1979 TA Painting Time

[Nexus]

I think it came out great!!

[RamblerRacer]

Thanks man.
JT

[roadking77]

Does look good. Where did you get the seals from? Nothing on my project is fast paced, I order stuff when I need it and its disapointing when its back ordered. I will be needing t top seals soon so I should probably get on the ball with them.

[MNBob]

Painting looks great!  That is a lot of painting.

[RamblerRacer]

Kerry. I ordered the Metrosoft through Summit when I ordered the hinges. I also ordered a 20+ rubber bumper kit for about $26.00 and the door seal kit which was in stock.  It’s supposed to be available 11/11.

JT

[5th T/A]

JT,

Your paint looks great. Looking at all the glossy shots, body looks very straight. The gen II cars often were not painted very well from the factory. I know because I bought several brand new.

You must be getting excited!

[RamblerRacer]

I am very pleased with how things have turned out so far and yes thinking about getting the doors and fenders painted and then sanded smooth as a baby’s buttocks is very encouraging.  My short term goals are get the bumpers, spoilers, t tops, rear wheel spats, all installed and the trunk repainted. I have new hood hinges to install, and rear window trim to be installed. It’s November, that’s a ton of work to get done in the cold counting on warm days and whatnot.  Patience will get me to Spring and then Summer.  If there is any spare time between now and Spring, there are a couple of interior panels to tweak. 

There is the chance I can get time in a paint booth as well.

Thanks for the encouraging words,  they are very well received.

JT

[RamblerRacer]

Got the new hinges in and installed
I think the hood looks good with just a few tweaks
I'm going to put the nose on just to check things out before painting everything.

I also got the rear bumper on and tail lights in.
Still waiting on the T-top seals













JT

[RamblerRacer]

With the cold weather, and my love for my cousin I decided to switch gears and work on the transformation of his 78 Camaro into a Reher and Morrison "tribute" car. Just matching the paint scheme and not going overboard with it.

Its a Pro bracket class car that runs 9.40s deep staged
407 SBC with a PG trans and 4.10 gears  / 2850 with him in it.

Some pics

The goal



Note: I updated the post to show the RM Camaro















Thanks for looking

JT

[Nexus]

Well for starters, the lines on your car turned out perfect!!

Second, the Camaro build looks really cool!!      >>>     that'll be a fun one to watch

[RamblerRacer]

I had off a couple weeks ago and worked on getting the inner fenders reinstalled and the T-tops.
The fenders went back in much easier than I suspected they would and lined up easily with the fender and body mounting holes
I guess that is a good sign on the alignment of the fenders to the rest of the car.
The Metro Soft T-top seal fit seem a little wonky; extra long in some sections and not fitting tight against the edge of the opening.
I got it to fit the best I could and then reinstalled the T-tops to see if that helped them take a set.
There is a video I saw with a guy gluing and taping them in place
I have not glued anything yet.

Post is nothing with out pics right?







I also busted out a lot of prep work on the Camaro too in the past week.
We have a guy coming in to help out with the roof swap.
I'll take care of all the prep including melting the lead out.
He will take the lead on fitment and whatnot.
He shattered his wrist so we will more than likely be doing the welding.
I will definitely post a detailed account of that swap with pictures.











Thanks for looking
JT

[5th T/A]

Rambler,

I enjoy your post, I like the diversity of different cars including the 78 Camero. I am also an AMC fan, I live about 15 miles away from where they were built in Kenosha WI. Had a lot of fun driving a built up 1969 AMX in the early 70’s that didn’t belong to me.

Your TA is coming along nicely!

[jugalo]

Looking great!
I just went through the same thing with my T-Tops. Same seals too. Yours look really good. What did you spray them with? And were your frames blown out like so many are?

Bill

[RamblerRacer]

Bill,

Not sure what you mean by blown out but there was practically no issues with them at all
I did note that one side had plastic inserts where the tabs on the car mate with the top so I will have to track some of them down.
probably good to do all 4

And just because >>> here is a couple of pictures of the AMC





JT

[RamblerRacer]

Here is an update on the progress with the Camaro.
I had a few days off in between the holiday and work on it most nights and Saturdays

I got the doors prepped and the insides painted as well as the trunk
Not going too crazy with the blocking and taking the primer to 400 before color









Exterior of the doors painted. I paint mostly on Saturday mornings before anyone gets there
Crank the heat, get it done, then open all the doors and air the shop out.







The most progress was made last week while I was off to swap out the T-Top roof with the hardtop I got from the donor car a while back.
pics:









I got to prepping the roll cage and floor.
I plan to do the cage BC/CC and then re-install the roof making any touchups required after its all done









I test fit the roof and its pretty close without too much trimming.
The DS A pillar will need the most attention but I just need to hammer and dolly the seams in the back a little more to get it ready.
I cut out the inner structure to make grafting the new roof on easier and will just weld in solid sheet metal to reinforce it later.







I got the underside of the roof prepped with epoxy too.
The cage will be white like the exterior with gray floors, a-pillars and b-pillars



I also got the hood prepped and sprayed it with the main base white color this past weekend







Thanks for looking while the TA project is on hold.
At least I can work on its kin for my kin 

[Nexus]

Roof removed, roll cage installed

will you need to have the roll cage tested and certified for certain race groups or no?

