Triumph Spitfire Paint #3 - Interior Prep for Epoxy

In some ways (and I agree with Elin Yakov, who commented the same on my video), melting and scraping away old seam sealer is strangely addictive.  While underneath the car was was pretty much a no-brainer for me to do, as that seam sealer was 50+ years old and directly exposed to the elements, inside the car, especially directly under the dash, it didn't make as much sense.

However, given that all of the seam sealer on the bottom was gone because of all the panels I replaced, the stuff's age,  and my concern that the seam sealer may have been compromised in some areas that I wouldn't notice, I decided that removing it all was the better plan. And, as it turns out, it wasn't all that bad to accomplish!

The video pretty much tells the whole story so there's not a whole lot additional to share. I used my heat gun, a razor blade scraper, various wire brush types (manual and pneumatic) and just generally went to town on getting all of the stuff out of there. Once I was left with only residue, I used lacquer thinner to take it the rest of the way off.

Up under the driver's side footwell. You can see the underside of the patch I did on the bulkhead.

Up under the dash, looking at where the heater fan will go (that big circle cutout that I repaired).

Driver's side wheel arch, behind the seats. That corner where the B post is (far right, still black from seam sealer) is a pain to clean out.

Passenger's side wheel arch, running up towards the rear sailboard (car was up on the wings).

Fortunately, doing this work turned out to be a good idea early on because I did find a spot of rust on the passenger's side rear wheel arch where it meets the seat deck, which I have mentioned before. It didn't require any patching, but it probably would have since the driver's side required not one but two patches in this area!

Wheel arch / seat deck rust in the seam before cleaning.

Also, while generally cleaning up the area I discovered a "worm" of body filler snaking into the driver's side rear wing. Quick investigation with the paint stripper wheel on the grinder made short work of some repairs by the PO. It actually wasn't that bad; nothing a bit of hammer wouldn't have taken care of, but I guess if all you have is body filler, that's what you do. This wasn't anywhere near the amount of body filler, however, that I've found on other areas of the car, so there was that.

This was the spot covered in body filler. The body filler is still in the holes that fully penetrate the wing.

That was about it, about 4 or so hours of work. My next visit will concentrate on any hotwork (welding) that I need to finish up that would otherwise mess up the epoxy if I chose to wait until after painting that, which I don't want to do.  Following that, I still have some lingering grime and surface rust, which those red 3M pads should handle quite nicely. After that, it's epoxy on the inside, including the boot...and then...body work!

On a related note, I had another wonderful time at the 31st Annual British by the Sea car show hosted by the CT MG Club. There was north of 350 cars there, I think. A great show that has only gotten better in the four years that I've attended. I took about 50 or so pictures that you can look at here  (you need to scroll a bit; this link is all of my car show pics). Next year, I really, really hope that Dorothy gets to go!

Triumph Spitfire Paint #2 - Epoxy Primer

Do you believe it?! I've finally sprayed my first round of paint on Dorothy. And, shudder to think, but I think I did a pretty damn good job, too. To the video:

There's not really a whole lot to document here in still images that I didn't better document on the video, so please watch that.  I've got a lot of words for you, though, so bear with me.

I was able to get the "paint booth" set up with a filtered air intake and exhaust (though a bit cheesy, I must say) and mixed the paint with no problems.

I'm using Southern Polyurethanes  (SPI)grey epoxy primer with a Devilbiss FLG-4 Finishline spray gun.  For both of these choices, I did some research and asked some questions on my favorite forum. I never got conclusive answers, but I got enough to make what I thought was an informed decision.

The SPI guys ended up being a no-brainer. Their customer service is great (the owner gives out his personal cell phone for tech support...and he actually gets back to you).  Their forum is also very strong and I've had my few questions answered quickly and completely. They  seem to be a small business that caters to the DIY guy and people that want quality in small batches. While they unfortunately don't  mix custom paint (i.e., I cannot get Signal Red from them), they do provide all of the stages of paint (epoxy primer, 2K primer, etc.) through their "house" color topcoats (black, red, etc). I'm so impressed that I'm seriously considering going with their house red if it's pretty close to Signal Red. Not sure how I'll figure that out, but I'm going to look into it.

