Zel's Motoring Adventures...Volvo, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - Updated 13/11.

[Ben_O]

Get a sponge head for that sander and you can machine polish the paintwork too!

[LightBulbFun]

2 minutes ago, Ben_O said:

Get a sponge head for that sander and you can machine polish the paintwork too!

what paint work?! the paint is so thin in places that intel are currently studying it in hope it holds the key to make smaller transistors for their CPUs

[Zelandeth]

18 minutes ago, Ben_O said:

Get a sponge head for that sander and you can machine polish the paintwork too!

Yep, one came with it in the box.  Done plenty of machine polishing back in my time at the garage, will need to pick up some cutting compound though... what's the good stuff these days (was 2005 when I last used it)?

The Invacar will end up with an awfully lot thicker paint than it left the factory!  Trying not to overdo it, but I like things to be shiny...easier to keep clean that way too.

The polishing mop will definitely see work on the van though, it's basically totally matt...and that's a job which really makes you aware of how big the sucker is!

 

A good machine polish probably wouldn't hurt the chances of the Lada finding a buyer if it's gleaming.  Especially once I've rid the wings of the duct tape!  Had hoped to get the first one finished today but time just ran out.

[egg]

Zel, the owner of the MK12 Invacar I visited bought new door/window seals etc for his car from Woolies trim.

https://www.woolies-trim.co.uk/category/341/single-track

[Ben_O]

20 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Yep, one came with it in the box.  Done plenty of machine polishing back in my time at the garage, will need to pick up some cutting compound though... what's the good stuff these days (was 2005 when I last used it)?

The Invacar will end up with an awfully lot thicker paint than it left the factory!  Trying not to overdo it, but I like things to be shiny...easier to keep clean that way too.

The polishing mop will definitely see work on the van though, it's basically totally matt...and that's a job which really makes you aware of how big the sucker is!

 

A good machine polish probably wouldn't hurt the chances of the Lada finding a buyer if it's gleaming.  Especially once I've rid the wings of the duct tape!  Had hoped to get the first one finished today but time just ran out.

I use Farecla G3 and G10 at work and a selection of Scholl compounds usually the S10 and that's when flatting and polishing fresh paint on the classics I restore and get great results.

There may be better products but I get on fine with those so if it aint broke and all that..

I imagine it will be very satisfying to attack the campers paintwork with some compound and the polisher. White comes up pretty easily and looks a million dollars when gleaming.

Cheers

Ben

[Zelandeth]

Nice to see some stuff that's stayed consistent then.  That's exactly what we used to use back when I was at the garage, so should know what I'm picking up.

The van should look the business when polished up.  The paint is actually decent quality so hopefully it'll come up nicely with a good mop.

 

Thanks to an awkwardly positioned hospital appointment today I didn't even make it into the garage.  Only thing I did get done was to finish tidying up the approach to the house today.  Couple of hours with the pressure washer has the path looking better.

Not much I can do about where the slab has lifted... that's just 38 years of adjacent tree growth etc, do need to touch up the mortar in a few places though.

Hopefully tomorrow once I've finished preparing for our guests arriving Wednesday I might make it into the garage for an hour or two.  Would be nice as I've a lot of stuff half way done in there.

[Zelandeth]

Zip car wise today.

Started cleaning the house roughly halfway through the first cup of coffee.

Collapsed into a heap on the sofa, calling it a day roughly 2030.

Still a bunch to do really...but I've been short on time and energy lately so the house hasn't been kept to the usual standards.  I'm quite house proud so have been kicking myself a bit finding the state stuff has got into.

Biggest time sink was the annexe off my bedroom which is used as my office.  Well...I say office...but all too often it just turns into a dumping ground for anything and everything.  It had wound up being in such a state that you could just about squeeze my way to the main PC desk and back out, but that was it...and even then it regularly involved me dropping or knocking stuff over.  Given my husband needs to use my workstation this coming week, I felt it was necessary to sort it out as I was too embarrassed to send anyone in there.  After a couple of hours playing a real world game of Tetris and swearing at myself for keeping so much utter rubbish I finally managed to wrangle the room into something resembling usable.

Still a bloody mess, but at least the workstation is usable and you can get into and out the room without dying.

The Macintosh SE has now moved onto the top shelf over to the right in the hope that actually seeing it will kick me into doing something with it.

