Paint Job/body work update 6-17-2012

Here are todays update pics. Stripped the passenger right rear quarter....this part of the car has shown the most bubbleing paint over the years so I was interested to see what was under there.

After 40 minutes or so this is what it looked like:




Nice and straight in the lower front where it meets the door, but I chipped the primer in a few spots



Wheel well and fender flare and close up of the area with holes behind the 343 emblem that I had posted before. All the lines are still crisp, the "drain hole" inside the lower wheel well did its job and ther isnt any rot there or the lower outside corner of the quarter...the wheel well lip is wavy though from over sized tires bottoming out on it..new leaf springs cured THAT!



"ariel view" ha ha ha!   You can see the size of the paint chips on the trunk and the layer of primer that is stuck to them when they come off.



This shot shows the varying thickness of primer and some bondo on this rear quarter, it clearly shows 3 layers of the dark red primer filler, and some bondo wich I had chipped off prior to doing any paint removal to the car to see if there was a rust hole there. There isnt any rust under it..bare solid metal so this must have been built up to correct a ding or a crease in the metal wont know until that is removed if need be.



Finally the lower edge of the rear quarter wich had a LOT of bubbleing and obvious rust after scraping some off...this will be replaced with a patch panel. Leaf springs look good though



This pic shows the metal under the primer and fill coat is rusted and all those coats were popping right off the car and pushing out the paint like pop corn popping LOL! Looks like the patch panel wont have to be too big though...roughly from the rear valance down....the other rear quarter has no bubbleing at all...but I'll post pics of that tommorow.



Edited by 348AMX - Jun/07/2012 at 7:17pm

I removed the paint from the roof, took a 1/2 hour and it's nice and smooth no rust at all and no dings or dents or anything else funky. Stripped right down to the silver primer.

Also plan to remove the "fake" 2 sided fabricated troughs that were installed in the 80's when the car had body work last and install an OEM set of mint fender troughs that I got lucky finding, so it's a no brainer at this point to grind off the fake troughs and install the right AMC engineered troughs.
I want a solid AMX and not something that was just mickey moused to get by.   I like to drive it too, so knowing that the structure is solid is going to be worth the work to remove what is there and install the O E M parts.

Going to go from the front of the car on back in order and repair/replace any areas that need attention on the structure and unibody itself, such as the troughs, drivers rocker, floor pan patches and rear quarter patch. Then I'll worry about paint.

Edited by 348AMX - Jun/17/2012 at 1:36pm

^^^^^good advise I have a service manual that shows all the measuring points under the hood, like side to side and diag accross the engine bay to the shock towers and inner fenders.

The fabricated troughs that are on the car werent done right because there are only 2 sides, and they arent very stiff metal, I can bend the outside edge with one hand and flex it up and down. Its just thin sheetmetal.   All the lines on my car always lined up very good so that should be the case with new correct original troughs.