As for the gun, the Finishline is not Devilbiss' lowest tier gun, but it's also not anywhere near their highest. I'd call it their entry-level "I like to think I'm serious about this, but not so sure yet" gun. I did previous videos and posts on it. Do you own research, but it worked great for the epoxy and it comes with three spray tips (they run about $50 separately) so that made it economical and, hopefully, a single-purchase solution.

I took notes during this whole thing on quantities, temperatures, pressures, etc. I kick myself for not taking notes during other (or any, really) phases of this rebuild but here, it matters for future reference to minimize wastage. I was really surprised by how much paint is. Two quarts of epoxy primer and activator (so, a gallon of material total, mixed 1:1) ran me $180. Based on what I used underneath, I'm not so sure that's going to be enough for two coats on the whole car. And, as for price,  that's not too bad, come to find out. A gallon of SPI single-stage red is  about $325. The activator is another $30. I had no idea, so be prepared to spend well over $500 on just paint. Combine that with the insane amount of time it's taken me to prep for paint (granted, I'm a rookie and not efficient) and I fully and completely understand why paint jobs cost so damn much!

Enough of me waxing philosophic...do your research and make your decisions. I'm in it for the long haul and now, more than ever, want to paint every bit of Dorothy myself. The results that I got on the epoxy primer (while I'm sure are not directly relatable to doing top coat) have only convinced me that it's worth going for it.

So, while I did get a run or two, I was very happy with how it turned out and am eager to get the interior cleaned up so I can shoot that too!!

And, no, I still haven't decided on what I'm going to do, ultimately, underneath (top coat, bedliner, etc.), if anything. Cheers!

Triumph Spitfire Body Repair #54 - Nope, Not Quite Done...Maybe Now??

One of the last things to fix on the body was to install new rear wing finishers, or  trim pieces. Unfortunately, they don't appear to be cut properly at the top, where the tail light mounts. In the picture below, you can see where the top of the union between the rear wing and the rear valance in cut at an angle sloping "down", while the trim piece is cut at an angle going "up". This is true of all of the major suppliers, as best I can tell, and the consensus on my favorite forum is that they are definitely cut improperly. That's a bummer and something that I left to take care of in the future.

The valance/wing angle and trim angle should match...should.

Unfortunately, while this area is somewhat covered by the rear bumpers and overriders, this particular area is not, so I'll have to come up with a proper solution. Shouldn't be too bad, though, as I'll probably just wrap metal around it.

To the video:

I started with the driver's side (the still images are all of the passenger's side, however), which ended up being the more difficult of the two, but neither was too bad. As you may expect, the trim piece didn't fit real well with the curve of the wing / valence, so some clamping and mechanical persuasion was required. I used regular vise grips and a rubber mallet to make it work.

Once I was happy with the trial fit, I weld-through primed the area on the wing and valence.

Primed and ready.

While waiting for the primer to dry, I drilled several holes along the trim piece for plug welds.  Once the primer was dry, I liberally applied some brush-on seam sealer.

Seam sealer applied. Not too difficult to work with.

I let that air out a bit, and then put the trim piece back on and clamped it down.

Final fit for passenger's side.

With that done and fit, it was time to weld. Seam sealer is quite flammable. In hindsight, and if I were to do this again, I would have used an adhesive made for metal bonding. I probably would have been much easier and prevented what I'm sure is compromised seam sealer in the area of the welds (it did catch on fire, after all).

Underside showing it welded in.

Outside, all welded in and ground down. You can see the smoke marks from the burning seam sealer.

And that was about it for those. There's still some work to do back there, but the most important thing was getting those on because I wanted them attached before I epoxy-primered the bottom of the car, since I was going to weld them in. Again, if I had used an adhesive, I would have epoxied first to take advantage of it's great corrosion resistance and sealing properties - lesson learned for next time...I never do this again!

The last hour or so of the visit was dedicated to errecting a paint booth. It required some more work, but it would be effective.

First prototype.

That's about it. On a separate note, tomorrow (6/3/18) is the  31st Annual British by the Sea  car show hosted by the Connecticut MG Club at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford, CT. The weather forecast has steadily improved over the last several days and I should be there around mid-morning. If you are reading this, are local, plan on attending, AND you recognize me, please say hi! Cheers.

Triumph Spitfire Restoration - "Just About Done" Epoxy Prep

Getting close now. The video:

Nothing all the exciting, really, but I got some old seam sealer removed and lots of the general area inside the car all cleaned up. I did find another area of concern, but it wasn't enough to replace metal.

