70 Javelin Rust Repair

Applied Epoxy sealer over the body work.  Had to wait almost two weeks before I could sand the epoxy. Without a spray booth and heat, I had to wait for the epoxy to cure.  I prefer to water sand most things, so, water sanding was completed and then primer will be applied.

The car is all covered and ready for another coat of primer. In the foreground is the Jeep Comanche I "WAS" working on until the little mishap with the Javelin trunk floor. Guess I'll get back to that next winter.

Yup!  That is the old 304 engine in the background. In the fall of 2015 the motor lost oil pressure and developed a knock. Just before the end of the show season and before the East Coast Indoor Nationals I had already paid to attend. I can't complain, bought the car with unknown mileage and drove the car over 53,000 miles. The motor still runs, with two quarts of Lucas and 3 quarts of straight 50 weight oil I did drive the car a few more weekends and to the Indoor Nationals without incident. 

Applied another two coats of primer and a lot of block sanding. So, the next step was cutting in the edges and trunk jamb area.  You can see the rear body panel is painted. Sorry I never did take any photos of the trunk jamb area that was repaired, but I needed to paint this area as a priority so I could close the trunk lid and accessibility to refinish the quarter panel

At least I can start bolting some things back together such as the tail lights, bumper brackets, wire harness and trunk items as the spare tire.  

I was using the old side stripe as a buffer to keep from sanding any higher on the quarter panel. The objective is to mask a line for refinishing under the stripe. By painting only up to & under the stripe I can eliminate a large blend area into the sail panel area of the car. Although this is an area routinely used for blending, it is also an area that a blend can always been seen.   

I finally removed the decal an upon completion of all the block sanding in preparation for color refinishing of the quarter panel. 

The one problem that I know I will need to live with, whatever color variance I will have from the new paint next to the old & to some degree faded paint. Unlike most refinish work, I do not have the option to blend into the door and loose the color. The clear coat on the door has lost adhesion. I have applied masking tape only once to the door, even running the tape over my leg first and the tape still pulled the clear off. Trying to sand, clean, remove a decal which will most assuredly pull some clear coat off, and mask the door  for a blend will only result in further damages, more work and a dreaded spiral out of control problem that I don't need prior to the AMO Nationals.  I will need to live with some minor color variances issues if I want the car to make it to the AMO Nationals in 2 months.  I will deal with the adhesion issue when I refurbish the car in the next few years.

But this brings up some good points. The car was repainted in the early to mid 90's as best I can tell from the invoices found in the glove box when I bought the car in 2008. As a professional in the business of auto repair, when clear coats loose adhesion it is usually from just a few causes;

• Use of incompatible materials or not properly mixed 

• Formation of condensation on substrate between coats due to temperature fluctuations

There are a lot of discussions about paint on this forum and I don't want to use this thread for a paint discussion, but use of different paint products ( ex: PPG basecoat and a Dupont Clear) has been the biggest problem that I have encountered over the years. I have worked in collision shops were the owner selects a good base coat and then buys the cheapest grade of clear for that product line or in many cases I have witnessed, a clear coat that is not in the same line or family of paints.   Now, the reason I mention this is it takes a few to several years for the adhesion issues to show up. I have worked on many cars and called the paint rep to investigate an adhesion issue(s) and every single time it is human error. 95% of the time it has been a mismatch of paint products and in a very few cases it has been a failure of flash drying times or a condensation problem. On even rarer occasions it has been a chemical imbalance issue (improper mixing or improper mixing ration of the chemicals).  I can only remember one time that the issue was from the paint supplier and that was in the mid eighties when Base coat first became available to the body shops. 

Sooooooo, lesson is, mixing of paint products may not have an immediate effect on the car, but hazing, dye-back, loss of adhesion and a gambit of other issues is usually a result of not following the manufacture guidelines on refinish selection products and proper use.

Now I have one of those problems!