1970 Monte Carlo Stripped to bare metal and brought back to life!

[importguy1208]

This car came to me initially as something I was supposed to put a band-aid on. The car had been repainted years ago with a lacquer based paint and it had seen better days. Another shop had been paid to strip the bad lacquer off of the car and start back over with clean bare metal and build it back up the right way. The car received a fairly nice paint job while it was there and it was soon sent on it's way.

However, three weeks after picking the car up from this unnamed shop, the roof, the hood, and the trunk started shrinking back again. Uh oh, looks like this shop took some short cuts.

My initial job was to strip those effected areas down to metal and blend back into the new paint job hoping for a seamless transition. It came apparent fairly early on that there just wasn't a good place to stop stripping the car at. The last paint shop had used two different types of primers to fill the cracked lacquer. Problem with doing things that way, is that the lacquer is never going to stop shrinking.

Combine that with this hot Florida sun and the owner was very quickly looking at needing to strip the entire car down again and starting back over. Again.

So, 5 gallons of paint stripper, 2 boxes of 80 grit d/a paper, 50 razor blades, 10 pieces of 8" 40 grit on my buffer, 10 wire wheels, a pressure washer, and several headaches later, I had most of the car down to bare metal. It was full of filler and I discovered it had been side swiped and the wheel well arches were almost completely gone. The obvious solution was for all the filler to be removed and metal work to restore as much of the original shape as possible.

At this point we decided to eliminate the door handles, the c pillar name plaques, the hood trim, the trunk latch, and the trunk trim. They quickly got welded up and while we did that we took care of the rust and the holes that the previous shop had stuffed full of bondo.

The next step was a 2 part epoxy primer that went directly on the cleaned bare metal surfaces. Most of the car received three coats and problem areas received four or five. This stuff builds up thick and really puts a good layer of protection down on the car. The car was guide coated and then blocked with 180 dry. Yes this stuff is thick.

After the epoxy primer I attacked the body work. Oh what a nightmare that was. This car was stuffed full of filler. The waves in the body were bad enough that you could have grabbed a surfboard and rode the whole length of the car.

Sadly there was just too much wave in the body to not have to use filler. So on went the mud. Hours and hours and hours later I rolled the car back in the booth and slathered four coats of primer on it. Follow it with guide coat, block it with 180 to make sure it's straight, fix what needed fixed, three more coats of primer, block it with 320, go back over it with 600 wet, and finally it was ready to start seeing some color.

The paint itself was a long and very time consuming process as well. The first step was the blue stripe which is actually blue flake sprayed in clear coat over white sealer. There is a little bit of HoK Oriental Blue Candy mixed in with the flake for some added depth. This stage involved lots of blocking and several sessions in the booth to get the depth and coverage we were looking for. Two gallons of clear were sprayed on this car just in getting the flake on the car and flat.

After the clear/flake had been blocked down, the process really started to move along. I started to lay out the graphic so I could get it taped out and proceed on with a white sealer over the car followed by the silver pin stripe. From there I taped up the pinstripe, papered the lower edges to cover them, and then sprayed my green top color. Gave it an hour or two to dry, flipped my paper over, and sprayed the bottom of the car black.

Gave the base plenty of time to flash dry, removed all the tape and paper from the graphics and the pinstripe, wiped everything down with a wax and grease removed and then sprayed four heavy coats of clear on the entire car. The clear was given 48 hours to dry and then was blocked with 600 grit wet. After it was blocked down the car went back in the paint booth where it received three more heavy coats of clear.

At this stage the car was wet-sanded in stages starting with 1000, then 1200, and followed with 1500. The car then underwent a three stage buffing process to get all the shine and depth possible out of the clearcoat and the colors that were chosen.

Start on the reassembly, line everything up, fix any little issues that came up, and I present to you the final product.









Lots more pictures here: AARON FIEHN 1970 MONTE CARLO CUSTOM PAINTJOB or Aaron Fiehn 1970 Monte Carlo

[oldschool98]

Wow thats nice man. Gotta hate fixing some hacks mess-- see it all the time myself. Nice work

[351coupe]

Nice work bro.

[ibidu1]

Why didnt you just get it sand blasted or media blasted?

Great job btw!

[importguy1208]

Why didnt you just get it sand blasted or media blasted?

Great job btw!

It wasn't really in the budget and we didn't want to pull any of the interior pieces or the engine or any of the other pieces that need to come off. Plus I really didn't know how bad it was until I got into the doors and the quarters and they were the last two places I stripped as well as the worst.

I have dealt with both sand blasted and media blasted cars and I like the process of both. No one local could guarantee that they wouldn't warp the panels additionally. Most of them are set up for big wrought iron gates and trailers and the such and the pressure and volume of sand is really too much for sheet metal.

I would love to find someone who does soda blasting but I think I'll get stuck coming up with my own set-up for that before I find someone who does it.