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Restoration Well Under Way - One Panel At A Time


schoir

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After using my '71 2002 as a daily driver for the first 15 years of its life, then driving it on and off (mostly off) and storing it for the about the next 26 years, I've finally started to restore it in earnest.  It's had a '73 tii engine since about 1982 and  I had repainted it with factory paint, Agave Green, Glasurit Code 071, in about 1985 but the paint simply faded and did not hold up well.  Back in the day, I had accumulated a number of OEM body parts for another 2002 I had bought but ended up selling that 2002 and keeping the parts:  L & R front fenders, driver's door, hood and nose panel.  I am not planning on using the nose panel at this time, but will be using all of the other panels.  My current panels are in decent shape but not as good as the "new" ones.  

 

I am now going to be using Glasurit Line 55 two-stage paint and I believe this will be a much longer lasting paint system than the earlier formulations.  Fortunately, I have a client who owns a body shop and he allows me to use the facilities on the weekends.  :)

 

Here is the process for the driver's door.  Although it is a new OEM door and was not damaged during storage, it still had a number of imperfections that had to be dealt with before paint.  I've also decided to seal all of the holes where the beltline trim and the knee-height trim were attached.  Although my '71 did not originally come with knee-height trim, I had installed it back in 1976 to "update" the car.  Eliminating the holes will eliminate a source of rust: wherever metal clips go through the body and vibrate.  In the past I had tried wrapping the little bolts on the clips but they eventually wear through and then...rust starts creeping under the paint.  

 

One of the major improvements for longevity of the body panels is to carefully apply seam sealer wherever the door skin wraps around the door shell.  In the case of the door, applying a self-leveling sealer inside the door along the sides and bottom of the inside door shell will also insure against rust.

 

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Starting to weld shut beltline trim holes

 

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More welding

 

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All holes welded shut

 

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Cosmetic defect caused by factory "inserting" crash bar through side of door to reinforce door to meet fed crash standards. (outline of factory weld visible as a rectangle between the hole for the latch and the bottom (right side here) of the door end panel.

 

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Preliminary grinding and smoothing

 

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Crash bar weld scars repaired and primed

 

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Important to grind and paint over welds from inside surface of door.

 

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Including this one, hidden under the crash bar... Had to drill the hole to access it.

 

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Grind and prime.  Not grinding, priming and painting any of these holes that were welded shut would be a slowly ticking rust time bomb that might not rear its ugly head for many years, but that will inevitably explode.  Remember, rust never sleeps!

 

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Self-leveling seam sealer inside of bottom of door shell

 

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The two-part self-leveling seam sealer

 

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More self-leveling seam sealer.  You can apply it, or "feed it" into one corner, then manipulate the door to make it flow down along the seam to the other corner, then rotate the door 90 degrees and start again.  Mask off the drain holes on the bottom of the door (yellow masking tape) to prevent the sealer from flowing out of the holes and, more importantly, from actually sealing those holes shut.  Those holes must be kept clear at all times and the inside of the door checked for debris, leaves, etc. if it becomes apparent that the holes are getting clogged.

 

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folded-over skin edge of door taped and prepped to apply the two-part epoxy seam sealer

 

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The two-part epoxy seam sealer.  This is the most important ingredient in preventing rust from forming in what is one of the most vulnerable spots on 2002's.  Most modern cars, with the notable exception of some GM lines, have seam sealer factory applied.

 

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seam sealer around edge after smoothing and tape removal

 

 

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More prep work on the door skin

 

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Door skin primed

 

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"Splatter Paint" to aid in final block sanding of primer

 

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door primed and sanded, ready for base color coat

 

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Starting to apply color coat on inside of door

 

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Color coat complete, ready for clear

 

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Clear coat applied, inside of door complete

 

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Detail showing finished inside corner of door.  If you look closely you can see where the seam sealer had been applied.

 

Next up, sand, base coat and color coat of outside of door.

 

It is taking a VERY long time to do this work, but I only want to do it once!

 

Regards, Maurice.

Edited by schoir
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Your attention to detail and the quality of your work is amazing. I would love to have half your body skills.

Ive been working on my fab skills on my older cars. But great job. Keep up the great work and updates.. 

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Excellent work! Great facility and you obviously have the know-how to do it right.

Thanks.  I'm lucky to be able to use this place.  For someone who is not in the auto body business, it's like a playground.

 

As long as my client finds himself in need of legal services (which he has for the last fifteen years or so), I get to play!

 

Regards, Maurice.

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Your attention to detail and the quality of your work is amazing. I would love to have half your body skills.

Ive been working on my fab skills on my older cars. But great job. Keep up the great work and updates.. 

Some of the guys who work at the body shop on their own cars and friends' cars on the weekend are always there to help me and I'm always learning something or some new technique from them.

