As the old observation notes, the light at the end of the tunnel is probably an oncoming train.
The first order of business was to tackle the orange peel, dirt nibs, and other imperfections in the paint with 1500 grit sanding disks on an orbital sander using the highly rated 3M Hookit Purple Finishing Film Abrasive Disc which is designed for clear coat. I was going through these disks a lot faster than expected when I noticed that they are intended to be used damp, not dry. OK, that made a BIG difference in both how they worked as well as how long they lasted.
The bad news is that sanding turned the shiny paint job into a dull matte finish. The good news is that you could watch the orange peel disappear into a smooth surface and the dirt nibs vanish. This actually made a difference!
Of course it took forever. Going over the entire car took over a week. Admittedly this was half days, as my arms and shoulders aren’t what they used to be. Still, it was a long time spent on tedious manual labor with the ongoing threat of a moments inattention creating a huge mess. And this was only the first of six steps.
The bulk of the work was with a six inch DA sander. This works great for most of the car, but there are a lot of small and curved areas that had to be done by hand. Which also takes forever and is even more exhausting than using the power sander. After a few days of this I ordered a smaller DA sander that uses three inch, two inch, and one inch sanding disks. This smaller sander should be able to do both sanding and polishing.
After finishing with the 1500 grit it was time to move on to the 2000 grit. The original pass with 1500 grit does almost all the work for smoothing the surface – each subsequent pass basically removes the progressively smaller sanding scratches from the previous pass. At least that is the theory…
It turns out that the theory is correct! The pass with 2000 grit did go faster. And you could start to see some sheen in the finish. Encouraging!
The next pass was with 3000 grit. Which, if anything, went even faster than the 2000 grit. You could start to see how it is going to look. Maybe this is actually going to work!
At this point the bulk of the car was ready for polish. I needed the small DA sander and sanding disks to finish up the sanding stage – and these were still on order. I had to wait a bit longer to see how the paint would look after polishing.
I couldn’t stand it! I had to see if this was actually going to work! Out came the new DA Polisher, foam pads, and 3M polishing compounds.
I’ve been starting each step with the roof of the car, on the theory that the roof is generally less visible than the hood, trunk, and sides of the car. Once again climb up on the bench and start working from the middle of the roof out. Immediately notice two things: First, the middle of the roof is still almost too far to reach. Have I mentioned how big the Imperial is? Second, the electric DA polisher is much larger and heavier than the air-powered DA sander. And the polisher requires two hands, unlike the one-handed operation of the sander. My entire body is not going to be happy about this…
Polish up the first area with coarse polishing compound, wipe off the residue, and take a look. Wow, what a difference! A smooth surface that looks great and is showing substantial depth. This is encouraging. A bit of haze, but that is what the finer grades of polish are for. Finish off the rest of the roof with coarse compound and then start again with the medium compound.
Now we are getting somewhere! It is looking really good – smooth, clean, good shine, excellent depth. I ran out of time before getting to the final pass with the fine compound but it looks like I’m getting the finish I wanted.
There is still a lot of work to do but I’m really encouraged at the moment. Hopefully this light is actually the end of the tunnel and not a train!
To the tune of I’ll be Home for Christmas. Yes, I went there!
While I was at the paint shop picking up the Imperial – documented in Back in Black! – I got a call from Librandi’s Plating that the chrome parts were ready for pickup. Sweet! I wasn’t expecting it until February.
I got the call on a Thursday. A quick examination of the weather forecast revealed an opening between storms in a few days so we scheduled a quick road trip on the following Monday and Tuesday to get the parts. There are times when it is good to be retired! We have had years where our truck was snowed in from January to April so it was a relief to get the parts back before winter really hits. And the week before Christmas was perfect timing.
All the parts were carefully wrapped in 62 layers of newspaper and we were in a bit of a hurry so we decided not to unwrap them for inspection. We did check them against our list – I was actually able to identify each part even though they were wrapped up.
Chrome parts wrapped and under the Christmas tree
With a certain amount of trepidation I started unwrapping and checking the parts. Would they meet my hopes and expectations? Or would they be just OK?
As I unwrapped each part I was almost shocked. The parts are absolutely beautiful! You expect chrome to be shiny – the difference is in the finish and details. And these parts are close to perfect. They have a jewel like appearance and a great finish. The more parts I unwrapped the happier I became.
This is how things started out:
Before re-plating – dull, rough and pitted
And how they finished up:
After plating – beautiful!
This picture doesn’t really do justice to the quality of work, so let’s take a close look at one part:
Close up of headlight bowl
As mentioned, chrome is shiny. A poorly done part will be shiny but have defects like ripples and waves, pits, bubbles, color variations, gouges, and similar visible artifacts. As you can see from the reflections, these parts are smooth and clean – absolutely beautiful!
