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Tech Area => Paint and Body => Topic started by: bryes on April 29 2015, 08:52:36 PM

Title: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on April 29 2015, 08:52:36 PM
My life has been pretty crazy lately with projects and other thing. Most of my time lately has been spent helping my uncle paint his '78 Malibu (454, pretty quick) recently. He taught me to paint my Camaro back in the 90s, so I owe him!

As can be seen below, the car was pretty straight but did have some rust issues being in Ohio for the last couple decades. We have most stripped to bare metal now:
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on April 29 2015, 08:55:03 PM
The above picture you can see the quarter cut out because of rust.

Below is the door, both sides are similar. I made some pieces for the bottom and have them welded in now.  The car is going to be a driver, so no concourse restoration here .
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on April 29 2015, 09:03:17 PM
It's a bad picture but the quarter here was replaced, they cut another out of a car and welded it in. No replacing the entire panel like in the shows that I've seen, and that's the way it will stay.

We hope to have it finished in the next few weeks, so I'll add more as we progress. This rust repair is time consuming and we still have to prep a lot of the detail areas. He wants it clear coated black, I'm trying to convince him to go white or flat black! Don't think I'll win that one, so we'll have our hands full.

If we stick to our plan, I'll be spraying it with urethane, probably summit brand which I think is Kirker.  We're going with epoxy primer then 2k, then epoxy sealer and probably single stage black then clear. I'd rather do base/clear but we'll see.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: daveismissing on April 29 2015, 11:20:18 PM
go to hotroddors.com and read up on SPI polyur. Didn't think Kirkers had many fans...
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on April 30 2015, 07:16:54 AM
Yeah I suggested spi and even offered to donate my epoxy primer to no avail!    Guess we found the only kirker fan? .he's used it and likes it and is on a tight budget.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: motorhead on April 30 2015, 09:31:28 PM
I wonder who makes Eastwood's single stage paints... worked well for me in the past.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on May 03 2015, 05:59:23 PM
There seems to be divergent opinions on who makes Eastwood paint, most seem to say it's kirker though.
Title: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: larrym on May 03 2015, 07:10:14 PM
I used a Nason's single stage last go it's pretty tough just wish I had used an epoxy primer.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on May 03 2015, 07:48:10 PM
We might have used nason if they had local distributor. we're definitely going to use epoxy. Paint is just crazy expensive these days . dp 40 is supposedly 400 for two gallons, kirker epoxy is 100.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on May 08 2015, 09:38:52 PM
Still mired in rust repair but much is done now. Here is a door hinge area before and after .
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on May 08 2015, 09:57:43 PM
Here is the half of the door bottom I made. It's welded in now but I'll have to post pics later.. Also the roof cut out and welded back in, I spent most of today on it and the rest grinding.  Quarter repair tomorrow.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: good2win22 on May 09 2015, 08:55:17 AM
More power to you!  Looks good! 
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on May 15 2015, 09:43:34 PM
Thanks!

Here is the quarter cutout, the repair  panel and it welded in place. I think the front side posts. are the final areas that need rust repair so well get to those soon.

Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: TURBOPOWERED68 on May 15 2015, 10:17:56 PM
i likes
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: TexasT on May 16 2015, 07:00:25 PM
A little explanation please. I'm no body man by any stretch so bear with me. That piece in your gloved hand, it is bought or fabbed? When you weld it in you just make tack welds at opposite ends and skip around until you have the panel "stitched" in? If I make my own patch is there a rule of thumb to know what sheet metal to use? I think I can buy a patch panel but maybe it is better to get sheet and make my own. Not real sure. It is on a 70 gs lower fender.
Welder, are you using 75/25 mix? .023 wire?
Thanks for the advice.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on May 16 2015, 11:07:50 PM
I'm really no body man either but I do enjoy it.  I've fabbed all the panels so far but I cheated because I have a sheet metal brake and shear. I have made panels without the machines but it's harder of course.  I match the gauge of sheet metal to match the car. I've been using 22 gauge which is about .028".

I struggle with the welding, but stitch it in like you said. I'm using 75/25 with .030"wire and a Miller multimatic 200 welder.  Id try .023 wire if I had some because I've still been getting some warpage with my current method. If I had to do it over I might have soldered in the doors at least, so that is something to think about too, I've had good luck not warping with solder. This one will have some filler needed to smooth it all out.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: motorhead on May 18 2015, 09:10:34 PM
One day I'll do something like this for the challenge... but, mostly because I hate myself. ;)
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on May 23 2015, 10:56:20 PM
The rust repair is finally almost done. Only the rhs window post to go in the first picture. It's worse than the rhs that I repaired in the second pict. I noticed my gn has some rust in the same area,, too bad gm stuffs that area with foam or whatever causing the issue I think.