 

I've been dabbling in light body work almost since I bought this car back in '71 but I think my skills will have definitely taken a big step forward by the time I'm done with this restoration.  

 

I'm sure you know this from having worked on your own car.  If you cut a corner and don't keep at it until it's just right, the first thing you see when you look at your completed project is that little defect.  It's always there staring you in the face, even if no one else notices it!

 

Regards, Maurice.

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I completely agree, im still getting to know my bmw but my other cars I know every inch of them.

Every little thing that isn't perfect will bug me to death even if most people would never know or

even care. But I do hope to have my 02 for along time to come so hopefully I will get it just the

way I want it.

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There is  the school of thought to provide some weep holes that are designed for drainage with the car moving forward. Like having your nose facing uphill. Sealing the seems is a good idea but water will get in there so it might need a hole to get out. I think there might be a hole or two under the bottom of the door which would help that "weeping". Nice seam sealing..

dlm ny country

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There is  the school of thought to provide some weep holes that are designed for drainage with the car moving forward. Like having your nose facing uphill. Sealing the seems is a good idea but water will get in there so it might need a hole to get out. I think there might be a hole or two under the bottom of the door which would help that "weeping". Nice seam sealing..

dlm ny country

The water has to have a path to exit the inside of the door shell, as rain or car washing water always gets inside the door.  This is also the reason that so many of our door cards get waterlogged: whenever the door has to be opened up for repairs (i.e., window regulator, etc...) if the plastic film is not replaced and adhered carefully the door card will get all soggy, especially near the bottom edge.  Few repair shops ever bother to do this, so the DIY'ers definitely have the edge on this one.

 

There are two drain holes provided by the factory at the underside horizontal section of the door shell.  Those drain holes MUST remain clear and free of debris at all times.  The self-leveling, flowing seam sealer seals the inside edges of the door shell, i.e., wherever there is a right angle meeting of the door shell and the door skin.  

 

The "regular" seam sealer seals the rust-prone area which is the edge wherever the door skin is wrapped around or folded over the door shell frame.  Note that this type of edge exists on almost every other panel on the car, and you can see the results of no seam sealer having been applied at the factory back in the 70's.  It's especially noticeable under the leading edge of the hood, the trailing edge of the trunk and, of course, under the doors.

 

Here is a photo of where the self-leveling seam sealer is applied, showing (red arrows) the drain holes masked over temporarily.  The green arrow shows the sealer, the blue arrow shows how far the sealer has flowed up to that point, and the yellow arrows show where it is headed and will eventually reach:

 

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Here is that same bottom inside edge of the door with the masking tape removed, holes clear (red arrows):

 

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Another area with the self-leveling seam sealer applied, this time along the rear vertical edge of the door shell:

 

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Same area, a little higher up:

 

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Here is a close up of the "regular" seam sealer applied to the outside, folded over edge of the door skin:

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Here, you can see clearly how that edge is permanently sealed against water creeping in.  The two-part epoxy seam sealer is ideal for this application.  Once it cures, nothing is getting in there.

 

Another angle of the same area:

 

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Here is a little more progress on the trunk lid support rods and hardware:

 

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Made some more progress this weekend, more photos to come!

 

Regards, Maurice.

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Edited by schoir
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Started to work on the new OEM factory hood (which I've also had stored for the past 25 years) and, even though it's new and hasn't been damaged in storage, it's proving to be a real bear to get glass straight.

 

So, to feel like I'm making some real progress, we've decided to temporarily move on to the new Kamei air dam that will be bolted on to the front, probably by using aluminum threaded inserts.

 

I had painted this air dam about 30 years ago with factory Glasurit paint but never installed it on the car.  The part has been stored in the attic of my garage and was dusty, but otherwise was like new.  Unfortunately, "new" is not perfect when it comes to body work and paint technology has come a very long way since then.  So, we started by stripping the factory paint from the face of the air dam:

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Here, on the left side, you can see the "raised bump" on which the "Kamei" decal is normally placed.  Since we don't want to use the Kamei emblem and think that the air dam would look better without the bump, we proceeded to remove said bump.

 

First step is to fill the depressed area on the underside opposite the bump before trying to sand down the bump on the face side:  post-45192-0-01899400-1395812862_thumb.j

 

This is the two-part epoxy panel bonder that works well for "re-creating plastic or urethane":

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Preliminary sanding of the panel bonder material:

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Apply body filler to smooth out surface and make the depression on the underside "disappear"

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Final sanding of that section of the underside:

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Back to the front, showing the raised bump now sanded down and all of the waviness of the rest of this panel now filled and sanded.  (The underside of the top section of the air dam was especially wavy):

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Filler now applied to the area where the raised bump originally stood:

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Front of bumper completely sanded, ready for primer:

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Smoothed patch on underside masked off and primer applied:

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Face of air dam primer and now ready for final block sanding before applying the color coat/clear coat:

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The air dam now looks balanced on both sides and the "raised bump" is gone:

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Next up is block sanding, then back to the hood to get it to the same stage and then both will be sprayed in the paint booth at the same time.