Sadly the pile of junk in the extreme left is totally burying the Amiga.  Unearthing that's a job for another day.

285W worth of LED lighting in there...the fun challenge of trying to get a useful amount of light into a room with no windows!

The real plus side of doing that though was finding several components for projects which I'd been unable to track down for several months.  Thought I'd taken this room apart hunting for them already, but apparently not thoroughly enough!   Though granted finding a couple of little Ziploc bags in that mess without emptying the room first was probably doomed to failure.

Pool table has been unearthed for the first time in over a month... couldn't believe it when I realised that I had to hunt for my cue...that's just not right, used to be an odd week if I didn't spent at least a couple of hours on the baize.

Owe that much to my father. 

For all we didn't see eye to eye in his latter days, pool was the one thing we always enjoyed together.  We were both universally loved and hated back at the pub in that we both also loved snooker...so we were in no way beyond bringing snooker tactics to a pool table and had a reputation for being equally sneaky and evil.

Barely played since moving down here though.  Sounds silly...but anyone in/near MK who fancies a game of pool - or had never picked a cue up but would like to learn?  Just feels like it's one of the few bits of my past I'd actually like to hold on to.

Still sad I never managed to get him down here to try this table out - which is actually the same make and only a very slightly different style to the one in the Fyvie branch of the Royal British Legion we spent many, many hours on.  Obvious difference being us choosing to stick with spots & stripes rather than the red and yellow balls which seem to be the norm these days. 

Table could do with re-covering to be honest, though so far have been struggling to actually find anyone interested in doing the work.  Job for next year though.

Rush hour trek round the M25 tomorrow to pick family up from Heathrow.  Then I really need to try to find some time to get back into the garage...The Festival of the Unexceptional isn't that far off now and the to do list before the Invacar gets to it isn't insubstantial...

Oh...and I want to try out my fancy new sander which I've not had a chance to use yet! 

 

[LightBulbFun]

15 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Barely played since moving down here though.  Sounds silly...but anyone in/near MK who fancies a game of pool - or had never picked a cue up but would like to learn?  Just feels like it's one of the few bits of my past I'd actually like to hold on to.

 

Im probably not very good at it, but I do enjoy a good game of pool, so colour me very interested!  

(pretty sure that much LED lighting would make my eyes bleed after a while!, what that Room really needs is about 4 to 6, 6f or 8ft fluorescent fixtures mounted to the ceiling, maybe behind a diffused panel if its a bit too intense?  )

[Zelandeth]

Well there will be a false ceiling and a few hundred watts worth of 4' fluorescent fittings equipped with Northlight tubes in eventually tucked away behind some lovely acrylic opal diffusers.

This is basically the best I could manage with the kit I had to hand...

To be fair when I'm using the PC it's usually just the floor level lighting under the desk that's on.  The massively bright overhead light is just used when I'm doing  electronic repair work or drawing, for which it works really well.

[Zelandeth]

Hopefully will get a good chance to spend some time in the garage tomorrow.

Did get in there today, just long enough to test out the new sander.

Wow...Yes, that's going to make stuff SO much easier. 

This was literally about a minute of work.  Bumper top is smoother than it's ever been...looks like the horrible undercoat will come off without too much of a fight.

Why the heck didn't I just get the right tools for the job when I started?

Huge advantage to the (surprisingly, actively controlled) speed control is that it reduces the amount of dust kicked up massively if you don't have the speed ramped up.

Will get some slightly finer pads for it tomorrow (the stuff in the box is too coarse for this job really) and then have a proper test run.

I'm hopeful this will take a lot of the frustration out of this job.

It's way too long since she's been driven...I need to fix that!

[Zelandeth]

Got a few things in this morning.

Wow...that respirator is so much more comfortable than my old one (for which filters ceased to be readily available for a couple of years ago and I used the last one a while ago).  It must be half the weight for one thing.

Mainly though it means I've got a decent variety of sanding discs on hand meaning I could make a meaningful start on mission "Remove all the horrible crinkly primer from the Invacar."

That's one mission... here's the biggest problem paint wise though.  I have *not* painted this panel yet.

Some other panels have even more layers on.

The top coat on there is ridiculously thick, poorly adhered to the undercoat (so it tends to chip off in chunks), and has quite a rubbery texture which appears to be precisely the right consistency to clog sanding discs.

