yoeddynz

Now having used it a few times id never paint 2k without an airfed mask. It works really well and I feel a lot happier knowing I'm not breathing in anything but clean air. I'd not risk using so called 'iso safe' cartridges etc because don't forget that this shit will get absorbed through your skin too. Aint worth the risk for the sake of $120. Another bonus when painting in summer is that your face remains cool and the mask clear from condensation. I got over spray on my mask (along with every fucking thing in the shed) and for the light misting of paint meths actually removed it OK. Only downside is that you are now feeding a mask with air so you'll have to make sure your compressor can keep up with both that and the spray gun. Our Stanley compressor was fine but was running almost non stop.

Updates updates please!

@Lochky I just scored this book at a swap meet today.... I can scan bits that might be of use to you. Just let me know. Alex.

I just couldn't help myself but take this photo... Having fun stripping remaining bits from the other two Imps, cleaning and painting bits and generally playing about with what is a big model car. Proper update soon.

Super happy to hear that you have orange peel to deal with.. Not happy for you but happy that I'm not the only one who will be sanding sanding sanding. My imp paint job is like a moon surface..

Wow. Its amazing that considering all the various damage to it in its early years it was kept on the road. I can't imagine that it was a particularly expensive car but obviously it had enough charm to get the love required. Cheers for taking the effort to write a thread here. Are there many of these left in the states? Any clubs?

OK so I was thinking I was not far from painting the shell when I realised my repairs to the rear guard behind the drivers door had a slight bulge, maybe 5mm outwards in relation to the edge of the door shuts. A classic case of working up close and not standing back to look at the complete picture. It showed up worse when I sat the door in place. I thought I had taken a photo but alas no- trust me when I say it would have done my head in noting it each time I looked down the flank. This panel had been badly bashed in at some point we had popped it out. But obviously too far sadly I never realised until now. I tried beating it back in but no luck. It had been previously repaired by someone else and was full of lots of sharp dents. So this happened... Following that I did a super careful replacement of the steel, butt welded in, with very slow careful welding so not to warp anything. In pictures... It turned out great. I still needed a skim of filler to get it spot on but considering what it was like prior I'm happy with it now. It lines up really well with the door... I then gave this and most of the rest of the shell another coat in primer, smoothed it all back with 400. Oh yawn. Helps having beer and loud Reggae playing. Hannah just loved sanding... With the sanding done I then preceded to turn the workshop into something resembling a Smurf murder house. If there was a song to be played afterwards it would have been this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68ugkg9RePc We masked it all up and I painted the door jams, door backs, engine bay, interior, frunk, door bins etc. Next day, re- masked the shell and painted the rest. On the first days painting it was so hot at 34 degrees... The following day time I started as early as I could but it was still about 28. Luckily a very dry heat. Not fun in all the gear... I never really considered how far the blue mist would travel. It covered everything. Great fun. Now we have a blue floor which luckily is slowly going to wear off I think. I hope. After it was finished I shut the doors and let it bake in the oven that was the shed, drank a cold beer and went to the beach for a long swim. Here is a blue Imp. Its very similar to an original Imp colour I like so I went with this. Not sure of the name of the colour. Its very bright and changes from a mint blue to a aqua blue in different light. I'm so relieved to have finished the painting. It'll need a flat back to get rid of the orange peel and shine so it looks more like a original paint job. But I'm going to ignore that job until after the car is road legal. Enough body work and painting!!!! Its time to bring the other Imps inside and play musical chairs with all the various parts. Pick the nicest bits and reassemble one car from them all... It certainly is a fair bit better then when we first looked at this shell a year ago and I'm pretty stoked to be at this point in the restoration

Very good! (now please keep it hush hush so not to ruin the surprise for everyone else...)

The Imp is finally all painted, after first sorting out a bulge in a panel. It looks great and I'm stoked with the colour. I'll do a proper update soon. But in the meantime here's a quick peek at the colour. But which one is it?...

Nothing a couple of trees, a chain block and a large tub of filler couldnt fix. Buy it and start a resto thread on a jag forum.

I have no ideas on your suspension woes. I just popped in to say thanks for the update! I always like reading your scribbles.