 

Regards, Maurice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Are you gonna use bumper cladding before BC/CC? That spoiler might flex a bit.

Interesting note on this thread is the progress made on chemicals used on cars the last 30 years. Todays chemicals are much stronger and adhere better. I seam sealed my trunk lid in 1986 with…… nitro stain!!!  It has worked all these years but I wouldn't even touch that stuff today when I see what else is on the market these days.

Work looks great..

dlm  ny country

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I'm not sure what "bumper cladding" is, but we are almost definitely going to be using a flexible primer surfacer just prior to applying the color coat on the spoiler.

 

I have used this same product on a RUF front bumper on my Boxster and it has held up remarkably well after about three years, even though the front bumper sits very low vis-a-vis the front ground clearance.  The idea here is that the surface just beneath the color coat remains flexible and small bits of pebbles will not chip the paint as easily.  That, in combination with the Glasurit clear coat that is the slightly "softer" version works really well.  It is also very effective in preventing the "spider web" cracks that result from someone tapping the flexible bumper in a parking lot, etc...  In that respect, the flexible primer surfacer has been outstanding.  When you have some paint left over and empty it into a glass jar, it dries to a very flexible consistency and will not harden completely.  It remains flexible.  You can even pull it out of the jar and bend it into a "U" and it won't crack and then it returns to its original shape.

 

This is the product, Spectra-Prime P30L 2K Primer Surfacer made by Sherwin Williams: post-45192-0-21762400-1395882153_thumb.j

 

Here it is, applied to the RUF front bumper for a Boxster:

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Close-up view of the Spectra-Prime finish:

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Same area of front bumper after final color coat/clear coat, before polishing:

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Because this process has held up so well, we'll probably apply it to the 2002 spoiler, even though this spoiler is not as flexible as the material on most modern bumpers.  

 

Stay tuned.  I'm anxious to get over the big hump, which, for right now, is the OEM hood.  The two surfaces of the hood are a LARGE area and I'd like to get them to have the same degree of finish on both sides.  One of the tedious parts is the repeated sanding and scotchbrite to the little louvers at the rear of the hood.  I have learned that if you don't rough up every single square millimeter of the sides, ends and tops of those louvers, you will inevitably get some peeling of the color coat/clear coat.  Almost there with the hood, but not quite yet.  Another few hours in the playpen body shop should do it, then we'll be ready for paint on the hood and this spoiler.

 

Regards, Maurice.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

After deciding to definitely use the Spectra-Prime P30L 2K Primer Surfacer on the spoiler, we went to work again to try to get it finished.  This work is so time-intensive that I don't want to look back and have second thoughts about not using the flexible primer.  If you are looking for this stuff, note that Sherwin Williams has changed the look of the packaging for the paint, but not the product itself.  I'll post a photo of the cans of primer and hardener when I get back to the shop.

 

Here is the underside of the spoiler, completed in the flexible primer:

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To start working on the face side, we used a heat lamp to cure the underside:

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After curing:

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To maximize the benefits of the flexible characteristic of the primer, we decided to sand down the face of the spoiler again and apply the primer to the surface, this time before working on making it glass-straight again:

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Face of spoiler with flexible primer applied, before sanding and filling in imperfections (again!).  These next two photos give you a good look at the quality of the primer itself:

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Here is the spoiler, now ready for some more sanding and more filling and smoothing:

post-45192-0-16702200-1396910317_thumb.j

 

Redoing the face of the spoiler was not something I wanted to do but I think it will prove worthwhile.  Since the spoiler sits so low on the front of the car, it will inevitably get pelted with small pebbles, etc. so it's important to get a finish applied that will minimize chipping of the paint.  It is also superior for reducing the incidence of spider web cracks that occur when the spoiler is "compressed" when it's tapped in a parking lot. It seems like it's two steps forward and one step back, but sometimes it can't be avoided.

 

I'll have a few more photos to show the completion of the spoiler through base coat and clear coat, but for now, we started working on the passenger side door.  The driver's door is new OEM, but the passenger side door is being reused.  Even though I've owned the car since new, I still found a few surprises in the door.  This door is going to require a lot of work, so I'll post up that extensive work shortly.

 

Here is the door after a little "exploratory" work:

post-45192-0-73032000-1396911387_thumb.j

 

Regards, Maurice.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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