[RamblerRacer]

Cage was in the car and cert’d to 8.50
Most of it was done before my cousin bought it as a roller
Roof is just off to get rid of the T-tops

JT

[RamblerRacer]

As you can see in the picture of the RM Camaro the hood scoop is red.
The Camaro here has a cowl hood, but the overall size matches the overall red area on the RM car's hood
I got the red on the hood last night















Thanks for looking
JT

[Nexus]

OMG...I didn't even realize that it had T-Tops prior...well that explains a lot

Camaro looks sweet btw

[RamblerRacer]

Yeah, not real good on a car that goes 149 through the speed traps
They were held in with gorilla tape

[Nexus]

oh boy!!

[RamblerRacer]

Last weekend was spent mostly in prep mode getting the one-piece nose in better shape and also working on the exterior of the roof
The roof had some weak enamel or something, not sure what it was if factory or just junk but it was good that I had some epoxy to use over it
I toyed with completely stripping it but wanted to save some time and it looks like it will work out.

So the inside and out side of the roof are epoxied with a good coat of 2K as well
I also went around and around on the shell filling and priming to get that in better shape










I gave the roll bar a prep coat of the white to test out using some little sprayers made by Preval for the hard-to-reach spots
It worked out good and the base will just need a scuff with some scotch bright and one more coat before clearing it.







Last night I sprayed the inside surface of the roof which the interior will get
It is a gray that will get a matte clear



The remainder of the week I will get the upper part of the cage in white and clear so the roof can go back on and go around the shell prepping some more. By next week end I hope to have the roof on and shell ready to paint.

Jim

[Nexus]

There is a lot of surface area on round parts and makes painting tubes, a PITA!!!

[RamblerRacer]

Some pictures from the roll bar painting last night













Now I can get to installing the roof

JT

[roadking77]

Looking good. I was watching Dennis Gage yesterday, he was showing a '39 ford that won daytona in the early 50's. The roll cage was 2 vertical pcs. of steel at the b pillar line and a piece of leaf spring just under the roof connected to the uprights!

[RamblerRacer]

The parts of the cage that would be hard to paint are done so amongst other things last night, I started to test fit the replacement roof on the Camaro

Three out of the four points of connection are dead on by just chucking the roof on and clamping it in the back. The DS A-pillar is off a bit and it's hard to tell why but it just is. The measurements  to the points on the roof we took prior to removing the old roof still hold, just that the A-pillar does not hit the "marks" where the cuts are by about an 1/8". I'm not too surprised or too concerned as the cars are two years apart in manufacture and who knows if one car had that tight a tolerance between cars made on the same day. I found one picture of a Fisher body plant where at least it looked like a robotic welder was being used on a 73 Firebird

Anyway; I believe I did a pretty good job marking and making the cuts. I've messed around with it enough, and it is what it is or like the Japanese say Shikata ga nai " it can't be helped" I kind of wonder if welding in the brace caused some kind of stress that relaxed when the roof was cut. the brace is up touching the cage on that side. I thought I did a good job to leave a gap so I could paint the cage.

I will just tweak the one A-pillar one way a hair and the other the opposite and it will be alright. It's getting a flush mounted Lexan windshield. I'll finish the patch repair once the roof is secured

Pictures













JT

[Nexus]

"shikata ga nai"

Daijoubu desu...totemo sugoi yo...GAMBATTE (it's ok...it looks great...Keep going/you got this {with fist pump in the air})

I'm in the middle of learning Japanese so I can talk with my inlaws, but the work you're doing is amazing and I'm enjoying the watch!!

looking forward to more!!

[RamblerRacer]

 

[RamblerRacer]

I got busy tonight
Pictures will tell the story with some info

Started about 4:00 this afternoon

I had the roof on and where I thought it should be
Said to myself >>> hey get on it and weld it in
So I got the three points that were dead on welded in





the PS A-Pillar had a little blow through probably due to thin rusty metal there

Here is the worst part of the roof swap



This has to get down to 35-5/8" to match the PS roof measurement



First pass at attachment on the DS A-pillar



If you note the little bump out of the metal in the other picture >>> I cut a relief in the corner and worked the metal into place with one of the favorite beating on tools in by cousin's shop





Got it welded in and even used some old 1980 metal harvested from the hood of the donor car to reunite with the roof



Sort of lost track uploading pictures, but here is the end result for the afternoons / evening's work

Left at 7:45 after drinking some cool ones for about 1/2 hr. marveling at the work done
 :goodjob:
If I may say so myself



Here is a mock-up of what I have planned for the flush mounted Lexan





JT

[Nexus]

Are you doing a similar flush mount design that gets used for flush mounting the glass with square tubing welded in place?

[RamblerRacer]

I kind of think I know what you are referring to. Is it the company that sells the installation kits for the flush glass?  We are not using the expensive flush mount glass

These will be 3/16” Lexan that will mount with flat head screws through the mounting surface. The kit is described as flush mount rather than the type intended for use with the stock trim. I hope there is enough material to install it flush with the surface of the body rather than just flush up against the edge. There are kits with different thicknesses of foam to get the right height

I got the roof installation completed barring one patch to the inside of the DS sail panel. I tried to upload pics to Imgur but was having an issue. I’ll try to add some later

JT

[Nexus]

I didn't even know there were flush mount kits available...lol

The last time I researched it, BRE TA was just completed (over 10 years ago) and they used (I think) 1/2 square tubing to raise the gluing surface that the glass adheres too and a wide rubber trim pushed into the gap, glued in place with that 3M black gooey, sticky butane caulking stuff.

Hopefully it turns out the way you are looking to have it set up!!

[RamblerRacer]

Kit is really just a roll of the rubber. My goal is to pick a thickness that when tightened down brings the Lexan to the height of the body surface. We’ll see

[Nexus]

I'm curious to see how it installs!