1983 911 SC bare metal repaint

[ChrisHamilton]

I figured I'd start a thread on this car, Some might find it interesting or informative to see what goes into doing a high quality relatively basic repaint on a 911.

Car in question is owned by fellow forum member Dan of Touring Car Inc in Mathews NC, who kindly gave me permission to start a thread. Dan is top shelf and a really good guy. He contacted me through the forum and after some months I went down to TCI to pick up the car. Original plan was to strip to bare metal, work out any dents, block it out straight, and repaint in the original color using Glasurit 55 base and my favorite clear. Then cut and buff. Should turn out really nice.

Heading home to Virginia.


After arriving back in one piece (always nerve racking when I transport a client's car)



Some of the problem areas









Getting it stripped down.



Found a lot of filler in the hood.

[ChrisHamilton]

Here is why you should never schutz/seam seal/undercoat surfaces that aren't properly primed (epoxy) or protected . This was the result of prior collision damage and the repaired area received a coat of body schutz to sort of match the factory schutz. All it did was trap moisture between the schutz and the panel. Heavy rusting in this area.
At first I thought it would media blast out, but started finding thin areas. We are going to end up replacing that section of the front fender apron with a piece from Restoration Design. Just waiting for it to arrive.




Situation like this car where we are just stripping the exterior, I really like using these "cookie" discs to remove the paint. Empire sells real good lasting ones and they are priced right. Stay away from the Harbor Freight ones. Pure garbage. Bought two when I was in a pinch one weekend. Two of them lasted almost no time. Probably equivalent to less than half of the quality one. So in reality cheap isn't cheap. And they are the same price and considering how they last they actually cost 4X as much. I tell my clients this about paint too. Cheap basecoat aint cheap.

https://www.empireabrasives.com/4-1-2-easy-strip-paint-removal-disc/


Then follow up with 80 grit on a DA sander. Some areas require using smaller discs, wire brush etc. I use a small self contained spot blaster for certain hard to reach areas a lot of the time. Think where a vertical and horizontal panel meet in the corner. Saves a lot of time. Then hand sanding with 80 any areas that I can't do with the DA.

Took a break from stripping the exterior to work on some of the metalwork. Dan was very specific in that he didn't want any filler on the engine lid. I told him I would do my best.
Here I've covered the panel in black sharpie as a guide coat.


Using an acrylic block I made a couple of passes over the panel with 320 grit paper. Just to highlight the problem areas.


Now here is where things start to morph into more than what you expected going in. Every job is like that. I've just made my peace with it and accepted it as a fact of life.

Started working the lid, found that the lid latch brace was just too much in the way to be able to completely access the backside with a dolly or spoon so that I could metal finish the panel. So I did this.

Pulled the lid, drilled out the spot welds holding the brace (14 IIRC).



After carefully drilling and working my thin chisel tool in between the panels to fully release the welds I ended up with this. Now I should be able to metal finish the panel easier. Still a challenge though due to the inner lid structure.




Decided to take a break from the lid. So I went about trying to get the hood corrected. (excuse the mess please, I've since cleaned up)

Again my big magnum sharpie for a guide coat. The hood has problems all over. Over half of it was in filler.



Here you can see the worst of the damage at the very front. All of this was just "caved and paved" with filler.

[ChrisHamilton]

Started working the dents out when I noticed a problem. I could feel my heart sink when I saw this.



If you look closely above the latch you can see where the inner hood and outer skin are separated somewhat. And you can see how the inner hood is bent back in a spot where the previous repairer used a screwdriver to slip the skin back over the inner somewhat. The skin was pulling loose each time I pulled a dent with the stud gun. Only one way to fix this. And it's not easy.



I separated the inner hood and outer skin.





So on the plus side I will be able to work the hood completely out save for the odd spot where I might have a touch of 2 part glaze. Might not even require that. On the negative side no matter how careful you are when unfolding the skin, you do some additional damage that is not very easy to correct. Correctable yes but it takes hours and hours of hammer and dolly work to do so. And because I didn't feel like I could charge Dan for this, I am doing the majority of it at no charge.