The plating shop did have a solid foundation to build on. The Imperial parts are very well made – they are solid and heavy and looked great when they left the factory. Still, the results exceeded my expectations!
There was, however, one slight issue… As I unwrapped the very last part, the rear bumper, and checked and admired the finish something seemed a bit off. Stepping back and studying the bumper it suddenly hit me – it was the wrong bumper!
When I called Librandi’s and explained the situation I was met with a moment of shocked silence followed by a quick search and “OK, I have your bumper here on the bench in front of me.” It turns out that my order number was 31701 and the other order was 31781. My bumper is a 1963 (Chrysler) Imperial, and the other bumper is a 1964 Chrysler. The two orders were next to each other. And, to be fair, the bumpers look a lot alike, especially when wrapped up.
I’m working with Librandi’s to get each bumper to its rightful owner. Since I’m 400 miles from Librandi’s and the bumpers are about 7 feet long,weigh about 80 pounds, and are easy to damage in shipping, this isn’t as simple as you might expect. Stay tuned for updates!
In the meantime I’m a bit frustrated. I really want to get all of these beautiful parts back on the Imperial and see how it looks. But before that I have to color sand the paint and polish the car to get the paint looking the way it deserves to. And to get the paint to the level of the chrome parts! Expect more whining about this task.
Major development – the Imperial is back from paint! And it looks great!
Back from the paint shop
After all the body work I had done the car was sprayed with a sealer, three coats of black basecoat, and three coats of clear coat. Normally only two coats of clear are applied – we went with three coats to provide a margin of error for sanding and polishing.
Side view – good paint, needs the chrome trim!
There is a saying in the automotive world: If it is perfect, paint it black. Black paint showcases any defects or flaws in the body. Any dents, ripples, bulges, bends, or other imperfections that would be invisible with other colors will demand your immediate attention in black. The Imperial isn’t perfect – but it is close! The body is really straight and the repairs I’ve done are good enough that you can’t see them. There are a few minor issues – that I’m very aware of! – but most people will never notice. And it looks so much better than it did before!
Trunk and fender
No more shotgun marks, cracks, dents, chips, rust holes, exposed primer, or damaged paint. And the paint is glossy, not weathered patina.
Front end and hood – nice and straight!
It has been a bit of a journey to get here. I started serious work on bodywork and paint preparation in February. In April I thought I was down to a couple of weeks of work and started searching for someone to paint it.
It turns out that it isn’t easy to find someone willing to work on restorations – most shops just do accident repair and insurance work and aren’t interested in someone bringing them a project for paint only. I can kind of understand this. 90% of paint quality is based on prep work. If they just spray the car they will be blamed for any issues. So most shops want to do all the work themselves.
I found a shop willing to take on the job and tentatively scheduled the work for May. Then reality hit – the more old paint I stripped off the car the more problems were uncovered. I whined about this in several previous posts… Time passed, work continued, and the car was finally ready for paint around August 1.
This was when the problems started. The paint shop was backed up 6 weeks. No problem, I can wait. After 6 weeks I got back in touch with them. First I couldn’t get the job scheduled. Then they stopped returning my calls. Fine – if they don’t want to do the job, I don’t want them to do it!
Which put me back to square one. I had a recommendation for a small local body shop: Atlas Auto Body in Berlin, MA. They are an old school one man operation that has been around for about 40 years. I talked to them, reached agreement on the work to be done, and scheduled the job for the week after Thanksgiving.
When the day arrived I had the Imperial towed to the body shop. Although the car was running great and the shop was only five miles away by back roads, all of the turn signals and lights were off the car and out at the chrome shop. With my luck, if I drove it there would be a police parade on the road and they would be in a bad mood. Towing was $125 and worth it for my peace of mind.
After a few days I got a call: the trunk lid was finished and he wanted me to look at it to make sure that it was what I wanted before proceeding with the rest of the job. I looked, it was what I wanted, and he proceeded with the rest of the car. A few more days and the car was ready. Close examination didn’t turn up any issues, so write the check, call the tow company, and drag it home!
Which brings us to today. The paint looks good – most people would leave it just at it is. But it could be better: there is moderate orange peel (texture in the paint that comes from the painting process itself) and some dust nibs. To make it look great it should be color sanded, buffed, and polished. I think you can see where this is going…
It needs to be sanded with three or four different grits of sandpaper and then polished with three different grades of polish. All 63 acres of the car body. Yup, going completely over the entire car six or seven times. Have I mentioned recently that I’m not very bright? And that I’m a glutton for punishment with no sense of self preservation? Sigh…
In an amusing coincidence, while waiting for the tow truck to bring the Imperial home I got a call from the chrome shop – all of the trim was done and ready to be picked up. Looks like a quick trip down to Pennsylvania to pick up the trim before the weather turns bad. Report to follow!