I am seriously starting to consider attacking the thing with paint stripper...though I've no idea whether that's likely to be bad news for the fibreglass itself... anyone got any idea?

A good 80% of the spot repairs I've got to do are due to pits and chips in the top coat...just getting back to a more or less bare shell would probably save me a bunch of time.

After an absolute hell of a couple of hours I got the bulk of the gunk off the offside front wing and was able to throw some more (decent!) primer at it so I could see what I was doing.  Couple of bits needing some more filling but we're getting there.  This primer is basically just a guide coat here and will mostly be sanded back off, I find it nigh on impossible to see what the surface is doing without a uniform colour laid down.

Remember what a mess this looked like a week or so back?

We're getting there.

New sander is a great bit of kit.  The speed control is an actual speed control too...so even at the lowest speed you've got the full 1200W on tap.  Reckon this will be probably more useful when polishing than sanding, but it's a feature I wasn't expecting.  Likewise the fact it's got a soft start system.  Trigger is nicely weighted and well placed, and the latch is well positioned so it's easy to reach but hard to activate accidentally.  Well happy with it so far.  Item code 80541 from Toolstation if you're looking for one.

While it's producing an order of magnitude less dust than the old one was, it's still going absolutely everywhere.

 

Decided to pause to give the van the weekly checkover.  Unsurprisingly water level is exactly where it always is...

Likewise not a drop of oil used.

Wish all cars had as easy a dipstick to read as that.

I do wonder how many people actually do check their brake fluid level regularly. 

I need to investigate the handbrake mechanism at some point as it's still less than great...which is really annoying as the handbrake could near enough stop the rotation of the planet before Eggerton's rebuilt the entire rear braking system.  I've already nearly rolled into the garage door twice this week.

I really need to have a good think about the Invacar paintwork.

It's just such a mess (even discounting the rubbish I've slathered on) that painting over it is going to get me nowhere.  Sanding it *all* off will take forever...and given how fragile fibreglass is I'll probably mangle a bunch and require even more repairs... really wish I still had random bits of bodywork sitting around I could throw some Nitromors at to see what happened...

How *would* a body shop strip paint from a fibreglass car?  Know media blasting would be the first stop for steel...but I'd assume that's too violent for fibreglass.

 

[RayMK]

18 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Got a few things in this morning.

................

It's just such a mess (even discounting the rubbish I've slathered on) that painting over it is going to get me nowhere.  Sanding it *all* off will take forever...and given how fragile fibreglass is I'll probably mangle a bunch and require even more repairs... really wish I still had random bits of bodywork sitting around I could throw some Nitromors at to see what happened...

How *would* a body shop strip paint from a fibreglass car?  Know media blasting would be the first stop for steel...but I'd assume that's too violent for fibreglass.

 

This chap used 'water based paint stripper.'         

He has recently added two more videos on you tube. Perhaps contact him to get more detail e.g. brand used?

[LightBulbFun]

Id also speak to this chap on facebook (yes I know I hate facebook too) https://www.facebook.com/fraser.andrew.50

he is the one who owned JPA and repainted/repaired the body work, and is currently in the middle of doing the same to VES108S, so it seems like he would know how to handle a fiberglass car, or at least give you some pointers  

[dozeydustman]

There is a gentler version of Nitromors (I think it’s called safe stripper) for fibreglass and GRP work

EDIT - doing some googlewhack it would appear Nitromors no longer does a gentle version for GRP and plastic.

there are special GRP paint strippers you can get normally sold as yacht and boat paint stripper, a little more expensive but shouldn’t harm the gel coat

[Noel Tidybeard]

sander product code 80541 ?

[scdan4]

If it were mine...

I’d gently, thougherly key it with scotchbrite/p320 all over and then prime with a good isolating primer. You’ll know what you are working with then, fill repair where needed, then paint. Id not waste my time fighting stuff off that’s quite happy staying on.

 

[Yoss]

On 6/22/2019 at 3:34 AM, Zelandeth said:

The game will be seeing where I decide to draw the line between wanting to make things tidy and calling it good enough...

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

sander product code 80541 ?

I even checked that three bloody times before clicking submit...

3 hours ago, scdan4 said:

If it were mine...

I’d gently, thougherly key it with scotchbrite/p320 all over and then prime with a good isolating primer. You’ll know what you are working with then, fill repair where needed, then paint. Id not waste my time fighting stuff off that’s quite happy staying on.

