BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)

[Rktpwrd]

Thanks very much guys, I really appreciate the feedback, and the fact that it’s all positive so far is a great sign!

Another fit and tweak session with Mike tonight, we got the final adjustments made to the door so that it’d play nice with the fender, and tightened it down all permanent like. Originally we had the top of the door too far out from the body, and when the fender was aligned with it, we were out of adjustment on the top fender bolt. Once we had that squared away, we discovered the door was running uphill slightly which would have required shimming between the front of the fender and the rad support.

Uh uh, ain’t gonna happen.

The fix was to go back and readjust the door again, to drop the front of the door. This helped immensely. It hurt the door to quarter gap slightly at the bottom, but not enough to be too concerned with. Especially on a factory stamped panel. The build quality on these cars back in the 80’s just wasn’t there enough to get perfect gaps without some substantial work to the edges of the panels. And this one isn’t that kind of build.

Once we had the door where it was supposed to be, we tackled the fender. Lots of test fitting, fine tuning and tweaking ensued, just as with the door, but not as complicated and in-depth. There’s a lot fewer adjustments to be made on the fender, it’s mostly just experimenting with shims to get it to do what you want.

Anyways, explaining door and fender aligning and how to get decent gaps is about as interesting as watching paint dry, so let’s just skip to the pics shall we?

Photo bomb time...

Now that that’s done, there’s lots of little details to address. Touch up paint on the fastener heads, installation of the new weather stripping and placement and drilling new holes for the upper belt moulding etc. Then, it’ll be time to run the two-tone break line from quarter to front of fender, and sand/prep above it.

Once that’s done, the fender will need to come back off one last time so I can paint all the overlapping areas of the grey, especially in the top back corner. The top of the door will get shot at the same time obviously, but it doesn’t have to come off. It can stay put. After the grey is laid down, the fender and inner fender liner can get installed permanently, and the hood and header panel can go back on finally.

REALLY looking forward to that point!

Till the next time gents, keep the shiny side up.

D.

 

[Tony1968]

Not only is your work outstanding, but you explain it very eloquently as well. Donovan you would have made a great teacher.

 

[Texas82GP]

Beautiful as always Donovan. Quick question: It appears you are going to paint the car with the fenders and hood on it. What are you going to do, if anything, about overspray blowing through the gaps on all that awesome work you've already done? I ask because when Sean's Camaro got painted, the painter wanted to take it all apart. We wanted it painted assembled and had jammed everything with that plan in mind. The painter was of the opinion that the car couldn't be painted properly that way. There was concern about both overspray and getting good coverage on the edges between panels. There was also concern about having hard edges in the clear coat and fear that those edges would promote peeling back of the clear. Our situation was a bit different than yours in that while we had addressed the major and obvious body work issues while assembling the car (replace quarters, re-skin door, fill obvious dings, etc.) the car still needed high build primer and blocking. We compromised by letting him pull the front clip but had him leave the doors on the car (they weren't fun to align, they were just how we wanted them and there was interior in the car). I'm trying to reconcile/understand the two schools of thought. I've seen high end builds like yours jammed and then painted assembled. I'm also aware that many believe you can't paint a car properly without blowing it all apart. If you wouldn't mind sharing it, I'd love to hear your perspective on this and hear a little about how you plan to do the final spray out on Oldscool.

Edit: ok, maybe not a quick question.

 

[69hurstolds]

Don't get all bent out of shape on the quality of your build. It's 1000X better than Ste. Therese's quality when new. And once it's fully painted, you won't notice those gaps. You may, but nobody else will.

Fun Fact: Did you know that the Ste. Therese assembly plant ALMOST was shut down due to high absenteeism and poor quality builds back in the early 80s?? YASSSSSSS. They finally scraped it to the ground after the 3rd gen F-body run 2002 model year was finished.

 

[clean8485]

Beautiful work Donovan. WAYYY better than GM ever did.

 

[RabbitHoleSS]

I love the brushed trim. That and the recessed fender lights are subtle but really set it apart. Im not a great eye for body work but damn I think the body lines and panel gaps are pretty tight like a virgin. Ive got many questions on panel alignment but ill save them for next yr. This is probably my favorite thread. No offense to the jug or anyone else but olds cool is like a novel and tutorial all in one.

 

[Clutch]

Again looks good D I know what it's like to get decent shut lines on these cars and I know how horrible they were new. Did you set up that door with the weather stripping on or off?

 

[Rktpwrd]

Beautiful as always Donovan. Quick question: It appears you are going to paint the car with the fenders and hood on it. What are you going to do, if anything, about overspray blowing through the gaps on all that awesome work you've already done? I ask because when Sean's Camaro got painted, the painter wanted to take it all apart. We wanted it painted assembled and had jammed everything with that plan in mind. The painter was of the opinion that the car couldn't be painted properly that way. There was concern about both overspray and getting good coverage on the edges between panels. There was also concern about having hard edges in the clear coat and fear that those edges would promote peeling back of the clear. Our situation was a bit different than yours in that while we had addressed the major and obvious body work issues while assembling the car (replace quarters, re-skin door, fill obvious dings, etc.) the car still needed high build primer and blocking. We compromised by letting him pull the front clip but had him leave the doors on the car (they weren't fun to align, they were just how we wanted them and there was interior in the car). I'm trying to reconcile/understand the two schools of thought. I've seen high end builds like yours jammed and then painted assembled. I'm also aware that many believe you can't paint a car properly without blowing it all apart. If you wouldn't mind sharing it, I'd love to hear your perspective on this and hear a little about how you plan to do the final spray out on Oldscool.

