A shot of the Duster before sanding begins.
I sanded all of the paint off, and left most of the original primer on. This car is very straight to be as old as it is. It had an old repair on the right front fender. I took the old bondo off and replaced it, the old stuff was cracked. I cut out some rust on the rear quarter, and welded in a patch. I sprayed primer on the car, them sanded it with a DA then sprayed more primer. Now I'm ready to wet sand. I use a paint paddle with 400 grit paper. A friend told me about painting the hood and trunk lid separate from the car, not only can you do a better job around the edges but it is easier on the arms too.
Here it is almost ready for paint. I still have some sanding to do on the roof. It had some wrinkles where it looks like someone bent in the roof at one time. I was trying to show the shine on the primer in these pics, but it's hard to see. I used a light guide coat of some cheap red spray can primer to be sure I was getting all the orange peel and small dents out.
The paint is on it finally. I had a very hard time with it. The base coat went on OK but the first coat of clear was a disaster. I had runs all over the car. I waited until the next day and sanded out the runs. then I started again after a painting lesson at T&K paint. They were very helpful. I had my pressure too low and I needed to reduce the clear, once that was straight it flowed out smooth as glass.
One change that was made to the exterior was the stock side mirror. The factory side mirror just wasn't sporty enough to go with this Hemi orange paint. So, side mirror's off of a 1984 Pontiac Fiero was put in its place. The Duster only had a mirror on the driver door. So, the passenger door had to be drilled to be able to mount the mirror. These mirrors to me really added to the over all appearance of the car.
My son and I finally got all of the decals on Saturday(09/20/07). Boy, that was a job. I don't want to ever do that again, at least in the very near future.
The decals come from Graphics Express. The decals are of good quality and should last for years.
I wished I had taken photo's of the decals going on. My main concern at the time was making sure I got these on straight.
Here is a link to see my car on Graphics Express's website here.
Page 1) Intro
Page 2) The beginning
Page 3) The build
Page 4) Paint/Decals
Page 5) GM 700R4
Page 6) Updates
Page 7) Car Show
Page 8) My friends cars
Page 9) Random pictures