When a Paint/Body guy tells you it is impossible to give a hard estimate, they only charge by the hour, stuff like this is the reason why. My overhead is low enough though to allow me to do stuff the level I want to even if I'm not always getting paid for it. It's a sickness.

Next up I will be posting pics of the hood and what I did to correct the damage and putting it back together again. And I'll show some more of the metal finishing on the various dings and dents all over the body. With any luck (Lord I need it) this car will literally have no more than one or two small spots with 2 part glaze and NO body filler. I have a long road to go before it's painted so we'll see how it goes.

[Brtuffli]

Subscribed! Love the updates

[dap930]

Chris,

What town are you located in Virginia? My 930 is in need of a repaint due to crazing.

-Dennis

[Anjizkit]

This is just amazing. Following


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[stanglife]

Cant see images - anyone else?

[ChrisHamilton]

Originally Posted by stanglife

Cant see images - anyone else?

They show up for me on 2 different devices. Maybe refresh the page? IDK.

[RDM]

Shows on Safari but not Brave. Strange.

[ChrisHamilton]

Originally Posted by RDM

Shows on Safari but not Brave. Strange.

Try disabling Brave Shields. Click on brave shields in the address bar and click disable (I think) Not on brave ATM so I can't walk you through it step by step.

[onboost]

[Mike Andrew]

More, please!!!!!!

[pmax]

Somebody call 911 I'm working on a Porsche! | Southern Polyurethanes Forum



Baby oil !
Still looking for the bottle ... stashed somewhere.

[ChrisHamilton]

Thanks for the replies everyone. So onward and stumbling forward...

Spent a LOT of time working on the hood. Shameful really how long it took me. I'll try to detail some of what I did.

Here is what the damage I described above looks like when unfolding a folded skin. You can see how the edge raises up and how the adjacent area bends. This is what takes so long (for me at least) to correct




Here is one section after working it down some. You can see the "trench" pretty clearly in this pic.




Up close of an area on the hood showing the damage after beginning to work it out.






Some of the tools I used. (sorry about the my dip "spit" bottle. in the edge of the pic) Nasty habit I picked up years ago. I'm trying to quit, but when I get stressed....




After doing some initial bumping, hammering and dollying of the front and all the edges I re-marked it and re-positioned it to start hammer and dolly work from the top. I use my metal forming leather sand bags on the top and the bottom to hold and position the skin.



At this point I have worked the dents on the front out probably about 90% or more. There are high spots on the panel and the low spots indicated by the marker. It may not look it here but it's close. If I was using filler I would have already stopped. That last 5-10% though is what takes so long. Far longer than getting it to that point if that makes sense.

[ChrisHamilton]

After some hours of hammer and dolly work both working the top and backside of the skin it's getting closer.





Finally reached a stopping point. At this point I'm calling it good. Still have the center to finish in these pics and you can see "lows" in the pics but everything will cover and fill after blocking out, with 2-3 coats of the medium build epoxy primer I'm using. Any lows that are there, especially on the edges are actually hard to feel if you run your hand/fingers over it. So I'm confident that just normal coats of epoxy will cover them. There may be the odd spot that needs just a touch of 2 part glaze but I don't think so. If I was inclined I could have taken out my 8" rotary air sander and using an 80 grit disc ground everything away so that it really is perfect, but I'm not trying to make pretty pictures and in a situation like this I don't want to thin the panel at all. Metal finished is nice but in reality I just need "paint finished" for a job like this. All of this was done with the absolute minimum amount of parent metal removed. Just a nice sanding with worn 80 grit on my DA.











You can see in the pics how effective the marker is in highlighting every imperfection in a panel. If you look closely in a couple of pics you can see the previous repairer's grinding marks where they used a 36 grit disc to grind off the paint. Those spots actually leave a slight low that you can feel with your hand. They will fill with primer though. But it's terrible practice to use a coarse disc to remove paint when wanting to fill a spot. Actually any filler should really be used over a quality epoxy as opposed to over bare metal.

I'll stop here for now. I'll show the rest of finishing the hood including using my Tommasini wheeling machine to fix the big dents and distortion in the center of the hood. And show how I replace the factory anti flutter and ensure that the hood is as corrosion proof as when it left the factory by coating everything with epoxy. I'll try to cover repairing all the other dings and dents briefly and finish the engine lid metalwork.
Thanks for viewing.

