Primer / New Race Shoes / Task List

Interior of the car is now primed. I also included the trunk area, engine side of firewall, roll cage, and the inside of the doors/trunk/hood.





I've reassembled the body panels so as to better fair out the pending fillers in the surface dents/holes. I hope to get to that this weekend.


Priming was my first use of a HVLP sprayer and 2-part (3 actually) primer from House of Kolor. It was important to wear a special paint respirator due to the high VOC that makes the epoxy primer work. The respirator has to be replaced after 40 hours of exposure to the atmosphere, so it gets rebagged right after spraying. And never, ever spray in the garage near the furnace/water heater unless you want to experience the highly explosive nature of VOCs. I took advantage of rare early spring sunny days in Oregon to paint outside (in the front yard no less). Fortunately, the breeze gods were with me as my neighbor did not complain of grey specs on his black truck afterward.

Since the car was media blasted a few weeks ago, I had to do a good scrubbing with a box worth of Scotch Brite pads and "wash" every inch, panel by panel with Metal Ready metal prep. Then quickly neutralize with water, and dry it as fast as possible. It's basically Phosphoric acid that reacts with the steel/rust leaving behind a nice Zinc coating that prohibits rust on bare panels. My shoulders are getting a good work-out, which will help during the long races later.

Then, before painting, every spot must we wiped down with a clean rag soaked in special solvent to remove any fingerprint oils (and everything else).

Then comes the mixing of the spendy primer. Its a 4:1:1 system, so I mix 4 parts primer base with 1 part reducer and 1 part catalyst. Then into the sprayer and move quickly to set the gun adjustments to spray well. It's a balance or air-pressure, air volume, paint volume, and paint pattern. Get all this right and it looks fantastic. Get it wrong...well, call Sunkist cause you've got a big orange peel mess.
The new shoes showed up. there has been great debate on the forums about PanaSports vs. Superlights. I now have both, lucky me !!!! Panas have Advan 032 race tires and the Supers have Hankook Ventus race tires. This could be fun later.

Panasports

Superlights fitted in place.

Ah, but first I had to do the typical Datsun hub modification to remove the extra lip left on the hub turning. A tad bit-o-grindage and all is fitting nicely (lug-centric fit). No loss in strength. Nitrile gloves did well in protecting the bearings from swarf. Datsun has a huge front hub diameter.

Drive out the lugs to get access.

Arrows show lip to remove

Lip gone and rims could then be fit.

So, next steps are:

1.Bondo

2. Sand

3. Sand

4. Sand

5. Weld in remaining roll cage bars for door/dash

6. Clean and Prep

7. Primer/Filler coats

8. Sand

9. Clean and Prep

10. Paint- layers 1, 2 , and 3.

11. Wet Sand

12. Clearcoat- layers 1, 2, and 3.

13. Re-assemble panels

14. Wet sand

15. Pollish paint

16. Weld up custom exhaust

17. Rewire electronics

18. Install everything

19. Fit seats

20. Shoot self for not kistening to wife

21. Doesn't matter from here on out....

And I want to race when????

Color Possibility

Thanks to some friendly help from "Shifty" in beautiful Hood River Oregon. (a top, must see small city in the US).

He colorized a 311 Roadster to look just as I imagined. Well done!!!

Stripped!!!

The Roadster has been stripped of her old and patchy 3-color paint. Plastic media was used to remove the paint (sandblast style).

Some residual red areas are left. This is the original primer that has a good stick. No reason to really get all of it off. Will just primer over it.


Here are pics of the body and panels before paint. We actually got a sunny day here in Oregon. On a Saturday no less!!!! And I'm taking advantage of it!!!

Looks kinda small in that big trailer.....Got plenty of head room for the victory parties inside!But, it fits.Here are the panels...YARD SALE ! Doors look like they will need the most body work. Hood isn't too bad. Just need to fill the DATSUN logo holes.

Dang, rust through holes, but not rusty. My guess is this driver's front quarter got hit and somewhat rebuilt. Fuel cell box is the nicest thing on this car now.
Inside now, warm and dry...well, as dry as can be in Oregon.




This is interesting if your monitor is good. In the following shotthere are three types of fillers used. going clockwise from 9 o'clock, there's bondo between the panels. This was from PO. Shiney silver is factory lead fill. Blue is #2 PO bondo work. I think I'll sand it and make a #4 offering.

This tunnel shot makes me think the car has taken a hard hit in its previous life. Hard to tell if it was racing or not. The body and frame numbers don't match.