This is the wheel arch / rear seat deck union. Picture rotated 90-degrees left because car was up on wings.

However, it did clean up quite a bit. I'll do the same here that I did with the rear valance panel and hit it with some vinegar, clean it up real well and get epoxy on it.

After cleaning. Not great, but it will get better.

Otherwise, it was just a matter of going around with my heat gun and wire brush to remove old seam sealer and the red Scotchbrite pads to remove seam sealer residue (with the help of some lacquer thinner) and general dirt and grime. There was also some old carpet adhesive to remove, but that was easy.

Passenger's side looking back into the boot. Cleaning up okay, but need to get that seam sealer out of there.

Cleaning up the dash area.

In addition to that, I also solved (as of now, anyway) my air moisture problem. Here comes a bit of technical explaining, so bear with me.

Dry, clean air is very important when painting a car. Since the air provides motive force for the paint, anything entrained in the air will come out with the paint. Dirt particles are obviously bad since you'll get dirt specs in the paint and/or clog the gun. Something less obvious, however, is moisture.

Essentially, automotive paint is oil-based (sort of). Since oil and water don't mix, high water content in the air will result in imperfections in the paint. Not good.

In a perfect world, I'd have thousands of dollars and be able to employ a large desiccant air drying to dry the air on it's way to the spray gun. Since that's not an option, another solution is to allow the air to cool after leaving the compressor motor. The idea here is that hot air holds more moisture than cold air (hot and humid in the summer, cold and dry in the winter). One way to  do this is making a "radiator" of copper pipe with drains in the bends.

Example of a copper pipe air cooler.

I was going to go this route (~$150-200 in supplies), but I found another solution that seems to be working and is much cheaper (and less labor intensive).

Motor Guard.

That solution is a Motor Guard  air filter. It's essentially a steel housing, with 1/2" inlet and outlet connections, stuffed with a roll of toilet paper. At about $60, it's a very simple and cost-effective solution. You can really use rolls of toilet paper to replace the internal filter, so it's really cheap to operate, too. Along with that, I purchased a desiccant solution for at the gun itself, also by Motor Guard.

Dynamic Duo. You can just barely see the filter in the housing of the Motor Guard.

I did some testing, albeit in relatively dry air, and it worked great. I'm sure if I get to painting in the middle of the summer, I'll have to pay special attention to ensure that the solution continues to work, but I'll also run the A/C in the garage to help dry the air.

Otherwise, that was about it.  The final thing to do before I was ready to paint the underneath was to replace the rear wing/valance finisher pieces, which, of course, had their own unique challenges.

Triumph Spitfire Body Repair #53 - Done?

I got ahead of myself in the last post and documented more repairs than the video documented. That's what you get when you wait so long to update your blog, so sorry about that.
Anyway, I think I have accomplished the last of my body repairs. Except for some minor hole filling  and some odds and ends that I'm sure I missed, I really cannot think of anything else...well, unless I decide to redo that bulkhead patch. To the video:

One portion I fixed was where the driveshaft tunnel connected to the heel board. My investigation told me that the factory did not adequately spot weld this area and, with all of my moving and welding and all, I popped a few of them. So, with my trusty sheet metal screws and welder, I took care of that problem.

Area of concern is top of tunnel curve. You can see where the metal is separating.

The gap prior to repair.

After repairs...nice and tight (trust me, it's better).

I also re-did the exhaust hanger coming off the boot floor because I messed it up the first time. I couldn't see underneath then since the wings weren't in existence yet. An easy repair, none-the-less.

Drilled out and re-installed.

With that done, I moved on to the heater core interface with the body. As you may expect, this isn't always a dry area and rust had eaten away at the existing passenger's side of the pipe penetration and some of the fan flange. Because I'm a dork, I didn't photographically document this worth a sh*t, but there you go. As usual, the video does it justice.

And...done.

Fortunately, and has been the case, this area of the black car was just fine and I cut the patch from it quite a while ago and finally got around to getting it welded in. A satisfying repair, I must say.  Cheers!

Triumph Spitfire Painting #1 - Practice Makes Perfect

I broke out the gun and gave it a shot:

I wanted to get a feel for how this stuff worked, figuring it was the way to save my butt from inexperience since epoxy primer, let alone the paint itself, is NOT cheap (~$75 for  a quart of primer and a quart of activator from Southern Polyurethanes).