Edit: ok, maybe not a quick question.

Sorry for the late reply Jared. My life has been pretty upside down lately, and not in a good way. Lots of things happening in my personal life, it’s been a difficult time.

This is not one of those “easy to answer” or cut and dried questions. As you’ve already pointed out, there’s two schools of thought when it comes to painting a car. Specifically, restorations. There’s really no right or wrong answer to it, both ways are perfectly acceptable. There are merits to each, and considerations to be taken into account though.

The painter that shot Sean’s Camaro likely wanted to do it completely disassembled, because a) it’s easier to get full coverage everywhere, and b), there’s really little to no masking to be done, and therefore no concerns of mask lines.

However:

He also wasn’t going to be the one tasked with reassembling the car with fresh paint. And as we all know, that’s no easy feat. However (part II), Sean’s Camaro (I’m assuming) was also a solid, non metallic color. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here). Metallic colors can sometimes be challenging to spray even for the most experienced painters. Air pressure, viscosity, distance from the panel, atmospheric conditions, and gun setup all come into play with laying down a proper metallic paint job.

If I were to repaint Olds Cool back to its original solid single color, I would have absolutely no qualms about spraying all the panels off the car, other than having to deal with the stress of reassembly and alignment afterwards. Hell, it would save me a ton of time and money on masking materials, and lord only knows I don’t need any excuses to avoid masking.

But being that Olds Cool’s planned paint scheme includes the high metallic charcoal grey upper half, it’s important to have all the panels on, aligned, and able to be sprayed at the same time.
And distance.
And with all the other factors I listed above.

If I attempted to spray them all off the car and separately, I’d run the risk of the metallics not laying down the same from panel to panel. And it would probably be a pretty noticeable difference.

So that’s my one real justification for shooting the car fully assembled. Early on in this reply, I made the comment “specifically in restorations”. This brings me to another point I’d like to make, and leads me into the answer to your questions regarding avoiding masking lines.

That point being, when your car gets into a minor collision and you bring it into a bodyshop, you don’t honestly believe they fully disassemble the panels to be painted and spray them off the car do you? Of course not, production bodyshops are all about speed and efficiency. In and out, the quicker the better. Especially panels that can’t be removed, like quarter panels and box sides. So, the only option left is to mask the panels on the car, and shoot them where they are.

So along that line of thought, there’s several ways to skin that proverbial cat too. But most of them vary depending on the area to be masked. Personally, I plan on making almost exclusive use of this stuff...

....it’s a round foam product with a very sticky adhesive on one side. It’s used to obviously prevent paint from going where you don’t want it, but because it’s round it doesn’t leave a hard edge. It leaves a soft edge that can be carefully blended into the underlying paint if desired, but that’s usually not bothered with. I plan on using it inside anything that has a gap: Doors to quarters, trunk lid to quarters, trunk lid to filler panel, hood to fenders, etc etc.

About the only place I can’t really use it is in the door to fender gaps. That’s because there’s absolutely no access to the backside of that gap when the doors are closed. All is not lost here however either, some careful masking on the back inside of the fender gap, followed by back masking the door side while it’s still open, will protect this area once the door is closed. Like I said, various masking techniques will need to be used in different areas.

As for paint coverage on the edges? Two things; 1), I always make sure to back mask the panels when I paint the insides to ensure the edges get coverage, and 2), by using the techniques I outlined above, paint will still end up on the edges without leaving a mask line because of the soft edges. If there is any discernible difference between the inside and outside edges, it’ll be in a place that is all but impossible to see. (Like the backside of a fender edge).

So in closing, there’s really no right or wrong way to do it, but a lot of it depends on what you’re doing, and how, as well as taking into consideration things like metallic layouts.
I hope this adequately answered some of your questions, that was about the best way I could think of to explain it and my justification for doing it the way I am.

Great question by the way, thanks!

D.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Again looks good D I know what it's like to get decent shut lines on these cars and I know how horrible they were new. Did you set up that door with the weather stripping on or off?

Thanks Eric. It’s always a great feeling when a fellow body guy commends you on your work. Thank you.

We did indeed set all the panels and gaps without the weather stripping in place on the door, it’s brand new stuff that’s never been on the car or compressed. We didn’t need that additional piece making life more difficult for us as we were trying to hang and align the door. We also hung the door and fender without the striker in place, to make sure the door hung where it needed to naturally and the striker wouldn’t force it into place.
That’s a little detail I’m sure a lot of guys overlook. The door opens and closes like butter doing it this way.

The new weather stripping has since been installed on the door, and it did push the bottom out a touch, but I’m not too concerned. The weather stripping will compress over time, and the door will return to its original alignment as that happens.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Don't get all bent out of shape on the quality of your build. It's 1000X better than Ste. Therese's quality when new. And once it's fully painted, you won't notice those gaps. You may, but nobody else will.

Fun Fact: Did you know that the Ste. Therese assembly plant ALMOST was shut down due to high absenteeism and poor quality builds back in the early 80s?? YASSSSSSS. They finally scraped it to the ground after the 3rd gen F-body run 2002 model year was finished.

Interesting bit of information right there.
That totally explains a lot of the questionable quality and work I’ve come across along the way! On the upside of that however, I can rest easy knowing I’ve either fixed or improved upon almost all the deficiencies.
IMO, if it managed to last 40 years with questionable build quality, it should have no problem lasting another 40 this time around.
🤞🏻