Since rain is forecasted for the next few days, we scrambled to get epoxy on the areas that need filler.. I sandblasted all the lap welds and a few rust spots today and sprayed the epoxy primer, making  sure to get the weld well coated. The last three pictures show the major areas that were primed, the quarters and doors. I used fiberglass filler to seal the welds for the unlikely event that some of my asked might have some porosity.  :D

I'm actually glad my phone is crappy because it hides some of my crappy welding and the fish eyes in the primer. :icon_lol: We need to get the water out of the air lines.._
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on May 29 2015, 11:00:54 PM
For the rhs side post we cut out a section from an 87 regal first pic. Not sure why but the fit was off in second pic so I had to cut it down center and weld it up in third pic. Finished in fourth.

were done with rust repair now! Here's the door with filler being worked out.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: Scoobum on May 30 2015, 06:04:55 PM
Wish I could weld and do body work. Keep the pics coming. :rock:
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: TexasT on May 30 2015, 09:26:33 PM
Buy a little welder, a hood, gloves, wire and some busted up sheet metal and hit YouTube for some instruction. I learned arc welding in eight grade shop class and oxy/acetylene cutting and welding in freshman shop. I got a little wire feed about ten years ago. It aint much but it'll melt metal. And it is a lot of fun.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on June 05 2015, 12:53:47 AM
Taking a welding class or at least having an experienced person to guide you will save a lot of aggregation I think..


Welding is great fun except for the part where a spark flies in your ear and you can hear your ear canal sizzling. Sucks big!
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on June 05 2015, 10:31:41 PM
Car is completely primed now. We did wind up using spi epoxy. Here's a few pics. A few runs but that's what happens when I spray!

Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on June 28 2015, 08:35:57 PM
Update :

Progress has slowed because I'm working two states away now. We're still. block sanding. The doors seem to be the biggest problem followed by the ps quarter which is about done hopefully. Below is the current state. ps quarter, door and fillers , trunk lid and ds quarter which seems to be turning out nice.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: Scoobum on June 28 2015, 08:38:00 PM
Lookin' good! :)
Title: Good bad and ugly
Post by: bryes on August 16 2015, 10:36:39 PM
Well after blocking out the car for the majority of the summer, we're starting to spray the detached components black, no clear yet. So far the results have been a mixed bag.


The good:


The fender in the below  pictures turned out really well overall. I started off spraying the trunk lid, the inside turned out well. The outside turned out to be orange pealed fairly significantly. I think the reason was that I was using medium reducer (70 - 80F , it was about 85 ambient), so I thinned out the paint with a little high temp reducer and the outside of the fender came out really well as you can see in the pictures below.


The fender IMO was about as good as can be expected without a booth. A few specks in the paint that I'm sure will water sand out easily. It looks really straight to me in person, no waviness at all. The paint really flowed out nice, which I can't say about everything else.


The bad:
I had a couple of small runs on the fillers and the fender on the back side. Nothing major. The trunk lid was orange peeled badly, but it's not a show stopper because it will be cleared and water sanded. Sorry for no pictures, just imagine a trunk lid without much gloss bc of the orange peel!


When I started spraying the door my gun started dripping paint out of the fluid nozzle onto the door. We found out that the paint line on my pressure pot had some old paint that was flaking off and getting stuck in the between the fluid needle and seat (if that's what it was called) allowing paint to flow when the trigger wasn't pulled. I had to clean out all the old flaky paint from the line with a .22 gun cleaning brush.


The ugly:
I had to remove the fittings from the flexible lines to fit the cleaning brush in. The fittings are a kind of compression design  that have a brass ring that is clamped, similar to a water line compression fitting. Well in retrospect I should have known better, but to get that brass piece to slide over the rubber line, I lubed it with "tire wet" which works great for mounting tires, but as it turns out should stay as far away from paint as humanly possible.


Although I flushed out the lines with MEK thinking that would be sufficient to take care of the lube, when I went to spray the door I was met with the worst case fish eyes I've ever seen. I guess that little bit of stuff contaminated the whole batch of paint too, and even pouring it into a new container and spraying with another gun didn't help, the fish eyes were still there. Worst of all, I sprayed almost the entire door before realizing what was happening, so that is going to be a real pain. Unfortunately, the rest of the weekend was spent cleaning the spray equipment and sanding down my screw ups!


Sorry I don't have pictures of the bad and ugly, I'm hoping to wipe any evidence of that episode out of existence.


Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: Scoobum on August 16 2015, 10:43:42 PM
It's a great learning experience...a nd you can always sand and reshoot it. Keep the pics and updates coming. :cheers:
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on August 24 2015, 10:16:34 PM
This weekend went a lot better for this project. The only thing  that turned out messed up was the second fender where a small dent became noticeable after I sprayed it black. I sprayed a fender, both doors, the trunk lid and a bunch of smaller panels (fillers etc.) in single stage. Then the trunk lid, fillers and a couple of smaller panels were then sprayed with 4 coats of clear. It's  summit racing paint btw; I beleive it's made by kirkar. High temp reducer with medium temp activator. The ambient temperature was roughly low 80s. I sprayed it with a binks 7 B/C, it's a conventional gun.


The pictures below all have the 4 coats of clear. The paint is really nice by my standards at least, low orange peal. I could really load it onto the horizontal surfaces. But I will say there are noticeable imperfections in the clear that aren't visible in the pictures, so we'll have some water sanding to do. That's the bad thing about not having a booth. A few small bugs got into the paint but luckily the dragon fly that swooped in didn't stick! Overall I'll take it.


