BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)

[Tony1968]

No worries, we’re all novices at some point or another.

It’s not a great idea for several reasons. First of all, the original paint on our cars is old school lacquer. Lacquer is a non-catalyzed paint, meaning it never fully dries or cures. That’s why when you see really old lacquer paint, is often cracking and checked.

Just like building a house, you need to start with a solid foundation. Applying new product over old, unstable and uncatalyzed paint is never a great idea, epoxy barrier or not.

Plus in my instance, the car had been poorly painted once already, and without any epoxy to seal the substrate. They simply applied old school “yellow death” high build primer over top of the old lacquer. Again, not the right way to do things.

Also, there’s already a TON of product on there. If I were to get a rock chip in even what’s already on there, it would be a large and deep chip. Thinner build thickness is more desirable here.

Speaking of rock chips, I’m finding more poor repair methods as I continue to strip it down, whoever painted it previously didn’t even bother to feather out the old rock chips in the hood, they simply primed over them and relied on the primer to fill them. Again, not the proper way to do things.

So at the end of the day, as monotonous and labor intensive as it is to strip to bare metal, it’s really the only way I can guarantee that it’ll be done right and will be a long lasting, quality paint job.

Thanks for quick reply... I didn't know we had lacquer paint.... what years did they stop using this, if you know....? Mine is an 84 btw I was going to do what I described above but if you say different, that's fine by me. I want to do it right one time !... Learning a lot from guys like you on this forum. The only issue I think I'll have is the time it takes to get old paint off and flash rust... Unless I do one panel at a time and hit it with epoxy... Your opinion please and sorry for the hijack...

 

[pagrunt]

I didn't know we had lacquer paint.... what years did they stop using this

GM used lacquer for the entire life span of the A/G bodies from '64-'88. There might of been a few cars that might not of been sprayed with lacquer but that is based on plant & color at that plant. Some cars may even have a clear coat in either lacquer or of another type again based on plant/color. Also our cars had the crappy lacquer as enviormental reasons caused the removal of certain key parts in the chemical formula, leading to the paint crack really bad unlike the earlier generation cars that can still save their paint. But as a lacquer fan I like it for it's easier to fix alot of scratches by just giving enough heat from buffing.

 

[Northernregal]

The face Donovan secretly makes when someone suggests doing something half assed.

That car is gonna be a show stopper in the near future. I cant wait to park my gongshow next to it so it looks even more fabulous.

 

[Rktpwrd]

The face Donovan secretly makes when someone suggests doing something half assed.

View attachment 122147

That car is gonna be a show stopper in the near future. I cant wait to park my gongshow next to it so it looks even more fabulous.

Hahaha
Thanks buddy. I wouldn’t sweat yours not looking “pretty” yet, by the time (and if I have anything to say about it) we’re done, it’ll look just as good if not better too. Especially if you still want me to help out with some of the bodywork on it.
😏

And yeah, I just can’t bring myself to half-*ss anything. Especially when the materials are so expensive, there’s so much labor involved, and so much can go wrong with the end result.

 

[clean8485]

Just a couple quick pictures for you guys of the front end outside in natural light.
The car in general needs a good cleaning, but I’m pretty happy with how it’s looking.

View attachment 122000

View attachment 122001

View attachment 122002

Almost starting to look like a car again!

WOW. Looks amazing even like that Donovan.

 

[Rktpwrd]

WOW. Looks amazing even like that Donovan.

Thanks Jeff.
🙂

 

[Rktpwrd]

Not a whole lot to report on from the Rktpwrd skunkworks lately, just a whole ‘lotta sanding and stripping of the hood.

I had been doing most of it inside the garage, but after the last big cleanup I had to do because of the utter disastrous mess it made, I self imposed a rule that it can only be done outside from now on. This has been good and bad, it’s dramatically cut down on the amount of dust in the garage and all over everything, but with the days getting shorter by the minute it’s also drastically reduced the available time and permittable weather there is to work on it.

Even so, considering there’s 5 layers of product to remove, I’ve been making decent headway on it. All the sides have been stripped down to bare metal, along with approximately 60% of the surface.

Here’s just SOME of the nasties that were there before I started. Hard to believe a body shop let this go out the door:

This particular offence is an “outie” from the underside, judging by the location it was probably caused by someone closing the hood on a too long air filter stud. They’re just lucky they didn’t punch it right through!

Where I’m currently at in the old paint stripping process:

Because I can’t work on it during crappy weather or after dark now, I’ve been trying to find other small projects to keep me occupied in the meantime.
I’ve got an ugly green driver’s side mirror that’s in better shape than the original one, so I started to do disassembly on it for primer and paint. Didn’t get very far before a seized screw down inside the base stopped me in my tracks.

After soaking it in rust release penetrant for a couple days, I gave it a few good whacks with the impact screwdriver and boom, I win b*tch!

I’ve also now removed the other fender mounted signal indicator and started sanding it down as well. I’m hoping to be able to get the mirror and this guy shot in color at the same time fairly soon.

Why? Because painting and having freshly restored sh*t makes me happy.

D.

 

[84dragcutlass]

Actually the first time ive ever seen an impact screwdriver like that.

 

[1evilregal]

interestingly, I had my D/S mirror out a couple weekends ago, and changed it out for my Regal mirror. surprisingly, (read:sarcasticly) the base is different as far as height and bolt center... are you taking the mirror assy and cable completely out? if so did you have to disassemble the adjust knob? I couldn't fit mine through the hole in the base.

 

[Texas82GP]

Donovan,

If you wouldn't mind detailing how to work on those mirrors, it would be very helpful. The Driver's side mirror on my car doesn't hold its adjustment. Close the door, time to adjust. I've been on this forum for four years or so and haven't come across a thread on how to work on those mirrors.