 

That is the problem... it's a complete crap shoot on a millimetre by millimetre basis as to what's well stuck and what isn't...I strongly suspect that approach would result in random issues with paint lift in the future.  Plus there's at least 1/16" of depth difference in places, which while not hugely obvious just now as everything is totally matt, it will be blindingly obvious on the flatter surfaces once there's any sort of shine to the paint. 

Guess I could go for the trendy modern BMW look and just deliberately have matt paint.

I'd love to say I'd had a really productive day.  However I can't...I spent most of the day hiding.

This was confirmed as accurate to within a degree a few minutes later.

My only comment there is "Nope.  Nope nope nope nope nope..."

I sadly simply cannot function in heat like this.  So basically don't expect much from me until the weather sorts itself out.  I'd gladly take a foot of snow and wind you can lean into at 45 degrees without falling over instead of this nonsense anyday!

[Yoss]

I'm guessing that's the Xantia dash? I did a bit of a double take as it's very similar to our Felicia. 

None of it's exactly the same but the overall look, down to the shade of the grey, the red needles, the digital bit in the rev counter and positioning of the odometer made me start a compare and contrast. 

Maybe it's just a generic mid 90's look but I'd feel right at home in there. 

[Zelandeth]

It's a valid double take!  Yes it's the Xantia.  Always liked the contrast of the grey faces to the black surround.

Here's a wider shot showing all of the gauges.

[Yoss]

I like the red needles but the speedo one sometimes gets a bit lost in what is a quite busy looking face. It's fine in bright light and even better at night as it lights up almost orange. But in dull light there isn't enough contrast between needle and face. I know they are different colours but they are sort of similar tonally. I guess it encourages you to put your lights on in dull weather. I still like them though. 

[Zelandeth]

I like the typeface there being an obvious nod back to that used on the Estelle/Rapid.

Xantia one looks great at night too...and I'm never going to turn down a dash at night post opportunity...

[Yoss]

Is that just a thermometer in the rev counter or a full trip computer? They were only available on LHD Felicia's (and even then quite rare) as they went in the blanking panel on the outer edge of the dash surround which is sort of parallelogram shaped so wasn't transferable to RHD. 

[Zelandeth]

We've got family staying at the moment and I'm designated taxi driver so my car time is generally going to be quite sketchy over this coming week until next Tuesday.  Not that my time in the garage is ever exactly reliable at the best of times.

Today I had a brief quiet half hour though and I had a nice plan in place for what I wanted to do.

Paint stripper test.

Further to what a few folks have said regarding "just paint over it," I'm afraid that really isn't an option.  This is what the finish is like in several places.  There's just no way you'll ever get it smooth - and those bubbles are going to cause more trouble as time goes on.

That paint needs to go.

There was some questions over whether paint stripper would dissolve the surface of the fibreglass as well as the paint...I was 90% sure it would be fine, but obviously wanted to be sure before slathering the car in it.

Conveniently there's one bit of the body which is both easily accessed and well hidden - under the engine cover.  So let's throw a bit at it there and see what happens.

Results were good.  It didn't seem to show any interest in attacking either the resin I'd applied or the gel coat on the fibreglass, excellent.  Yes that whole area needs to be rebuilt, but that's a fair ways down the to do list.

 

Encouraged by this, we slapped a bit of it over the top of the rear quarter.

Then attacked it with this.

Pretty quickly the top coat started to come apart, revealing biblical amounts of high build primer.

Which also came off without any particular effort, revealing the gel coat below.

As predicted there's a lot of crazing and ancient repairs present, hence why the car has been painted in the first place.

Interesting to see how much the removal of the paint has improved the definition of the line along the top of the "fin" compared to beforehand...not surprising how many layers there were.

Other side was treated to the same routine.

I think this is definitely the right approach.  I've far more chance of getting a halfway decent finish if I get rid of the existing paint first.  Obviously I'll need to rework a few repairs first and then actually need to properly paint it all at the end of the day...how good a finish I'll get will be entirely down to my prep and my work.  Reckon this will be an easier road than trying to get anything to sit flat over what's already on there.

Will pull the engine cover and tail lights off next and try to get the rear moulding stripped back tomorrow or shortly.  At least then I should hopefully be able to see what I'm working with.  Might actually have a shot at getting her looking halfway reasonable by the time of FotU rolls round...

Maybe...