Update. I hate paint prep. I could never be a car painter. Ugggghhh- so boring. Sand, fill, sand, fill, sand... luckily I have a belt sander... (Joke) Then cover the whole lot in white filler primer and spot all the bits I missed. FFS.... In between all the filling and sanding I did a few other bits. Just to take a break from sanding really but also because these jobs are ones I cant do once its painted. The engine lid (bonnet at back?) I'll be using is the fiberglass item from the race car. It fits OK and is very light plus its the much nicer looking sport item with extra vents. However it was fitted to the race car on pedestals and held down with sprung latches (I dont know the proper term for these so I just made some names up) I wanted it to fit like an original lid so I had glue some steel brackets to it. Plus it sat flat along the front edge so an extra bit of steel welded between the brackets with a curve set in would fix that issue. I welded some m6 bolts in so making captive studs. The job in photos... Brackets bolted to hinges and ready for glue.... Lid glued on and taped in place over night... It works! Yay... Now to hold it down with original style handles. I had a set of handles on one spare lid and some working latches on another. I cut things up, broke rusty bits, oiled this, wire brushed that, ground this, drilled that and other fettling until I had some working bits I could glue onto the F/glass lid. Photos of the process... Again leaving for a few hours until the glue set (which btw is Sellys 'The One' adhesive and sealer which is really good stuff for all sorts Of jobs I have found) and once I fitted the handles in place they worked a treat. Panel gaps are ok too for a F/glass lid... Part of the body prep was spraying Resene Industrial 440 epoxy primer over a few bare steel parts and the roof. I sprayed the fan assembly and radiator shroud while I was at it. Looked much better for some quick spraying and will be nice and durable... Then back to sanding. Finally I had it at a point where I could slap some primer on. It took a long time to sort the side out that had the massive cave in and dents. Its still not perfect and never will be. The bonnet too- given I had rebuilt most of the complicated front edge in steel I was not surprised that it needed a skim of filler and its still not perfect. Show car it wont be... Now this was to be the first time I have used 2 pack paint. I have previously painted cars in single pack acrylic (lacquer?) and they've come up OK but not very durable. Shane who owns the paint shop, Custom Colors, next door to where I used to work, gave me some advice and helped sort me out the right stuff for the job. This stuff is nasty and I was not going to risk breathing in vapours filled with all sorts of crap for the sake of painting an Imp. So I bought a decent full face mask and an air feed kit. I also splashed out and spent big monies on a Hvlp spray gun too! $60 at Supercheap in a sale. It'll do the job fine for the amount of work I'll be doing. I appreciate the lovelyness of all the Devilbiss and Iwata guns but not the $500 plus price tags. Also- big thanks goes out to the friendly helpful fella, Mort, at Patersons paint supplies in Nelson. So to the paint booth. Well actually to the workshop in which I had thrown some sheets over the pushbikes, strung some clothesline across the width from which hung some the doors and bonnet and shuffled things about so not to trip over whilst waddling about in my stormtrooper white coveralls making Darth Vader sounds from within my airfed mask. Its summer so I am pretty much always barefoot as is the way in NZ. However in order to not end up with primer covered tootsies I wore some old socks. I dusted everything down this morning and swept the place out, blew the car down. I opened the roller doors to an exact amount to allow just enough flow to pull the mist out (which did not work...) and preceded to very carefully and patiently clog my spray gun up. Some paint ended up on the car though. It was certainly a big lesson. This paint, a heavy primer, certainly goes off quick in the pot and at first I had not thinned it down enough. Combined with a 1.4mm tip size more suited for thinner top coats and I ended up making a mess of my bench as I frantically cleaned out the gun, tipped away one pot of paint, cursed a bit (a lot), turned the music up, and got back to spluttering my primer all over the place. I got there in the end, muttering to myself the whole time 'not to worry..its only the primer stage' and the car now looks resplendent in white. Amazing how a lovely coat of uniform colour makes something look so much neater. Also amazing how a lovely coat of primer shows up all the little pits, chips, dents, edges. Fcuk. On with the sanding. Luckily there is really only one part that I don't like which is on the horizontal swage line near the 'big dent job'. Its too flat and needs the edge building up with a bit more filler... But screw that for now. I cleaned the gun, turned the lights off and went out for a bike ride.

It could make for the iradiant looking cabbages...

Ha ha cool. Marshlands is the site that just keeps on giving. I'm amazed that there are still cars there. I thought they were all destined to be crushed?

Damn I'd love to rebuild a truck /4wd in similar style using all new or repassivated fastners. So clean. So neat. Such big boys tamiya model building fun.

Photos of the fine looking hitchhiker please. Did he have a nice body? Please tell me you have also swapped over those wing mirrors. Kevin says 'meow'..

