sure isn't a down draft paint booth!

Nice job on the body work and paint. Looks to me like you have some straight body panels so all that body work paid off. Nice job on the panel patch for the roof vent. I have one of those to do too.

Blocking/flattening the clear sounds like a good plan.  I can't wait to see the results. What grit are you going to start with? Are you going to sand it all up and spray another 2 clear coats on in one shot or polish it all after fixing the holidays?

Thanks mnghost.  On the three good sides I'm gonna hand sand it with 1500.  Then switch to a Chemical Guys orange hex pad with their V-SS compound.  They claim it can handle 1500 grit scratches and apparently it's meant to break down and function as a polish as you go, so it's a one shot deal.  Depending if it delivers or not I'll follow up with a finer polish and call it good.  

On the drivers side, it's looking like the door is good so I'll mask that off and then mask at the seam just before the back.  Ive got a few rolls of 320 so that's what I'll prep the surface with.  Then two coats of blue, a light coat of clear with the flake mixed in and then two heavy coats of clear.  I've got all the stuff on order and it should arrive before next weekend.  If we get rain like predicted I'll sand and buff, if not I'll shoot for spraying some paint.  

I also have the parts to completely rebuild the brakes plus I still need to polish the wheels that go on her too.  Seats showed up a couple days ago as well.  No shortage of work that's for sure!

Showing the van Lots of Love... Nice!!!

So I worked on wheels and tires today.  The wheels came on my A100 truck project so I pirated them for the van.  Used a harbor freight tire mounting tool, it's a bit flimsy but it gets the job done




The rims were already in pretty good shape but they did have a fair amount of curb rash.  Used some 200 then 400 grit on my DA then polished them.  Didn't go too crazy on the polishing, a decent shine is good enough for me.  




Tire size is 235/60/15 and the wheels are 15x7.  It was dark when I finished so I'll push it outside tomorrow for some better pics.  I'm really happy with the look.  Hard to beat slot mags with BFG radial TA's!