Once the top was out of the way, the rest of the car was disassembled in stages, stripping off the old paint and starting body work as we moved from back to front.
GRAND PRIX 83 Grand Prix freshening
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We were also making plans for dealing with the two tone paint scheme which I wanted to retain. From the factory, the top and bottom colors were separated by a tape stripe which just alternated the paint colors. So our first plan was to duplicate this pattern with paint and then clear over it. But after some more thought and a quick photoshop trial , we decided a gold stripe would look really good and add a little something to the paint while still looking factory. Here you can see just how bad the original paint was. The clear panel with the stripes on it is from the '83 Pontiac dealer catalog and came in handy for making the decision to change up the stripe.
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Things were moving along way too smoothly at that point, so I should have known something would go wrong.
The original t-top seals weren't terrible, but we wanted to remove all the chrome window and top moldings for the best quality paint job possible, and it is almost impossible to do that w/out damaging the seals. On top of that, the center bar which holds the t-tops was installed wrong from the factory and severely misaligned. So we started tearing into the top, and I was totally not prepared for what I would find. Keep in mind - this is a 44,000 mile, garage kept, Southern car without a spec of rust on it. But it was hiding a dirty secret.
The original t-top seals weren't terrible, but we wanted to remove all the chrome window and top moldings for the best quality paint job possible, and it is almost impossible to do that w/out damaging the seals. On top of that, the center bar which holds the t-tops was installed wrong from the factory and severely misaligned. So we started tearing into the top, and I was totally not prepared for what I would find. Keep in mind - this is a 44,000 mile, garage kept, Southern car without a spec of rust on it. But it was hiding a dirty secret.
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Given what I was dealing with, I wound up ordering a complete set of reproduction t-top channels and trim pieces from Mike's Montes, although in the end we didn't use the new channels. Instead my uncle formed replacement sections for the damaged areas and made repair patches for the body sheetmetal. I unfortunately don't have pics of everything in process because I was back in Michigan when he did the repairs, but it turned out great.
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All the sealer, primer and paint we used is Tamco https://tamcopaint.com/ Definitely a "budget friendly" paint compared to the big name brands, but my uncle had good luck with it on previous jobs, including the 1960 Rolls Royce which is sitting under plastic behind my car in some of the pictures. I figured if it was good enough for a Rolls, it's probably good enough for my Grand Prix.
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By June, we were in color, and then came the process of wet sanding, buffing and reassembly. I don't have many pictures from that period....again, I was in Michigan and my uncle isn't much for stopping to take pics along the way!
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The headliner and visors were a total disaster - structurally fine, but faded and dry rotted. The interior in this car is unique color only used in '83 and '84 - its a greyish green, and nothing like the sage green all the catalogs list. So I couldn't take the easy route and just order a replacement pre-covered headliner board and visors. Instead, I matched the material to a hidden piece of the original with no damage, and then stripped the original headliner board down and recovered it. I had a local trim shop in Michigan use the same material to recover the original visors.
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