[LightBulbFun]

happy to see your able to strip the paint without too much hassle

this is very much going to be like archaeology with how many layers there's going to be probably  im guessing you plan on rattle canning the car going by the easily accessible paint comment rather than getting something made up from that official paint colour sheet thingy that popped up?

 

43 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Interesting to see how much the removal of the paint has improved the definition of the line along the top of the "fin" compared to beforehand...not surprising how many layers there were.

 

welp there goes the whole mould line theory I think...  LOL

[Zelandeth]

Getting the impression that there are two types of paint on this car: the stuff which will come right off and that which is utterly immovable.

I think I'll just go round the car getting the easier stuff off then seeing what's left.

Again today I didn't really have much time to play with but was determined to make at least some headway.

So played automotive Tetris so I could get the Invacar actually out of the garage and see what I was doing.

Then slathered things with paint stripper again.

Then ensued a good amount of waiting patiently followed by scrubbing and scraping.  Finally the pressure washer was employed to get rid of the residue so I could see what I was left with.

I need to pick up a better paint scraper, this one is so blunt as to be essentially useless.  Think I need to be a bit more patient too to just see if it will slowly eat through the sections which have refused to budge so far. 

Nice to see the roof to bulkhead seal showing through again...feels like we are seeing progress though.

I'd really like to get a couple of hours in a stretch where I could just leave the stripper to work and hopefully get a couple of panels properly cleared.

 

In other news, with the van having ceased squeaking at idle a really horrible sounding rattle/buzz was brought to the forefront.

Initially this sounded like it might be related to the belt tensioner, but a bit of digging revealed a far simpler and easily resolved issue.  The U-bolt holding the exhaust downpipe onto the bracket on the gearbox had stripped the threads so it had worked loose.  This clamp was reused because the one supplied with the exhaust was fractionally too small.

I made up a spacer with a few washers to pack it out returning the nuts to a solid bit of thread, allowing it to be tightened back up properly.

Nice simple fix.

While I was under there I had a look at all the joints on the system for any signs of leaks now it's got a few miles on.

No tell tale sooty marks anywhere that I can see, nor could I hear anything chuffing so I'll take that as a win.

 

So the Invacar still needs paintwork, but at least the van is quieter at idle now.  I hadn't realised quite how awful it was until sorting this!

Edit: Yes I know the front exhaust hanger is missing the rubber.  This is another "things I've had to do to make a really cheap exhaust fit without touching stuff it shouldn't" and not buzzing.  Think this being fitted made it lift another hanger elsewhere off so the whole thing wound up sitting squint.  Just removing the rubber block seemed to be the easiest solution...the system is more than sufficiently supported.

[Zelandeth]

Well that's been a worthy experiment.  Using the cling film didn't seem to make a huge difference.  We did get a bit more paint off the rear moulding though.  It's a tricky balance with the scraper... there's about a 3% difference between the pressure needed to shift the paint and needed to dig into the gel coat, which is annoying.

Did a little experiment later in the day with leaving the stripper on one of the really stubborn areas for a bit longer.  The results were... annoying.

Turns out that if you leave this stuff long enough it will attack the gel coat.

In spite of that though the paint ain't any more interested in moving than it was before.  This is going to come down to a sharp scraper and patience it looks like. 

 

[LightBulbFun]

annoying that the paint is being stubborn to shift

I wonder how much it would cost to just throw it at a paint/prep shop and pay them to at least just strip it all off?

[Zelandeth]

Given they would probably wind up doing things the same way I am (guessing that media blasting isn't an option - especially as the paint is as hard if not harder than the material under it) so hours and hours of work by hand.  Probably wouldn't be looking at much change from £500 I'd guess as a total "sticking my finger in the wind" estimate.

It's not the worst job in the world, just time consuming.  If it wasn't so thick we could just look at painting over it as it's plainly not going anywhere, but it's just so thick...seems a bit ask for a high build primer...

If it was a metal body it would be a dead easy job...remove all the fixtures and fittings, then hit it with the media blaster... especially on such a small car with so little stuff to remove it would be a doddle.  ...Granted, a metal British microcar from the nearly 70s that's all steel would most likely have dissolved long since!

[LightBulbFun]

at least the roof unbolts easy enough to make working on that potentially easier?  (plus it would be an opportunity to go round driving roofless to flummox the locals even more  )

would taking the sander to the hard spots be an option?