Project Minne - a 72 build thread

[jpnovak]

Lots of progress today. I managed to get out of work early this afternoon and take advantage of the sunlight. The past few nights I worked to scuff the entire underside of the car, wipe it down and tape it off. It was basically waiting for the time to spray the undercoating material on the entire chassis.

Today was the day.

I can now say that the undercoating is a good match to the topside color. There is the orange pop. The glow. The incredible tangerine color in the sunlight. Exactly what I was after.

First was the fenders. These were coated on the underside.




And then there is the chassis... I will let the pictures speak for themselves.








Here are the inside shots of the engine bay and frunk.






Now I can focus on the topside paint process. Yes... That means more sanding.

[Simonjjb]

Nice work !

[jpnovak]

During our cold snap the other night I realized the weather window is rapidly closing to paint the car. So, I have a long list of parts to clean and organize. I might as well move on to another big project in the build.

The engine... My engine stand is currently on loan so I called a friend to borrow an unused stand. Not much longer I had the engine off the furniture dolly and on the stand.



Since I wasn't tired, I might as well start tearing it down. Not much longer I had a pile of parts. The heads and a few other items will be boxed and shipped off this week for machine work.



A pile of parts on the floor waiting to be organized must mean that I was really close to having a short block. Here you can see the 9.3:1 pistons hanging carefully on the rods.



I also confirmed that the cylinders are Nikasil. This is good as I can hopefully drop in a set of JE pistons once these are cleaned and measured.





The bottom of the engine was filled with oil residue. Not just the usual dirty oil in crevices, This was more like spoiled chocolate milk. Nothing like oil emulsion to brighten your day. I guess this engine got wet at somepoint in its life. No worries. This is exactly the reason I am tearing it down.




The following night I split the case. The inside is full of oil residue. It looks like the oil was not changed at any regular interval and it ran hot. You can see how brown the inside is. This will not be fun to clean out.



The main bearings look really good. The rod bearings... Not so much. I pulled the #2 rod and found lots of wear. Dirty oil? For sure.





Next step is to ship rods and crank to Ollies and heads to Craig Garr at G2 racing. I already have cams and rockers ready to go. The machine shop waiting game has begun.

[jpnovak]

It seems the weather has finally cleared here in TX. Since it was warmer and the sun was shining I thought I could use the Thanksfgiving Holiday time to work on the car. We traveled to see family last weekend - and this means I have a few extra days to play. My wife agreed to allow some garage time and shoot some high-build 2K primer.

On Wed afternoon I blocked down the epoxy one more time and then put a layer of High-build on the fenders and doors. I am using the SPI 2K high-build primer. I only shoot the exterior surface and had carefully taped off the previous undercoating. After shooting I put the panels in the sun to cure. Surface temperatures in the sun were mid-70s. Cool enough to lay down smooth. Warm enough to dry fast and cure.






Not long after I was able to start blocking down panels. I use a mixture of long boards and stiff foam blocks to block down the panels. I sand every which way around all the curves and contours starting with 220 grit and ending at 400. This gives a nice smooth finish ready for sealer.

The primer sands with a slightly lighter color making it very easy to find the low spots. The high spots knock down quickly. Done right you start to get large islands of primer where you have sanded through the high-build and down to the epoxy. This is where I call it good.

And then the panel gets a guide coat and more sanding...

Here are the doors after block sanding. They are now ready for final sealer coat and paint.









Having more time available I moved on to the main tub. Tape it off and shoot 3 thick coats of primer.



I had some problems with my spray gun leaking, and dripping paint on the surface and this required a lot of elbow grease to sand out. At least this was on the primer layer that is designed to be sanded away.



Eventually the car starts to look like an oddly shaped dairy cow due to its modeled coloring mixture of background orange, gray high-build, white epoxy and a few ares where I went through it all to some filler. No worries, this all gets another layer of epoxy to seal it all up later.





Since the tub is "almost" ready for paint I have to make sure all the small parts are correct. This meant adding back in my layer of rocker shutz on the rockers. Get out the tape and paper and mask off a line. This was placed 24mm below the rocker panel to door seam. This was measured on another early car and is about right. I have seen some slightly higher but I am fine with this location.