When we last saw the Imperial in Handle This! it was ready for paint and little more could be done until paint was completed. Life continues, even while waiting for the Imperial to get into the paint shop.
She Who Must Be Obeyed has indicated that the screened in porch attached to our deck has come to the end of its useful life. And she is right. She wants the replacement to be a real room with glass windows – windows that can be sealed during the dreaded Pollen Season (also known as Spring in New England) that puts a thick coat of toxic green muck all over everything.
Old Screened-In Porch
The ultimate plan was to replace the floor, replace the walls, install new double hung windows, install a storm door, and finish off with siding to match the rest of the house. Basically, everything but the roof and the floor joists will be replaced.
Time to dig out the CAD software and start designing. An early decision was to try to use windows the same size as the existing screens. These screens are either 3-1/2′ or 4′ wide by 5′ tall and fill all of the available space. Because of this decision I spent the entire project fighting for fractions of an inch of clearance to make it work. In retrospect it would have been much simpler to make each window six inches narrower. But what is the fun in that?!?
Since we are still coming out of the COVID pandemic with its related supply chain problems, building materials were hard to find and had long lead times. The windows we were originally looking at had a 5-6 month lead time. We found other windows that would work and had a “mere” 10-12 week leadtime. OK, that should give us just enough time to complete the project before winter sets in.
Building permits also proved to be an issue, ultimately taking seven weeks. But we finally got them. With permit in hand, windows on site, a large order of 2×4’s and plywood stacked up, and a dumpster delivered, we began the project in the usual way – destruction!
The existing walls were set on top of the floor and had to be removed before the floor could be replaced. Which left the roof unsupported. So, step one was to jam some sixteen foot 2×4’s as bracing between the roof beams and the ground. Done properly this would support the roof while the load bearing wall was replaced. Done improperly everything would come crashing to the ground. Probably with me under it…
The non load bearing end walls were easily removed. The load bearing side wall was taken apart, leaving nothing but four columns holding up the roof. Taking a deep breath, a Sawzall with a demolition blade sliced through the support columns leaving the roof balanced on the 2×4 braces – where it peacefully sat with no complaints. And there was quick rejoicing!
The existing floor, including rotted areas, was rapidly ripped up and replaced with 3/4″ plywood. The new sidewall was framed up flat on the deck, carried into the porch, and tipped up. This was the moment of truth – if the new sidewall fit into place all of our concerns were over and the rest of the project would be (relatively) stress free. The new wall was tipped up – and was a fraction of an inch too high. Which was perfect! A few “gentle” taps with a 10 pound sledge hammer and the new wall was in place with the roof firmly supported. Structural screws quickly secured the wall to the floor joists and the roof beams and the structure was sound and safe. And there was much rejoicing!
With the side wall in place, the end wall was framed up and tilted into place. Sheathing was installed to secure and seal the walls and provide a mounting surface for the windows. The 1/2″ plywood sheathing is awkward to hold overhead, especially for one person.
Mulling over the problem I came up with a set of brackets: cut the plywood to size, screw the brackets on, and lift the plywood into place while hooking the brackets into the window opening. Then line up the sheathing exactly where it is needed and run in some starter screws. With the sheathing now supported, remove the brackets and drive screws into the studs every 8″ to fully secure the sheathing.
Brackets for sheathing installation
The rest of the sheathing was smaller pieces and was easy to install.
One of our big concerns was water – we wanted to make sure that the new porch stayed dry and didn’t rot. Since it is mostly windows we decided that it was cost effective to cover the entire porch with Ice and Water Shield – a roll of sticky back rubber sheet that is commonly applied to roofs to avoid water damage from ice dams. The windows were then installed and flashing tape (a sticky rubber tape) was applied to the window flanges. There should be absolutely zero water problems after all of this!
Ice and Water Shield applied and windows installed
After finishing installation of windows and doors it was time for trim and siding. We have a goal of zero maintenance, so exterior materials are chosen to be maintenance free. Trim is Azek, a plastic material that is weather resistant and never rots. Expensive, but never has to be replaced. The rest of the house is sided with HardieBoard, a pre-painted composite cement board that is waterproof and comes with a 30 year paint warranty, so HardieBoard is also used here. This is another material that is expensive but we should never have to touch again.
The end result looks pretty good:
Three Season Room from deckThree Season Room from the yard
Of course there is still more work to do – electrical installation and finish flooring as well as replacing the main deck and adding new railing. But the exterior work on the Three Season Room has been successfully completed before winter sets in.
I’m claiming this as a win!
Next: Back in Black! – the Imperial has a fresh coat of paint.
With the boat running right after the previous article on Flat Mercury we can move back to getting the Imperial ready for paint.
