Never easy...

This weekend was chaos. As most of you know I had a date with a local paint shop on Monday and had to sand through 9 inches of clear coat to get the car to where it needed to be in order to be painted. During this process I found several pieces that needed further body work and did the best I could to prep for that.

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Thank god my buddy Mauricio came over to help. I bribed him with steaks, beer, and Malt liquor 40s.

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We put in about 20 man hours in two days which I think is an awful lot. But we got the car looking nice and ready for the shop. Good thing I have friends who will work for large quantities of beer and meat. :)

So the day of the tow comes around and I am all nervous. Up until this point no one has ever touched my car without my direct supervision. The car has never been towed and I have never had a car towed. So the Tow guy shows up and is very nice and professional. Hooks up the car and rolls it up onto the flat bed with no issues.

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"No dough, No tow." lol


Following him to the body shop I was so nervous I thought I was going to puke, and I never get nervous.

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Once we arrive I take a quick look at the car and everything looks good. No issues, dents scratches or anything and I let out a sigh of relief.

I turn to walk into the office and talk to the shop manager and I hear a bunch of yelling honking and then CRUNCH!!!!! My heart fell into my ass.

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The tow guy backed into a 5 series.

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Thank god my car was ok. I thought sure it was over.

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After about an hour and a half of reports, police, yelling, and insurance phone calls they finally let my car down off of the truck.

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It could have been much worse and I'm glad its over... For now.

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Reality check

So last night Mike and Josh came over again to inspect my progress.

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Mike inspected my work very thoroughly and quickly let me know that I have many sleepless nights ahead of me.

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Evidently you cant have ANY of those little shiny spots you see up there on the roof. Sure I knew they would show up a little but I didn't know that they were going to be so bad for the paint.

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I am happy to say though that most of the car isn't too far off.

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I stayed up late last night figuring out how to eliminate the shiny spots on the panels and get them smoother. Every little dark spot you see is a tiny little valley that will collect metal flake from the metallic paint and will show up as a little dimple in the final paint job. Even though I have eliminated 90% of them, the last 10% still have to go.

Mike wanted to see me get one headlight bucket perfect and ready for sealer/primer last night. Just to get me familiar with what exactly it should look like.

Here you go man. As good as I could do.

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My girlfriend is taking off for the cape for a few days. That means I can spend every waking minute on the car. Good thing cause I'm going to need it. Deadline is Sunday.

Smoove Move

To answer some of the questions I have been receiving, Yes I am sanding the entire car by hand with blocks and pads. This is probably the hardest I've ever worked on anything and I do not recommend that anyone ever do this ever. :)

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I have gone through the color in some places. And the primer in others. The car is going to be getting a complete re-spray. Sealer, color, clear. I have a bodywork expert come over tonight to inspect my progress and tell me what else needs to be done before it is ready for paint.


Can't wait to just move on with this build. Start doing the fun stuff again!

Gettin' Smoove

Hey all.

So I've been putting in some work lately. Mostly grunt body work but work none the less.
I have finally started to address my paint situation "the right way".

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As I am sure you recall, I jacked the clearcoat with a vengeance.

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And it seems my only hope is to sand the hell out of it.

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Thanks to my new best friends Mike and Josh, I actually have some professional advice to go on with regards to fixing my paint situation properly. I need to sand the whole car with 400 grit  paper, then again with 800 grit wet until the whole car is completely smooth with no shiny spots whatsoever.

Picked up this squirt bottle for a few bucks at WalMart.

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And I started sanding like crazy.

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Trying to get the whole thing looking like I painted it with satin paint. Just as smooth as possible.

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See the difference?

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I still have to go over the whole car, and then the whole car again with 800 just to make it perfect. I will be grinding away on this for the next couple weeks.

I have a phantom hard deadline coming up that I can fill you in on later.

Things are getting pretty exciting in DirtyS30 land. :)