It takes about 45 minutes to tape off the car. Then about 4-5 minutes to shoot the coatings and then another 15 min to clean up. Yes, I did install the torsion bar covers and fenders to make sure this all aligns. I am using Upol Gravitex and shot with a standard shutz gun. I just screw the supply cup to the gun. It goes on thick and flowy with a pebbled texture. I had black on the shelf so that's what I used. No worries, it gets white epoxy over it before paint.

[jpnovak]

In between coats of primer, or I should say while waiting for primer to dry before I could sand I decided to spray out some color coats. I had bought a quart of color to test and make sure I liked the paint line.

I am using PPG single stage that my local jobber supply house has. It mixes well and is reasonably priced. The color certainly looks right in the paint mixing cup. I started with a half cup in my gun to see how much material usage.



The first spray out was panel backsides to check color. I started with the bumpers and liked what I saw. This is two coats. I am not planning to finish the backsides any more than this.





Then I moved on to the backside of the hood. The coremat section in the middle took a lot of paint to cover completely. The edges have good gloss and smooth finish. So far, so good.




Today I mixed up another small batch and hit the interior side of the doors...



I also prepped and shot the backside of the decklid...




The hood was ready except for final wipedown and I thought there was enough paint in the gun... So what can you do? Squirt some paint... This paint lays down nicely. Good gloss and smooth finish. And only a few small bugs.



After the paint dried I moved it inside to a warm garage. The color matches well with my underside coatings. I can't wait to have the tub all in one color!



There are always lots of questions about paint quality when shooting outside. This is a light reflection straight out of the gun. It is exactly the level of finish I want on the car. Not perfect but highly acceptable.



Hopefully before the weekend is out the entire car will be painted.

Then I can move on to wiring and suspension installation.

[911scfanatic]

Jamie, you always amaze me! Great job per usual!

[zundfolge]

Is this Tangerine?

or... got a side by side of Mineola with Tangerine?

[jpnovak]

The amount of work to paint a car is tremendous. If you ever try to do this yourself you will certainly appreciate the cost when you write a check to a paint shop. Unfortunately my bank account can not support that right now so I have to move forward with my best garage paint job. Hours of priming, sanding, and more sanding. Eventually you say, this is good and start taping off the car and getting ready for final primer/sealer and color.


The car was taped off to the inside seams. The paint line is at the seam intersection and mostly invisible.





After taping off the blocked off car I had to spray the final primer/sealer. This is epoxy primer that is thinned using a little reducer. I am following the TDS (Technical Data Sheet) of the manufacturer. Once you hit this point you are on the clock. There are time limits to how long you have to leave the epoxy cure, and maximum time before the co-cure chemical bond doesn't happen. Thankfully I have a VERY UNDERSTANDING WIFE that knew ahead of time the timeline I was on. Kinda like a work project on a vacation week.

And then, there was primer/sealer...





Since the car was sealed, I was on the clock. I got up early this morning for final wet sand, wash down, wipe down and dry. What else is there but to shoot color.

And so... Bring on the Tangerine. My best garage/backyard paint job. The new paint gun works quite well. I am using the Eastwood Concours gun shooting 1.5 tip. The PPG paint lays down much smoother than the primer. And here are the results. Yes, despite a few defects and bugs I am happy. Major milestone almost 4 years to the day.














(edit - fix picture link)

[jpnovak]

Thanks Bill. Its been a while since I have seen you around. How is your project?

This is a minneola. More of a tangelo than tangerine. But still tangy citrus...



Yes, the car color is tangerine.

[jpnovak]

It seems the assembly has begun. This week I managed to dig out the wiring harness from a storage box. I forgot how much fun it is to play with a full harness.




The first step is to clean the wiring. I start by wiping down all the outside with a damp rag to get rid of the accumulated dust and dirt. Then I spray some WD40 to clean off the oil and black residue. this will clean the wire insulation such that you can actually read the colors. Then finally, I spray down liberally with silicone spray to soften the insulation and the rubber connectors.

I also had to pull out my wiring diagrams (yes, mine are laminated) so that I can make sure I pull wires into specific locations of the car.






Once the wiring is clean and I have refreshed my memory on where it goes there is nothing left to do but start putting it into place. I did make sure to clean up all the ground points and lugs on the chassis prior to installing the wiring. Clean grounds! Clean Grounds! Clean Grounds! Can't say that enough.



The main harness to the rear of the car is all taped up and ready to pull. I will pull the harness and main battery cable at the same time through the tunnel. That should happen this weekend. I have to have a second set of hands for that step.