1946 Chevy Fleetmaster 2-door, meet "Betty"...

hvyman

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That's a sick color. I like how it changes like that. Dark purple looks sick on the mk3.

Went ot lol.
 

BoostMonger

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te72

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IJ.;1888848 said:
Just have to be a little careful Brad, big bulgey panels with not a lot of structral shape to them are easy to over heat in places then you end up with KG's of filler trying to get rid of the waves... you might save a little time now but add hours to the end ..

I applied a LOT of stripper then took it to the Local Service station that had a pressure washer at the end of the building, blew it all off (all over the place) and beat a hasty retreat before anyone noticed what I was doing >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> meep meep roadrunner style!
The more paint/rust I've removed, the more work I have uncovered haha... For what it's worth, the car probably sat outside for 30 or 40 years, so the dingg, dents, and other surprises haven't really bothered me yet. I will admit, the roof has a couple interesting dents/waves. Those could have been something I caused, between grinding AND sitting on the roof at the same time. Didn't really have any scaffolding or anything to work with, and this car is TALL... I have tried to be as careful as possible to not linger in any one spot too long, although in learning this process, I know that I created a few hotspots. Have since gotten better, all the work I did on the roof last night looked really good. I figure a good rule with this car is to make sure you stop when the metal is dark gray. If it gets shinier than that, you're probably burning into new metal...

My brother is very much of the mentality that you pound out dents, you fix holes with metal, and use as little filler as possible. Hopefully he can work some magic and fix anything I may have screwed up. If not, I'll end up with a cool old car with some imperfections. I have faith in him though. :)

The buddy mentioned who will be doing all the mechanical aspects of the car also suggested the car wash/stripper solution haha. Great minds think alike I guess. :p

Poodles;1888858 said:
There ARE environmentally friendly strippers out there...

But if you want to do it with a grinder, there's stuff like this: http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3642457&cagpspn=pla
This is what I have been using, seems to have been working ok so far, just a little time consuming:

http://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-DW4930...=1352066584&sr=8-1&keywords=dewalt+wire+wheel

I saw the stripper attachment that you posted when I bought the grinder, but that thing seems pretty brutal. Have any experience with them?

hvyman;1888859 said:
That's a sick color. I like how it changes like that. Dark purple looks sick on the mk3.

Went ot lol.
Thanks man. Was originally going to go with a similar style of red (similar effects/tones) that resembled Nissan's black cherry color. For whatever reason I decided on the blue at the last minute. Its turning purple, we didn't really anticipate haha. No worries on the OT, won't be too many significant updates until we start fixing the body.

BoostMonger;1888861 said:
;Smartstrip, i use that shit at work to strip radioactive paint from intermodal containers, brush a think coat of stripper and let sit in a warm place for about an hour and goodbye paint, shit just washes off.
Is it something that you would recommend using in a garage though? Heat (the 'warm place' you mention) isn't exactly something we have much of this time of year. Bad enough I have to keep the garage door open for ventilation...


Anyway, yesterday I finished up the front of the driver side, removed more paint from the cowl and roof (roof is mostly done now), and reorganized the garage. Have MUCH more space to work with now without being too much in the way. :)

Oh, and here's probably the worst bit we have to deal with, located on the driver side rear, where the fender meets the body at the back of the body line:
Hole in driver side rear fender area.jpg

Needless to say, not looking forward to this part.
 

te72

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Got a bit more done last night in another hour or so. Probably going to try getting it done by the end of the weekend, time allowing and weather permitting. By the grace of God (hopefully), we'll be working on making the thing move under its own power for the first time since........? Shooting to be working on that part by the end of December.

Taking a cursory glance over the body some more last night though... things don't look terribly promising. As always, rust tends to work its way from the INSIDE out. :nono:

We'll see where we are this weekend. For now, bedtime. Didn't sleep well last night, and worked an 11 hour shift today, so...
 

te72

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Well, hoping that a combination of the early shift this week (7-4pm) and supposedly warmer (low to high 40's) weather will grant me the sunlight and the warmth to knock this out this week. Would have done it this weekend, but the white shit fell from the sky and the weather got down pretty chilly, so nothing happened on it really.

Thinking about sealing up the door part of the fender (literally that little bump on the front part of the door), by having my brother weld a panel in place. I honestly cannot think of any good reason that wasn't like that to begin with... Obviously the hole on the back of the front fender has to be there to allow the door part to not interfere, but the door part should be sealed I think...

Also might re-use the MkIV wheels I used on the Supra for this thing, at least until I can find a good set of Work full-moons. :)
 

te72

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Made a bit of progress over the past couple days, as well as a couple discoveries.

-Passenger side door and (half of) the rear body is stripped down to spots of original primer.

-Finding that the running board is shot, not only beneath the door, but into the body shell behind it. This could get interesting...

-Found out that flat, light green paint is an excellent way to hide some pretty serious (albeit small) dents.

Hoping to have the body completely stripped on the outside (except the firewall, fenders, and hood) sometime this weekend. Can only work on it for a couple hours a night before it gets cold in the garage, and I'd be going past the common courtesy noise level versus late hour limit. Saturday though, gotta go in to work at 5am, by the time I'm home and rested up, should be plenty early to get cranking on the rest of this. :)

Will post more pictures once the main body is done.
 

BoostMonger

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You know what? This will decimate all, after, you put about 15 grand in it, or more, if we have to overnight parts from...... Detroit.

Sent From My HTC One S using Tapatalk 2
 

te72

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BrettMRC;1895911 said:
Lot's of good work has gone into that :)

There's nothing not to like! :D
Thanks man. :)

BoostMonger;1896091 said:
You know what? This will decimate all, after, you put about 15 grand in it, or more, if we have to overnight parts from...... Detroit.
With surprisingly affordable overnight UPS charges! :rofl:

IJ.;1896093 said:
I see what you did there. Pretty damned funny actually, although you might be surprised. Rock Auto actually sells/stocks quite a bit of stuff for these old things. Conveniently, GM used the same parts for pretty much everything they made back then, save for body parts.


Minor update, the main body is done with paint stripping, except the firewall, not sure if we're doing that just yet, given we may have to do a bit of cutting/reshaping to fit the engine/trans in. Two of the fenders are done. I still have the hood, and the other two fenders. Trying to convince my brother to come over and start the welding is the tricky part at this point...

Anyway, thinking about sending the bumpers and grille out to get re-chromed. Have a paint scheme in mind with a dark gray for the bottom half of the car (think at the top of the doors, below where the windows start), and a nice shiny red with lots of metal flake in it that Rich likes to paint motorcycle tanks with. Showed me pics of the one he did a while back... it looks goooooood. Would be a good combo for this car too, kinda been there, done that (the red and black theme), but whatever. :p