[Bill Douglas]

Impressive work Chris. What is your choice in epoxy primer. And are you going to do a phosphoric acid wash beforehand?

LOL I'll copy you.

[ChrisHamilton]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

Impressive work Chris. What is your choice in epoxy primer. And are you going to do a phosphoric acid wash beforehand?

LOL I'll copy you.

SPI (Southern Polyurethanes) makes the best epoxy primer on the market IMO. Glasurit and others make a good epoxy, but none of them build well nor do they sand well. And they are hideously expensive. SPI has outstanding corrosion protection, flexibility, and adhesion, in addition to being able to build, and it sands nicely. On this job I will use no other primer other than the epoxy. Doing so will greatly cut down on the chipping that happens when using a 2K urethane or polyester primer. It can also be reduced and used as a sealer.

No I have no plans for that. I try to use phos/acid treatments as little as possible. I would rather media blast for a number of reasons.

As for phosphoric acid treatments, if you have to use one you need to neutralize it before you apply epoxy, otherwise the epoxy will not adhere. How you do that is when you have finsihed applying the phos acid treatment like Ospho, you simply re-wet what you have treated already with more product, keep it wet with the product for 10-15 minutes taking care not to let it dry, then rinse with water. If you have crusty areas scrub with a wire brush while you are doing this. Once you rinse it's neutralized and epoxy will adhere. Sanding won't work due to the microscopic pores that metal has, only the way I described or media blasting. You will get some flash rust but provided it's not excessive you can prime over it with no loss of adhesion. Many will buzz the panel with 80 grit after neutralizing to get rid of the flash rust though.
If you use SPI be sure to read the Tech Manual pages on epoxy (included with your order) and follow the instructions to ensure sucess. You can also go to the SPI forum and ask questions there. Myself or others will be happy to help you.

FWIW I have no affiliation with SPI other than being a satisfied customer. And in case anyone is wondering about the quality of SPI products, the 2015 Pebble Beach Concours D' Elegance Best of Show winner used all SPI products. They make a terrific true hi-solids polyurethane clear, as well as many other nice products at a fraction of the cost of the Major paint suppliers and their quality is as good and in many cases far better than any other manufacturers premium paint lines.

[ChrisHamilton]

SPI for the win...

[gdp_samson]

subscribed...

Chris, would it be possible to tell us about the layers (steps) you will take from start to finish ?

1) bare metal
2) epoxy + sanding using marker for defining Hi/Low ? how many layers ?
3) paint ?
4) clear coat ?

[ChrisHamilton]

Originally Posted by gdp_samson

subscribed...

Chris, would it be possible to tell us about the layers (steps) you will take from start to finish ?

1) bare metal
2) epoxy + sanding using marker for defining Hi/Low ? how many layers ?
3) paint ?
4) clear coat ?

As I get further into the job I'll go over all of that in detail.

Briefly though, I only use the marker on bare metal. Never on paint. With the SPI epoxy it goes on with some gloss so a guide coat really isn't necessary. If I do need it I will get the powdered guide coat and apply it.

As for how many coats? That's determined by the panels. As many as needed to allow me to block the panels out. Generally it is usually at least 2 sessions of shooting 2-4 coats per session, with blocking with acrylic blocks after each priming. Sometimes more if there are some stubborn lows.

For color, if doing a metallic I will use basecoat. I get coverage then one more coat. I like Sata guns and use a 5000 HVLP 1.3 for metallic base. If a solid color I will generally use a single stage like Glasurit 22. Depending on time I will either shoot 5 coats in one session then start color sanding, or do three and three, meaning shoot 3 coats, sand with 400-600 wet to flatten it, then do three more and start color sanding. Sata 5000 RP 1.3 for clear and single stage.

Clear is the same procedure as single stage. I want to have an excess amount of clear or single stage on the panel before I start color sanding to ensure that I have enough mils left on the panel when finished sanding and buffing. I use a hi solids true polyurethane clear that stays a bit softer than the urethane clears which means it buffs easier and also stays a little bit flexible. Hard clears are great for OEM's, but with refinish hard clears chip easier and generally the harder a refinish clear dries, the lower quality it is.