And so it begins. Restoration of 1975 XJC

Have you ever thought of putting a LS1 in it?

:rofl:

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I know I’m painting mine blue!

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Starting to strip the roof.
I am surprised to find that the steel sheet under the OEM primer shows quite a few “spots”, as if it got oxidized 45 years ago.

A spiff of neutralizing solution should take care of this for another few decades.


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Are you referring to the leaded seams? Or the dark spots near the center rear of the roof?

The dark spots all over. I have seen nothing like this on any of the other panels.

I have now stripped about a third of the roof. There are definitely some “waves”… :frowning:

Finished stripping the roof, removed windshield, removed headliner (quite perished…). I can smell the end of the pre-paint job in the distance, behind the hills of epoxy and the river of primer…

The roof panel has a number of low spots, most of them are quite “bouncy”. I can see why Jaguar slapped a vinyl on there. This might require more than a DIY fix… I hope I will not regret selling a few weeks back the NOS vinyl I had kept religiously for 15 years…




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The best news is that your screen channel looks very good Eric!
Good luck.

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Well, this should make you feel better. Could be my next project. We might need to talk.


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Oh boy, you are out of my league. I started from a “rust free” California car…

The chrome seems spotless, Nib…:slight_smile:

Frank
xj6 85 Sov Europe (UK/NZ)

Thanks Frank.


OIP

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New year day was epoxy day, the only sunny time in the middle of 2 weeks of rain.
Only one door and the rear valance to finish before primer.
I can start to see the end…

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I’m thinkin you might need Intervention. :rofl:
(‘;’)

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Rain storms and COVID threw a few spanners in the works.
Today, a little more epoxy.


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I confess that I am starting to yearn for a triple carburetor set-up… Would nicely complement the ceramic coated headers.

I suppose I’ll wait for the stock market to wake up, that should settle my itch for a good while…

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The conditions I work in are far from ideal. The workshop is 10 minutes drive away, the car is outside, I can work only half a day every week. This means that many projects can only be done in small episodes; very inefficient and often have to redo what I already did.
At least the weather in California is … wait… the crazy storms. So much water in such a short time. And the storage den proved to be leaky…
Well, I stripped the second door some time ago, applied the protective zinc solution, but that was no match for the moisture we experienced. The rust that developed was quite a depressing sight.
So, start again.
Sand-blasted all nooks and crannies, removed all traces of rust, applied some rust converter in the most inaccessible corners, zinc solution and finally epoxy. Phew.
Also put epoxy on the rear valance.
And, I think that I am FINISHED WITH EPOXY!!
I will now have to scuff everything to apply the high build primer. But nothing can be as bad as the removal of 6 layers of old paint and primer and the application of epoxy.
A milestone!



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Read the epoxy instructions real careful… I only know PPG…. It says if it was applied over one week ago you scuff, then RECOAT, then high build prime. Scuff alone is not sufficient. If you scuff and apply high build primer, the high build primer can delaminate. Again, I only know PPG DPLF. Your brand could be very different…

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Thanks, the instructions say that only scuffing is needed. I will double check.
Now that all is protected, an additional layer of sealant before primer would not be that hard anyway.
Thanks.

You and I are in the same boat. Professionals don’t have our problems where you do one panel and come back to it in two weeks :slight_smile: They don’t even think about recoat windows because they’d never wait around that long anyway. Pot life? Don’t care, they spray it right away. My work around was to always do the epoxy, and then build primer right away, then sand that back for filler, then epoxy again, then high build again… no professional would ever do that, it’s a huge waste of material and labor, but how else can you do this nights and weekends and still follow the rules?

Are you going to do the final color yourself? I’ve been painting in a PVC pipe and plastic tent in the barn but it’s time to upgrade to one of those sewinfla brand inflatable booths. Still will be in the barn but hopefully not such an overspray mess. The overspray last time was really bad, so my feet got sticky on the bottom, which then picked up all the dirt on the barn floor outside the booth…. I’ll spare you the feet photo but the dashboard I painted came out great. Put lots of clear on, sand lots of clear off, and you can’t possibly screw it up.

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