The doorcards – the covering on the doors inside the car – needed to be removed to work on windows and for paint. Unfortunately the inside door handles are attached to the doorcard and come off with the doorcard – meaning you can’t open the doors from the inside. I’ve been working around this for months, being careful not to shut myself inside the car. Fortunately I never did this – nope, not once. Never happened. Never made the mistake of closing all the doors while I was inside. Nope, not at all. This especially never happened when the battery was disconnected, making it impossible to lower the window and use the outside door handle. Trust me, never happened.
Ahem.
Anyway, I needed some way to open the doors from the inside. While considering several excessively complicated ways of making a handle I happened to contemplate my scrap steel box.
Scrap steel from various projects
Hmm, those cutoff end pieces of steel tubing from a variety of earlier projects might just work…
A quick measurement says a 1/2″ hole will just fit over the door handle shaft. Setup the drill press and a 1/2″ hole magically appears:
Drilling hole in new door handle
Locking the door handle to the shaft is easy – flip the new handle on its side and drill and tap for a 1/4″ bolt:
Finished interior door handle
All that is left is to slip the new handle over the shaft and tighten the locking bolt:
Temporary inside door handle installed
Lather, rinse, and repeat three more times and I don’t have to worry about locking myself inside the car again! Which never actually happened, of course…
Confession
I take safety seriously. Pain hurts and I don’t like the sight of my own blood. But I slip up from time to time.
The most dangerous phase while drilling holes is when the drill bit breaks through the back edge of the part. The drill bit can catch and grab, pulling itself into the part. When using a hand drill it may just stall the drill. I’ve mentioned that this industrial drill press doesn’t stall…
I had the part clamped in the drill vise and had a good grip on the vise. No problem for the first 98% of the hole. Unfortunately, when the drill broke through the back of the 5/8″ thick steel part it grabbed and started spinning.
The vise was ripped out of my grasp, dragged the part up the drill bit, and EVERYTHING started spinning – both the part and the vise. The part plus vise was widely out of balance and promptly snapped the 1/2″ drill bit and sent the vise plus part plus one half of the drill bit flying through the air.
Fortunately the vise flew away from me – missing me completely and hitting the drill press where it left a large gouge in the massive cast iron base. Somehow my hand holding the vise wasn’t hurt. The drill press was running at fairly low rpm – but still fast enough to do plenty of damage in a fraction of a second.
Damage from flying vise
I got lucky. Really lucky. I wasn’t hurt, the vise is actually OK, and the damage to the drill press is cosmetic. The only thing actually broken was an $8.00 drill bit, making this a very cheap lesson!
The drill press table is set up so that the vise can be bolted to the table. If you look at the second picture you can see how the vise is bolted down. As it will be when I use the drill press in the future!
Next: while the Imperial waits for paint let’s tackle home renovation with A Room for Three Seasons.
With paint prep finished in the last article Block Party Blues we can take a moment to look at other problems.
So, I have a boat… You may be familiar with the real world definition of a boat – “A hole in the water surrounded by wood/fiberglas/aluminum that you pour money into”.
Outboard motors have changed through the years. They used to be simple two stroke engines that were easy to work on. As the T-shirt says, “them days is gone”… Modern outboards, like the 115 horsepower Mercury we have, are computer controlled four stroke electronic fuel injected engines as complex as anything you will find in a car. Clean, powerful, and reliable – until something goes wrong. At which point the marine mechanics start smiling and mummering Ka-ching! Ka-ching! to themselves.
When we had the boat out on vacation last year it was running very badly. So badly that we left it tied at the dock and spent most of out time driving around Northern New Hampshire instead of puttering around the lake. This worked out OK; we found some new places that we want to visit again.
After we got back home we dragged the boat over to the marina where they diagnosed the problem as cracked insulators on two spark plugs (out of four), which they replaced and declared the boat “good to go!”.
On the next trip to the lake the boat ran better, but still not good. Idle was rough and the motor didn’t have any power. It took forever to get up on plane and top speed was way down. Basically, the engine felt “flat”. Sigh, more work to do.
Running through a mental checklist of possible problems, the top candidates looked like bad fuel (the gas in the boat was 2-3 years old), deposits building up somewhere in the fuel system – most likely the fuel injectors, or problems with one or more spark plugs.
Taking the suspects in order:
The fix for bad gas is to replace it with good gas. We ran the boat as much as we could while we were at the lake, going through 3/4 of a tank of gas. We then filled up with premium, on the theory that premium has more detergents than regular and will do a better job of cleaning the fuel system. Of course we did this at exactly the peak of the 2022 gas price spike – 19 gallons at over $6.00 per gallon. OUCH! That’s Imperial level pricing!