Crikey its hot here! Perfect time to spend hours in a workshop filling and sanding then, with the occasional bike ride and swim to keep my sanity. I don't really get too excited about paintwork. In fact- really posh paint jobs, all shiny and bling just dont suit old cars imo. But I realise that if I want to sell this car down the line (to fund the Viva project etc) then its going to need to look nice. But going back a week from now I finished a few tiny welding jobs and added some much needed seatbelt mounting points. This car being a really early one only had diagonal belts and the positioning was horrible along with mounting points that were only holes through thin panel steel. I welded long sections of 20x10 fms inside the A pillars for the top mounts and then some plates to the floor and inner sill in all the appropriate size steel and nuts. I also cut and shut the rear seat base frame so it would clear the radiator pipe tunnel.. I then had to sort out the removable rear valance/cross member. I have three to use. The race car one was hacked about and rusty. A spare one I'd collected from the Christchurch Imp graveyard was rusty and dented. The original one from this shell was just rusty. I chose that one. I started by cutting out the unneeded and quite heavy original engine mount part. Then rebuilt it all, removing the rot, adding in a length folded steel along the width to support a small bit of box section. Why? Well because I like bicycles and I like to travel to places for nice bike rides and why would I choose to do such a thing in a boring modern car! Much more fun to go on road trips to biking places in a interesting old car... So, just like on my Rx3 and my previous Viva I added a mounting point for custom made bike racks to suit each car. For this Imp though I wanted something that will be hidden by the number plate when not in use. I'll make a basic rack to suit. Then together Hannah and I painted this and any other remaining bare steel with industrial 440 epoxy primer. It already started looking better... Now back to that filling and sanding. Its been a week of many 30 degree days here, often hotter at mid day. According to our thermometer yesterday was 34 ! Our place is like suntrap and we don't get the wind that even our neighbours over the road get. Great for winter but can get very hot in summer. Luckily the workshop faces directly north to the sun and with both doors open we get good light and a gentle enough breeze through to keep it from turning into too much of an intense oven. Plus it takes the filler dust out! Inside the 'not so hot' oven... Still a yucky job and to stop giving up I have to keep reminding myself that 'a good paint job is 95% preparation' etc etc. Yawn. pffff. I'll report back in a week or two, broken and covered in dust.

#win at rear engined goodness.

Yeah the old boy aint that keen on randoms just dropping in and I can understand why. There's a fair bit of stuff there (although the best bits, the Imps, the Datsuns and the Saab 99s are all gone....)

Only if the seats are slid forwards though. But that won't be often (no kids/just cat life) But yeah.. Its quite spacious inside for a little car.

With the pipework tunnel pretty much finished I moved onto the seat rails. I had bought some MX5 seats a fair while back with the intention of fitting into the Imp. However, rather than have them sit around doing nothing I ended up fitting them into my Viva wagon. They were great but didn't quite suit it. I then bought a lovely pair of Recaros, fitted them to the wagon and have the Mx5 seats once again for this car. I had sort of roughed out how I wanted to fit them a while back but not sure exactly where to mount the supports. I needed a Datum. So I scored this beauty... Strangely it came fitted in a freshly imported Hiace van from Japan that I did a load of rust repairs to. The owner didn't like it and agreed to give it to me if I got a decent standard Toyota replacement. This was harder than I thought as most of the old Toyota steering wheels from that era of Hiace have become loose on the top of wheel and so twist in ones hands feeling horrible. But eventually I found a decent replacement, got my prized wheel and promptly fitted it to a boss kit I ordered from overseas. With it taking pride of place I sat the seats in the car and made some carefully measured brrmmm brrmmm sounds and worked out the seat placement... Before work could continue on fitting the seats I needed to machine some locating spacers. But in order to do that I needed to fit the brand new 16mm centre height tools to our replacement lathe of which the stock tool post was set to an absurdly high 12mm, meaning it could only use the little baby 12mm tools available (odd for what is a fairly medium sized lathe). So I needed to machine the tool post down with our old drill mill ... Then I machined these... Which allowed me to sit the seats neatly onto fabricated supports that I welded across the floor, the rear passenger one strengthening the floor where the new pipe tunnel is... I bolted the seats in and was very happy. The seats can go right back giving heaps of leg room for my lanky body but slide forwards more then enough to get into the back. I have mounted them quite far inboard to line them up as best I can with the pedals... I had finished off the pipe tunnel too, leaving it exposed at the back for fitment of pipes. I'll cover those bits with removable lids and will have to modify a section of the rear seat base for clearance. I'll sort out the finishing details once I have welded up the stainless pipe I have bought. Oh also- ages back when I was stripping out the green Imp (number 3 Imp) I found the build sheet. A neat thing to find... I like this bit...

Hi Dave- yeah the show was really good. We met Gary there and he said you'd gone back to Ireland for a catch up. Ideas please Nelson oldschool folk- shall we do a bbq/beach meet somewhere? I'm now figuring that our next meet would have to be after the new years fiasco anyway so a bit of time to think up some ideas. Perhaps you know a good circuit and cafe stop we could do. Or a visit to some museum or other place of interest. Or will there be enough interest to have a simple meet somewhere just for a bbq and catchup.

I'll just duct tape a camera onto Kevins back. He follows us about all day. Rough edit it in the evening and throw some loud euro house music on in background then post. Sorted.

Hey thanks for the lovely comments. Nah i have never considered it. I don't consider myself very confident behind a video camera and start getting a bit paranoid/self conscious about my voice. So I've always just been happy behind the keyboard. However I do love writing build threads in the hope that not only will they entertain but that they'll also inform others enough and help- just as so many threads out there have taught me back. We are right in the middle of tidying up our housetruck for sale and once its sold will be starting a new house on wheels of which I am really bloody excited about! Being able to build your own cheap house is something that is ever more important these days and with the whole new trendy 'tiny house' thing having really kicked off there is certainly a lot of interest out there. I could perhaps do a vblog for that build and just see how it goes and how I fair.

Oh. That sux.