1970 L-78 Nova Restoration; Saga of The Green Bastard

[L78_Nova]

Miscellaneous bits
Everything was sprayed in the same session using three booths.
Two coats of clear, allowed to dry a couple days, sanded open, allowed to gas off for a couple more days, then resprayed with two more coats of clear.

[L78_Nova]

I wanted to used House of Colors clear for this job but was talked out of it by the shop owner.
He suggested their Sikkens production clear for reasons that they have everything available "IF" something were to go upside down. Plus painters are familiar with it and there would be no concerns with compatibility to the base.

It turned out awesome and the Sikkens is a great product. The choice did however come back to bite me in the color sanding and polishing process.
I'll get into that in the next chapter of the Green Bastard !!
Gary

[L78_Nova]

Doors and Trunk lid back on for the ride home.




Painter (Bill) and a Bodyman (Bryant) admiring the job. The car made a little stir in the shop that week, guys were impressed with the work. Truth is they were waiting on the trailer to get this thing out of their hair (well at least in Bryant's case anyway).

[Crush]

Wow!!

[L78_Nova]

One of my personal "measures" of a body and paint job... the part's nobody sees !!

[BLACKLS5]

Looks Dyn-O-mite Sir. I love Forest green.

[Bill Pritchard]

Looks fantastic. Your dedication to this project is amazing!

[wvhylander]

These are what I used. I didn't have NOS quarter panels installed so I could drill holes in them for screws. Some folks will use the screws and seal them with urethane. Didn't like the idea of possible water intrusion around the screws.

[L78_Nova]

Well once you've spent hundreds (cough cough 1000's ?) of hours getting the body as straight as you can and having it painted what any insane person would do is start sanding it for polishing

Most of us know of the typical flaws of dust, drips, runs, orange peel can be reduced or eliminated with polishing. This clear was applied in two fairly heavy coats, scuffed and allowed to "gas off" for several days then hit with another two heavy coats. With the specific purpose to have good thickness for sanding and polishing. The part I didn't know is, this particular production clear (with surface additive) is not very friendly to sand or polish.

The sail panels had about the worst orange peel, the light reflection and angle here makes it appear exaggerated and very obvious. (I had already started sanding the side of the quarter)

Similar surface finish on the trunk appears much better at this angle of view

And the lower rocker area... the reflection in the red box area shows the surface imperfections which were pretty consistent on the whole rocker but show up more in the right reflection.


I was STRONGLY advised by the paint shop to not go more aggressive than 1000 grit to start (we'll get back to that later). For most areas I use this aluminum block wrapped with wet/dry paper and use a spray bottle with a couple drops of dish detergent for lubrication and to clear the sanding residue.

This is the same rocker area after a first pass with 1000. You have to make many rounds sanding, wiping and drying off to watch your progess. The high spots show up as dull (sanded) and the low spots remain shiny. You have to be VERY cautious around edges. You can see on the door... I have stayed away from the body line with the coarse paper. The paper will cut aggressively across corners and edges so it is easy to cut through the clear.. then it would require repainting. As soon as you cut through the clear the base color will also require repainting. Experience, experience, experience... I have watched many and learned (and burned though before). You have to be careful and patient with the sanding... it is easy to sand out a low spot if you cheat the paper and dig in an edge of the block. You need to be very consistent with holding the block flat against the surface and checking progress often. You can't see anything when it is all wet. And just like with bodywork the straighter and flatter you get it, the longer it takes to remove material.

The top of the drivers door had a couple of heavy runs which I first scraped down with the flat (90 degrees to surface) edge of a razor blade.

Then further sanded out.

Picture of the quarter progress.

[L78_Nova]

The desired result of the sanding is to achieve a perfectly flat surface in preparation for polishing.
Rocker

Left Quarter

Started into the sail panel

Trunk

Most of one half


Here's where things get interesting... After sanding every square inch with 1000 grit, You have to follow up with ;
1200
1500
2000
2500

The first grit is the most time consuming because you have to remove the surface defects and the following grits only have to remove the previous grit scratch however....
You can understand where the hours start to pile up.

After 2500 I also quickly orbital wet sand with 3000, 5000 and 8000 to cut down on polishing time (arguably ? as most polishing time is spent removing stray coarse scratches which the orbital grits would not cut out)