Cleaners help with clogged fuel systems. Since this is a marine engine, order a bottle of Mercury Marine Quickleen Engine and Fuel System Cleaner and dump it in the gas tank.
Since only two spark plugs had been replaced, order a set of four spark plugs and replace ’em all.
Replacing the spark plugs went normally for the first three. While removing the fourth I discovered the electrical connector to the coil pack was completely loose – not good as these are locking connectors. As soon as the plug was out I got very suspicious:
One of these is not like the others
Three of these plugs look like you would expect – some black soot from combustion, but they look great. The fourth plug, on the other hand, shows no signs of combustion. No soot, no deposits, and what might be traces of dried gasoline on the insulator.
In fact, it looks like what you would expect from a new spark plug if the plug lead was never hooked up!
This was too simple… Since I had new plugs I went ahead and replaced it. And then made sure that the coil pack connector was firmly locked in place!
Back out on a local lake the boat idled smoothly and jumped up on plane. I couldn’t check top speed on this small lake, but the boat felt “right”. I’m going to declare victory!
Next: one last thing to get the Imperial ready for paint in Handle This!
With the body work “finished” (more on that later…) in Wrangling Rust it was time to perfect the surface. In other words, spray on several heavy coats of high build primer and sand down the whole car with sanding blocks to produce a perfectly flat surface for paint. This is often called a block party because it goes a lot faster with several people working on it.
Block parties are universally loathed because this process is tedious, long, and frustrating. Further, since I’m an introvert, it is a party of one. As mentioned several times, the Imperial has about 63 acres of sheet metal – and each square inch has to be sanded to perfection. Multiple times.
I’ve had problems with high build primer in the past where I get thin coats instead of the thick coats you want. After searching I finally found the 1.7mm primer nozzle for the spray gun – the standard nozzle is 1.4mm in diameter, which is too small for this thick primer.
I always read the instructions before mixing up a batch of paint or primer to make sure I get the correct ratios of the various ingredients for each specific paint. This time I noticed something new – the paint instructions called for 30-40psi of air pressure, rather than the 20-22psi used with regular paint. OK, adjust the spray gun with the new large nozzle to 30psi, mix up a batch of high build primer, and spray a test panel.
WOW! What a difference! The spray gun laid down a smooth thick layer of the high build primer, exactly the way it was supposed to go. After allowing the primer to dry over night a guide coat was applied and the the miserable process of block sanding began. Yes, it was tedious, long, and frustrating.
The results were quite encouraging. Overall the car is straight. The guide coat revealed several small dents, a few shotgun pits I had missed, and some areas around the body repairs that needed a little more attention. Glazing putty/finish putty filled in these areas and was sanded flush with the primer.
Block sanding the roof. DA sander attached to shop vac greatly reduces dustDoor after block sanding. Shotgun pits (dark circles) and repair area in lower left need more attention.Rear of car after block sanding
Ah, a miserable task completed! As I sat for a moment contemplating the car with a feeling of accomplishment three things came to mind.
This is close but it could be better. The surface is smooth but not yet completely flat.
I have more high build primer.
I’m not very bright.
FINE. Set up the spray equipment, mix up another batch of high build primer, spray a heavy coat over the entire car (have I mentioned 63 acres?), clean up, and walk away muttering to myself about a total lack of intelligence and sense of self preservation.
Come back the next day and repeat the drill. Apply guide coat and then block sand until you see nothing but gray.
Hmm, this is coming out a lot better! The guide coat is sanding out, showing that there aren’t low spots. I’m not sanding through to bare metal – or even to the original coat of epoxy primer – so there aren’t high spots. In fact, it is sanding out to a surprisingly uniform coat of high build primer. OK, this was worth the extra work!
The last thing to do before spraying the final seal coat of epoxy primer was to peel up the weatherstrip around the trunk. You can guess what happened… Yup, major rust in the weatherstrip channel which allowed water into the trunk. It had been “repaired” by gooping (technical term) a lot of weatherstrip adhesive on the weatherstrip and sticking it back in place.
Rust and holes in trunk weatherstrip channelRusted corner of weatherstrip channel
This is a bit tricky to repair – the weatherstrip channel is narrow and deep, making it challenging to cut and weld replacements. In addition to being narrow and deep, the corner is curved in two directions.
Sigh. Clean the painting and sanding supplies off of the work table, dig out the metal working tools, and drag out the welder. Start working from the center out and do it small piece by small piece. Make and re-make cardboard templates until one is good. Using the template, cut the repair piece out of sheet metal and bend to shape. Lay the replacement panel on the area to be replaced, mark around it, and cut out the bad metal. Put the replacement piece in place and tweak the replacement piece and the car until it fits. Tack weld the replacement piece in place and move on to the next one.
