Three of the four interior panels look ok, and re-usable. But the back of driver side door panel is broken and flimsy. I think the vinyl could be cleaned, and would probably still have some life in it.
The backing looks like masonite. If I can safely separate the vinyl from the backing, I think I could get a piece of masonite from Lowe’s or Home Depot and use the existing backing as a template for making a new one.
Restoration of vehicle comes down to three things, it seems: 1) Repair 2) Replace 3) Protect. You have parts to repair, or parts to replace. Then you want to protect all of the parts. The biggest enemy of an old car is rust, I think. So when I repair or replace a part, I want to make sure it’s protected and will last as long as possible. There are a number of product offerings designed to remove rust or retard the rusting process. I’m not sure it can be stopped completely. But, then again, I’m not a chemist.
I’ve looked at some of the products, and scoured over the forum postings at theSamba.com to find out what others are using and which ones seem to work best. There’s always a trade-off. You can have a great product that’s expensive but works well, or one that’s cheap but not as good, or one’s that mid-priced but involved more installation steps. I want something that will work reasonably-well, but I want to minimize the number of steps needed to use it. And I need to establish a methodology for working on the car, so that the steps I take are clearly defined depending on the repair needs of any given part. I don’t want to take the entire car down to bare metal, but some of it definitely will be. So I need a process for both painted surfaces and bare metal. Since I’m going to try to spray primer and color, I want to spray a lot of area each time and not be repeatedly mixing and cleaning paint supplies. This means there will be some parts that are prepped, and then set aside for future priming.
A couple of the heavy-hitters in the rust-protection world are POR-15 and MasterSeries by PM Industries. I have chosen to go with the MasterSeries Silver, and another product that PM Industries sells called Captain Lee’s Metal Prep. POR-15 has a lot of fans in the rust world, but the MasterSeries seemed to be more flexible and simpler in its application.
After emailing the nice people at PM Industries, I have concocted the following workflow:
IF I GO TO THE BARE METAL
1. Use Capt. Lee’s Metal Prep, and the panel can sit for a while (months, let say.)
2. Then, when I’m close to primer time, use the MasterSeries Silver. Body filler can be used before or after this step.
3. Spray primer. (it can then sit for a while longer, if I’m not ready to paint, and the primer doesn’t have any time requirements.)
4. Color paint.
If I don’t go to bare metal, of course, start with step 3.
There are some areas like the back/inside of a chrome bumper, for example, where I can just clean it up and use MasterSeries Silver on it. If MasterSeries Silver sits for more than a week, then primer/paint has a harder time sticking to it. But if it’s not going to be painted (like the bumper back), it doesn’t matter.
I think this method will work for me. I still need information on selecting the correct primer. Don’t want one that requires painting soon after applying it. I don’t have the time to do all the repairs, then all the priming, then all the painting. Some parts will be finished and have to sit for a little while. MasterSeries is supposed to be able to work with any kind of primer/paint.
Ok. Let’s order it. Three quarts of MasterSeries Silver ($78), 1 gallon of Captain Lee’s Metal Prep ($29.95). $15 Shipping. Total — add $122.95 to the Beevis Bill ™.
After a closer ‘surface’ examination, it’s obvious there are some problem areas. The window rims are troubling, as is the bottom of the ‘A’ pillar on the passenger side. It looks cancerous. Once I dig in and start disassembling the whole thing, I’ll be able to see the extent of the damage. On the brighter side, there aren’t a lot of parts that are missing.
Up next, I want to do two things to the car:
Then I can price the missing parts and come up with an estimate for purchases, and I can start to get an idea of how much repair work needs to be done.
I think the first thing to do is determine our patient’s condition. Photos will help document my starting point, and will help if I forget where something goes — I can always look back at pictures. It’s surprising how quickly you forget how/where some part was attached. When I start to clean and disassemble the car, I’ll take more photos as parts are removed. Then I can really do a more thorough damage assessment. But first, I want to get a record of how it looks, as-is. Then I can start to put together a list of missing parts, and a list of focus points for repairs.