What I did to test my setup and see how it all worked was get a large bottle of black acrylic craft paint from Walmart (~$4, much cheaper!), cut it with some water (about a 1:1 ratio) and sprayed it on to a few sheets of masking paper. It was fun and I figured out the gun controls.

Practice. You can see the round spots where I was figuring out the spray pattern settings.

Not really anything to it other than that, but if you've never done this before, like me, it's a cheap and easy way to learn how your gun works. And it cleans up with water...just make sure you really dry the gun out well so it doesn't rust!!!

Triumph Spitfire Body Repair #52 - More Boot Floor Repairs

The video:

I had another area of similar damage to my last post (the flange area around a few spot welds) and I took the same approach for the repair. I also found another spot that was Swiss-cheesed pretty well, so I fixed that, too. The write-up doesn't exactly match the order of events in the video as I was jumping around a bit that night.

In addition to the boot floor repairs, I also went at the cover that goes over the  rear spring. Dorothy did not originally come with one (and I don't believe they are available to purchase), but I had the black car's  and it was in decent enough shape to repair. Repairs entailed putting in a patch piece for the larger portions of cancer, spot welding some minor holes, and making a new flange-thing (you'll see what I mean in the pics). All in all, it came out just fine.

Old (left) and new flange-thing.

Patch ready to get welded in after some more alignment tweaks.

Patch welded in as well as some holes filled.

Finished product.

Other side, showing that "flange-thing".

With that sorted, it was on to the repairs to the boot floor. The damage was on the passenger's side and I was concerned of similar damage to the  driver's side. To figure that out, I took a wire wheel and various cleaning abrasives to the inside of the boot to get the old seam sealer out of there and inspect the joints throughout the boot. My fears were for naught, thankfully, as I found no additional areas of concern.

Same area, but on the driver's side.

Of interest here, you can see in the above picture the white area around the metal seams. Much like is recommended today (and I intend to do), the car is primed before any seam sealer (or body filler) is applied. Looks like Triumph followed the same process 50+ years ago as the white paint was under the seam sealer, indicated that the red top coat was sprayed after the seam sealer was applied.

In addition to the floor itself, a small bracket clip that functions to secure that part of the  backboard covering the fuel tank was right in the cancer area.  Since most of the metal was gone anyway, the spot welds were easily drilled out. After some initial hesitation, I was able to salvage the piece as it cleaned up just fine.

Bracket prior to removal. The broken off screw is indicative of the corrosion in the area (and the large holes, too!)

Back side of removed bracket showing captive nut, properly called a spire clip, I believe.

Other sides, showing sheared screw.

With the bracket out, I could now safely remove the cancer area without worrying about damage to the bracket. My small pneumatic cut off wheel  and some spot weld drill-throughs made short order of this. By the way, that cut off wheel thing cost about $8 from Harbor Freight, without a coupon. The reviews it got were not great, but the thing has been awesome for me; really good for the tighter spots that you don't want to put the 4 1/2 angle cutoff wheel in. I oil it before each daily use (as I do with all of my pneumatic tools using Marvel Mystery Oil) and haven't had a problem.

Boot (interior) side of the piece. Yuck!

Underside (exterior).

This piece was pretty easy to fabricate, as it was just a rectangular piece with two sides of it bent about 90-degrees.

New piece mostly fitted.

No going back now...well, without cutting that is.

The more tricky repair was the next area since it was on a more curved area of the boot floor. I was able to use my shrinker-stretchers again to make a new piece relatively easily. As I've mentioned in the past, these things are not cheap and I wouldn't make the purchase lightly, but the (too) few times that I've used them, they've been the only reason I got the good fit that I did.

The video documents the piece construction ok, but all I've got for you here is a still image after the fact.

Fit up, ready to weld. The gap is a bit bigger than I would prefer, but it worked.

Welded in.

And that was about it for those repairs. They went well and I was happy with the results.

Final repairs, pre-cleanup.

In case the camera angles may seem a bit odd, the car was up on the wings for all of these repairs. Not to toot my own horn, but I can't tell you how much the wings have helped me out in making things easily accessible and repairable. It's the best $40 I've spent on any tool yet and I highly recommend, if you need the access that I do, to give it a try. Thanks again to Chef Tush for the inspiration!

Until next time (which will hopefully not be as long as this time), cheers!