Once all of the repair pieces are tack welded in place and everything looks good, stitch weld all seams. Grind out the welds and stitch weld again between the previous welds. Repeat the process until all seams are solid. Stand back and admire a now solid and leak free trunk channel.
Repaired trunk weatherstrip channel.
While the repair is solid it has (literally!) some rough edges. A bit of body filler, some quality time with various shapes of sanding blocks, and it looks great.
NOW, can I FINALLY FINISH THIS FREAKING JOB????
Vacuum the dust and grit off of the car and the floor of the workshop. Wash down the car with PrepSol, changing the cleaning rags frequently. Decide I wasn’t thrilled by the large amount of dirt on the rags, so wash down the entire car again.
Mix up a batch of epoxy primer, then go over the car with a tack rag during the 15 minutes the epoxy primer is setting up. FINALLY spray the last coat of epoxy primer – spraying the entire car takes about 20 minutes. This last coat of epoxy primer is a seal coat – it seals the high build primer and provides a foundation for the final color coat.
As a side note. it is frustrating how a “paint job” involves hundreds of hours of preparation and tens of minutes of actual painting. And the quality of the final paint depends almost entirely on the preparation – while you can certainly screw up the final paint there is no way the final paint can hide preparation problems. There is probably some sort of life lesson here.
The outcome? Not bad. Not bad at all. The seal coat looks good which means the body looks good. All of the places on the car that bothered me have been addressed – rust, dents, shotgun pits, cracked paint, damaged paint – all have been fixed Now to get the actual color coat on the car!
Final seal coat of primer
I contacted the auto body shop about scheduling paint. I had originally spoken to them in April, thinking I would be ready in May. At that time they could fit me in. Now, in August, they are looking at a six week backlog. I should be able to get in around the middle of September. Hopefully. When I mentioned it took me about three months longer than expected to finish the job their comment was “yeah, that’s about right.”
Time to take a break and then get to other projects I’ve been putting off. She Who Must Be Obeyed has a list of house projects. Like converting a screened in porch to a three season room. I have things on my list – starting with cleaning the workshop to get rid of all of the paint and welding dirt. And, of course, planning the next steps on the Imperial. Like chrome. And interior. Maybe getting the HVAC system actually working. Hmm, perhaps some more electrical enhancements. The factory radio really needs to be upgraded. Oh, right, the transmission is still leaking Why am I suddenly feeling tired again?
Next: boat related trouble shooting of a Flat Mercury.
Let’s take a break from Wrangling Rust and look at the dashboard.
A common problem with older cars is inaccurate gauges. Perhaps the worst offender is the gas gauge, with many (most?) 1960’s Mopars having dead or wildly wrong gas gauges.
The fuel sender is a float in the gas tank that moves an electrical wiper over a wire wound resistor. In addition to mechanical wear, the fuel tank is a corrosive environment. When you can find a replacement fuel sender it often doesn’t work well with the gas gauge.
I had this problem with the Imperial. The gas gauge never read over 1/2 full, even with a freshly filled tank. When I removed the old sender it was so corroded it literally fell apart in my hands. Like many other parts for these old Imperials a replacement sender was hard to find.
Of course the new fuel sender didn’t work well with the gas gauge.
I was able to bend the float lever on the new sender to get it to read full when the tank is full. However, the gas gauge reads empty when the tank is still 1/4 full. This is much better than reading 1/4 when the tank is actually empty, so I have been living with it.
A recent email from the Online Imperial Club mentioned MeterMatch. This is a small electronic box that fits between the sender and the gauge in the dashboard and allows you to match the sender to the gauge.
MeterMatch
From their web site: “To calibrate MeterMatch, you first set the sender to a known value. For example, fill your fuel tank. Set the MeterMatch to program mode, then with the up and down buttons, make your gauge read what you want for that sender value. When you are satisfied with the reading, press the “save” button, and the value is remembered in the MeterMatch. Do the same process with the sender reading a value near the other end of its range, and you are done. MeterMatch interpolates from these values to make the gauge read proportionately at values above, below, and between the calibration values. It also has cardinal-point values stored inside that you can use if you know the resistance of your sender.”
If you are installing a new fuel sender you would temporarily connect it to the fuel gauge before installing it in the gas tank. Raise the float to its highest position and adjust the MeterMatch so that the gas gauge reads full, then lower the float to its lowest position and set the gas gauge to empty.
You can also set intermediate calibration points to make 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 on the gas gauge completely accurate.
I haven’t used MeterMatch yet but it is a very interesting device I will probably add in the future. I’m mentioning it here in case anyone else needs it. And to be completely frank, so I can find the link in two years when I can’t remember it…
After several weeks of travel it was back to the Imperial. First job: remove that nasty “patch” mentioned in the previous article I’m a Stripper… The pop rivets drilled out easily, but for some reason the flange on the bottom of the patch was attached by screws. Which were firmly rusted in place. After application of two different impact guns, vice grips, and high explosives (actually the high explosives were only considered; I ended up substituting strong language instead), the screws finally came out and the panel came off.
