I am not sure I will have the patience to do the color myself. I also want to drive this thing, and the interior needs redoing too… I am already 4 years into this…
I finally found a local paint shop that is happy taking on the project where I leave it off, in demand. Would cost a fortune but it will be faster. Let’s see how I feel once the first layer of primer is on.
I have painted fully dismantled cars in my driveway twice before with good results. And yes, this time, base and clear coat, lots of clear coat.
I was thinking of the inflatable paint booth approach…
Finally sorted out the driver’s side door hinges.
The solution was obvious and it took me months to see what was staring at me in the face.
I got the set of good second hand pins from David at EverydayXJ!
Interestingly, one if the pins was… 8mm and I had to ream the hinge to size. Both pins had to get hammered in, so I now have a got tight fit. Happy
Now some cleaning and primer.
Finally got a weekend day with no rain. Made some progress with the high build primer after scuffing/sanding the epoxy applied some weeks ago. The roof is now done. Only left to do are one rear quarter and the trunk lid.
I can see that the roof will be a challenge when it comes to body filler: bumps and dents galore… how did that mess happen?
Now starting to reassemble all panels to control/correct the gaps, glazing putty, block and last layer of primer.
Once this is done, I will remove everything again for painting.
Fitting the doors back in is not going to be easy. I found an old stand that I am trying to use as a jig. Will see how this goes (when it stops raining and… snowing… WTF?)
Both doors are now in place. It took 5 minutes each to position them approximately. Then…
Driver side took half an hour of fiddling to adjust. Still half a whisker-of-a-hairless-cat step at the bottom vs the sill; a mini smidge of filler will solve that.
Passenger side went straight in almost perfect on first shot. 5 min of adjusting. Done.
I wonder if I should paint the jambs with doors in place or take them off? Anyone has advice?
Now the fenders/wings and hood/bonnet.
Waiting for another dry gap in the weather…
Don’t want to be a party pooper but I have spent countless hours to adjust the doors, albeit the saloon has four of them, and saw all my mistakes too late, these are my observations:
If I see correctly, both doors seam to be a bit low.
You can see that at the body/door crease line (sorry don’t know the proper terminology), and also at the door top corner.
Maybe not so apparent now, but when it’s painted and shiny it will be the most important line to the eye.
It’s a line that traverses the whole side of the car and the reflection will amplify tenfold any misalignment.
Concentrate your efforts at the side step with the body and the body line, any misalignment at the bottom with the sill will not be so apparent.
A good idea is to try it with the door seals, especially if you put new ones, and strikers in place, they might change how things align. You absolutely definitely want to be sure that the door closes smoothly and that it seals properly.
And do a trial fit with the fenders as well to see what is happening at the front, if the tilt of the door is correct and that the curves and alignment are correct.
And since you will have the fenders mounted check and align the bonnet as well.
You want to eliminate any nasty surprises when all is nice and shiny. There is no going back after.
I would paint the jams with the doors in place, because after you finished re-aligning them the paint at the hinges and bolts will be most certainly a mess. And if something else goes wrong, like the door hits the body by mistake it will ruin your day.
And for the same reasons, I would do the final coat with the front fenders, bonnet and trunk lid in place.
So, I redid the left side (edited) door to aligned the body line with the rear quarter.
As a result the top of the door sits proud of the top of the rear quarter by about 1/8". I will attempt to correct when fitting the finishers.
I took the opportunity to also adjust the roll, and bring the bottom of the door out by 1/8" so the rear is now flush with the quarter panel all the way down and the bottom is flush with the sill.
The body line of the fender also aligns nicely with the one on the door.
The remaining challenges are:
1- gap between fender and door is nicely tight at the top but widens on the way down. But changing the pitch of the door to correct this, would alter the other alignments: it looks like body filler will be the solution here, unfortunately.
2- the concavity of the fender is slightly too pronounced to align with the door on the whole length. If I push the fender in with my knee under the body line, it aligns nicely. I will take the fender off again and find a way to reduce the concavity.
Correcting 1 might help improve some of 2. Will see.
You will have to find the best compromise… but keep the body line straight.
How is the gap with the sill?
From the photo it looks like it opens towards the rear?
Is the gap at the rear with the body uniform? I use a ruler.
To me it seems that the door needs to go further up and tilt down.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the gap with the rain channel unless it’s zero.
For the top corner do a trial fit of the chrome pieces to see what happens and how you could address the problem.
The fender can be mounted higher, it’s quite flexible and the easiest to bent/reshape, adjust and make fit.
Next challenge will be the bonnet of course…
Consider yourself lucky you have only two doors…!!
PS
To check if the panels sit really flush I used a small piece of wood and slided it across the gaps, any unevenness was immediately apparent.
wherever you go, be assured you have already achieved a lot more than the people at the assembly lines of Browns Lane! Your gaps seem to live up to Ferdinand Piechs standards. If you go on like that you’ll suffer discounts caused by lack of originality at any Jaguar contest;-)
Are you saying that alignment should only be done after the windows are back in the doors? Is that a hypothesis or an actual observation from experience? Thanks.