Sorry the pictures are so terrible. I wish I would have taken them when the trunk lid was outside in the sun. It looked great imo.



Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: Scoobum on August 24 2015, 10:29:08 PM
Lookin' good! Keep the pics/info comin'!
Title: back in black!
Post by: bryes on September 08 2015, 09:47:15 PM
Over the weekend we got the car painted black with four coats of clear. Below are some pictures. Just water sanding , buffing and assembly to go I think. Also a pic of the incredible assembly of spray guns that I've collected.  I'll eventually have to get some better pictures.


Overall the body is straight, we did see a couple imperfections, nothing major. The paint has fairly considerable orange peel in places.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: Scoobum on September 08 2015, 09:50:29 PM
I'm liking it!
Title: Update
Post by: bryes on April 16 2016, 07:41:04 PM
We kind of had a major setback last fall on this project. We got almost everything cleared and were in the process of water sanding and buffing it out. Everything looked great until we were in the final stages of buffing. Since we were in a darker garage everything looked fine. Then we opened the garage door so direct sunlight fell on the car and what we noticed was horrible... tiny specks in the clear. It wasn't contamination like one might think, but if you look up "solvent pop" on the net, that's our best guess as to what it was. Looking at it under a magnifying glass, it looks like little tiny voids in the clear coat. You won't even notice it until the light hits it just right and reflects back at tiny little points of light. I bet on a lighter color you'd never know it was there, but black.... ugh. 


Assuming the  solvent pop theory the solution is to allow more time between coats and spray at cooler temperatures to allow the solvents to completely evaporate. We sanded all of the clear off the car and re coated everything, this time waiting more that an hour between coats of clear when spraying. Yes it sucked and unfortunately it did the same thing....


So now we have to sand that stupid car down again. I'm convinced that the paint itself is bad. My uncle tried to get some satisfaction from summit Racing to no avail. Next time it will be sprayed with another brand of clear.


Kind of a bummer, but the car will be even straighter after all this sanding!





The picture below is the clear after being water sanded and partially buffed out. I was really pleased with how straight it looked. Very hard to find imperfections. You can't see the solvent pop in this picture but it's there.  I have some others someplace where you can, I'll try to find those some other time.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: daveismissing on April 16 2016, 08:06:37 PM
I'm not a painter but I understood Kirker to be a "economy" brand?
I could just be brainwashed by the intelligencia at hotrodders...
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: Scoobum on April 17 2016, 07:13:04 AM
Sorry to hear...that sucks. Hang in in there.
Title: 78 Malibu
Post by: Robertsa on August 07 2016, 07:48:03 AM
I decided to paint it myself.  Probably not the quality of a professional but looks pretty nice for a rattle can job 
 
Does anyone have suggestions on what I can add next?
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: howieyall on September 14 2017, 11:13:06 PM
Well done.  :cheers:
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on December 01 2018, 10:38:25 AM
Unfortunately, we had nothing but problems with the clear coat on this car. At the time we believed our problems were related to solvent pop by not allowing enough time before respraying the clear, so too much buildup etc. So, after sanding it all back down to the base coat and respraying to remove the "solvent pop spots", I resprayed the 3-4 layers of clear, except this time I waited far longer between coats (1- 2 hours).


Unfortunately, this strategy ended in a similar result (although it was better).... and also resulted in the same massive setback, sand down the entire body again.


After this, we finally solved the problem by changing 2 and only 2 things:
#1 the air hose
#2 the paint


This time instead of using summit clear we bought a $500 / gal can of PPG clear. The difference was of course worth the extra coin.


Because of these setbacks and me living in another state again (no jobs for me in Ohio), I can only work on this car during my "Vacation". So needless to say, it isn't going to get done quickly...


Attached is the car in it's current state. Only the hood needs to be sprayed still that i'm aware of. Other than that, it's mostly reassembly and buffing...

Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: Steve Wood on December 01 2018, 01:06:33 PM
Persistence pays off!  I am a terrible painter so I always like to see those that "can"
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: TexasT on December 01 2018, 07:22:35 PM
I dig the centerlines. Paint I'm sure looks good too. Why not move your whole activity to where the work is? I was born in Ohio but haven't been back in well over forty yrs.
Keep moving forward. Sometimes things and decisions aren't based on things you can control but the decisions are definitely yours to make.
Title: Re: 78 Malibu Paint
Post by: bryes on December 12 2018, 06:48:06 PM
Thanks! Yeah I do like the rims. It would look a lot better assembled with new chrome to set things off.here


Believe me, I'd really like to find a way that I can somehow live in the same location as my workshop. In the last 12 years, I've moved from Ohio to CA to Ohio to GA to Ohio to NY to Ohio to GA, so moving my whole operation hasn't happened yet. I kind of have to  follow the work I guess.


I did take a "permanent" job in Ohio after CA that lasted less than three years, which is when I bought the house where I set up shop. I keep on hoping I can find a way to work remotely or have steady work somewhere, but it just hasn't materialized. I'm in GA now but will likely have to leave in March 2019 again.
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