Under the original “patch” panel
Yeah, that’s not good. That whole area needs to be cut out and replaced with solid metal. There are also rust holes several inches beyond the “patch” panel. Of course this leads into an area with complex curves.
You know the drill by now: divide the large complicated damaged area into several smaller and simpler areas. Create and fit a cardboard template for the first area. Repeat until you have a template you are happy with. Transfer the cardboard template to sheet metal and cut it out. Form this new sheet metal patch to the contours of the car. When you are happy with the fit, trace around the patch panel onto the car body and then cut out the damaged area. Grind the edges of the patch and the body until you have a good fit. Stitch weld the patch in place and grind the welds. Stitch weld the gaps and grind down the new welds. Repeat until all of the seams are solid.
The first patch covers the center of the rusted area. This area is curved in a single direction and is fairly easy to fit.
Center patch fitted and welded in place
Repeat this process with additional patches. This incremental approach lets you fit each new patch to both the previous patch and to the shape of the car body – you don’t cut out any of the car body until you have fitted the patch that will replace it. Building up complex shapes out of small pieces makes it fairly straightforward to match the complex curves around the wheel well and the back bumper reveal.
When everything is done you have a solid patch that replaces all of the rusted areas and matches the original curves and body lines.
Finished patchDetails of rear bumper character lines
Can you tell exactly where the metal was replaced? If not that is a good sign! While the metal forming is finished the work isn’t done. The new metal, especially the seams, aren’t completely flat and smooth. Body filler is applied to the low areas and sanded down, leaving a nearly finished surface to be perfected later using high build primer and block sanding.
Completed patch with body filler
The other side of the car wasn’t much better, so lather, rinse, and repeat the process with a similar end result.
Passenger side patch
I’m fairly happy with how these patches turned out. The tricky areas, namely the wheel wells and the ridge for the rear bumper, are very close to the original – I don’t think you will be able to tell where the work was done. I had a bit of warping along the welded seam of the main patches – this is common with relatively flat panels. Normally you would planish the welds to minimize this, but planishing requires access to both sides of the weld for hammer and dolly work. The warping wasn’t severe and was corrected with minimal amounts of body filler but it still annoys me.
The frustrating thing about repair work like this – if you do a good job no one will know that you did anything…
In the last article, Hoodie 2, we finished working on the hood. Which meant it was time to move on to the rest of the car.
Paint serves many functions. It is the most visible part of a car, driving your perception of the car. It is a protector, keeping the underlying metal from rusting. And it is an opaque barrier, hiding whatever is beneath – whether it is solid metal or Bondo… This last part is critical with old cars.
I’ve already covered several discoveries hidden by paint and trim. And strongly suspect that there are more hidden surprises lurking under that sinister black paint. There are several bad areas in the paint – it looks like something was left on the hood which ate into the paint:
Damaged paint on hood
Several spots on the trunk lid are down to primer:
Damaged paint on trunk
There are areas where the paint is badly cracked:
Cracked paint
And most interesting are the numerous speckles on both sides of the car – with the exception of the front passenger door, which we know was previously repaired. These speckles go completely through the paint, there is grey metal at the bottom of the holes that looks like lead, and the holes haven’t rusted. My theory is that the car was shot with a shotgun – repeatedly. I would really like to know more about the history of this car!
Shotgun blast?
Between the known issues and the unknown issues the only way to prepare the Imperial for paint is to completely strip the entire car down to bare steel, repair as needed, and build up a foundation for new paint. I have to become a stripper – a paint stripper!
But how?
An orbital sander is much, much too slow. A flap disk takes paint off quickly but damages the metal. Chemical paint strippers are incredibly messy and don’t work well – EPA regulations have made paint stripper less toxic and less effective than it used to be. What is left?
Research turned up something called strip disks. These are basically a sponge like material with abrasives embedded in the plastic and are designed to go on an angle grinder. The theory is that they are abrasive enough to remove paint, the open mesh keeps the abrasive from getting clogged with paint (an issue when using sandpaper), and they don’t damage the underlying steel.
Paint stripping disk
Worth a try, so a box of BHA Easy Strip Discs was ordered. Many choices are available; this one was chosen based on a combination of good reviews and a mid-range price. My theory is that the cheapest choice is cheap for a reason, the expensive choices may be either good or simply over priced, and that medium price ranges are often the best balance of quality and cost.
With a strip disk mounted on the angle grinder, an N95 face mask strapped firmly in place, and safety goggles perched on my nose I cautiously approached the Imperial, ramped the grinder up to 11,000 rpm and applied it to a test area.
The strip disk worked great! It quickly and completely removed the paint and left the underlying metal undamaged. In fact you could still see the various imperfections in the surface of the steel. This will work!
Well, “quickly” is relative. We are talking about removing paint at the rate of square inches per minute. A single door takes about half a day, and a fender takes half a day to a day. Reaching the center of the roof and trunk lid is a major stretch – and the grinder gets heavy very quickly when waving it around at full extension of your arms. Bracing yourself in position so that you can stretch that far uses leg muscles that aren’t used for any other purpose – as they remind you for the next three days… Stripping paint off of a large care is literally a pain!
The bad news is that it took over a week of incredibly dirty days and two boxes of strip disks to complete this miserable task. I ended each day looking like a racoon once I took off the face mask and safety goggles. I left my clothes in the basement to avoid tracking dirt through the house and had to run them through the washing machine twice to completely remove the paint dust from both the clothes and the washer. The water going down the shower drain looked like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie – in black and white, of course!
The good news is that the paint was completely removed, giving me a solid foundation for a good paint job.
The results?
Front clipSide and roofTrunkRear Quarter Panel
The strip disk turns the paint into paint dust creating a massive mess. How massive? As previously mentioned this car has about 64 acres of surface area. It requires about a gallon of primer and 1-1/2 gallons of paint to cover it, or about 2-1/2 gallons total. Automotive paint is roughly 80% solvent and 20% solids. This means that there is about 1/2 gallon of solid paint on the car which is turned into dust. Plus any Bondo that was hidden under the paint – and Bondo is applied much thicker than paint. Of course dust takes up more space than the equivalent solid, so we are looking at creating 1-2 gallons of paint dust – which is blown off the car at high speed by the angle grinder. This dust ends up EVERYWHERE! On the car, on the floor, in the back yard where it has been sucked out by the vent fan, on the protective curtains, on the shop tools, and everywhere in the shop.
Not to mention in the shop vac. The trusty shop vac was used almost continuously to try to manage the paint dust. The car and floor were vacuumed repeatedly. I emptied the shop vac and cleaned the shop vac filter at least 4-5 times during this project.
With all of the paint removed from the Imperial and the car, floor, table, shop equipment and other miscellaneous surfaces vacuumed it was possible to take stock of the actual condition of the body.
Uh Oh – what is that at the bottom of the quarter panel previously hidden under a layer of bondo?
Surprise!
Surprise! One of the worst ways to “repair” rust – just pop rivet a piece of sheet metal over the top of the rusted area, cover with Bondo, and paint to match. Plus other rust holes that had just been Bondo’d over.
Actually, this was almost good news. I had seen evidence of this patch panel on the bottom of the quarter panel and was afraid it covered a much larger area. Stripping off the paint showed more rusted areas on the other quarter panel, although without the nasty patch.
This whole area will be cut out and new patches welded in place. Only a skim coat of body filler will be needed, unlike the 1/4″+ applied over the riveted patch. It will take time to patch these areas properly – but it will be done properly this time!
Other details were also revealed. Several small dents turned up that need to be fixed as well as a couple of larger dents. The shotgun blasts will need work. I’m not nearly as close to being ready for paint as I had hoped to be.
But, overall, the car is solid and in good shape. There were fewer surprises than I really expected. The rusted areas hidden under the paint are in areas that are almost guaranteed to rust on older cars. There is surprisingly little rust in the front fenders and the rocker panels are solid. Even though I’m complaining about what was hiding under the paint, I really can’t complain.
Just to add to the entertainment, I won’t be able to work on the car for several weeks. It can’t be left as bare steel as it will start to rust again. Since there is paint dust everywhere I had to vacuum everything, remove all of the old masking, vacuum again, wash twice with solvent, mask everything again, wash with solvent, go over it with a tack rag, and spray a coat of primer. Which I did.
Imperial sprayed with epoxy primer
The epoxy primer leaves a flat back finish that is popular today, especially on hot rods. It looks positively evil on this car, and I mean that in a good way. I’m tempted to black out the chrome trim, put it back together, and drive it like this! I’m not going to, but it is tempting…
When I get back to work on the car the plan of attack is rust repair followed by dent repair. I have to figure out how to deal with the shotgun blasts – hopefully high build primer will take care of this. The whole car will be sprayed with high build primer and the surface perfected. Once the surface is perfect a final coat of epoxy primer will be applied and then the car will be ready for the paint shop.
Introducing the Imperial Deathstar, a black 1963 Chrysler Imperial. This is one of the largest production sedans ever built, and arguably the best luxury car of its day.
Join me what will probably be a never-ending saga of grease, aching muscles, and an empty wallet as I work to restore this over 50 year old survivor to a reliable cruiser.
