So after sanding the parts down for two and a half years (that’s how long it felt like!) I got to the point where I was ready to paint them. It really was just the bonnet, but more on this later. I started looking at some cheap pop-up gazebos as I only needed it for one time use. Most of eBay and Amazon offers were around £60-90 but being cheap skates I challenged myself of finding one for under £50. Aaand good old google helped a lot – £39.99 for 3x3m with four sides delivered to my door!
I found it on The Range, but it seems that after I purchased it they removed the item from the shop, now have very similar (or even same, just different name) listed at few pennies more: BIRCHTREE Gazebo PE 3X3M PEG01 (therange.co.uk)
Once this turned up I only had one thing to sort out – paint. Having all the previous struggles I have sent piece of my old front bumper to this friendly company ( SPC Coatings – Home Page ) who scanned it and made pretty good match aerosol can spray. I was very pleased with their service (took only 5 working days from the day I posted the piece until I received the actual, matching paint!) and once I tried it on my old bumper and bonnet I finally had relief it is the same color.
Few days later I had my gazebo up, fitted tightly in the corner to get as little wind as possible and also close to the power outlet so I could use my little electric heater. I used my partner’s archery target frame as my parts holder (which really worked well) and started to sand down the white primer on the bonnet. Some say the primer does not need sanding but I could feel surface roughness and considering amount of sanding I have already done I took no risks. Once all smooth and dry, I proceeded with first light paint coat:
I think this was Thursday evening, pretty warm and dry. My electric heater managed to keep the inside at around 24 degrees and 45% humid, which was as good as it gets with this setup. Gave it good 20mins and applied another coat. Then another 20mins and final, third, thick coat. Evening painting turned to night painting with conclusion at 1am..
A decent monitor will expose all of the dents and imperfections still visible, but on the grand scheme, it looks pretty good. Especially with my poor painting skills. I’ve let it get dry for couple of hours before I took the bonnet inside for the over-night drying. Just avoiding any finger prints/idents on fresh paint. In total I have used 2.5cans (400ml sized cans) of paint and to be honest, for a decent, consistent paint I should have done at least another layer, but I needed little extra paint for other bits and this looked good enough for my tired eyes.
After around 48hrs of drying I got to the most anxious stage – clear coat. That’s when you find out if the paint actually stuck to the surface, or whether it will react and it’s all back to square one.
Saturday morning. I wiped down some really rough paint dust from the surface with high strength paper towel and used some compressed air to get rid of the dust. Got my clear coat shaken well and it was time to find out.. Tried little spray along the edge I knew would be easy to re-do (although you normally end up sanding it all down) but it stick well and I couldn’t see any signs of poor adhesion. I proceeded to do the edges around and the rest of the bonnet. Only thin layer first, and all was looking OK.
After 15mins I had plenty of confidence and went it with a proper layer of the coat. Took ages! I applied 4 layers of lacquer (although I later figured out it needed much more) and that’s 4 cans of Hycote gone! Let it to dry for few hours before bringing it back indoors, just like I did previously with the paint.
The next day it was another anxiety episode where you fit the part and expect it to match rest of the car. And it did! Kind of.. The strip above the grill which I painted twice previously was waaaaay off. And the seller claimed they sent me right color mix – yeah, no, I disagree. But then I thought myself ‘nope, this is good enough, I had enough sanding already, I can live with this, if anyone notice it, let it’. But few hours later I am sanding it down…
The above image is pre-polishing and you can clearly see how misty the bonnet is. It really needed few more coats, but I couldn’t find any local, same brand lacquer and I really needed to progress with the repair of this car. Not even Amazon had stock for next day delivery, and I already bought all from ECP. So hey, took a hit this time.
Here comes Sunday (we are still in the same week) where I started sanding and painting the strip and polishing the bonnet. Maybe if I was little bit smarter, I should have sanded bonnet first with very fine grit paper (like 2500 or so) and then there would be a lot less polishing. But my hands had enough at this point and I let the polishing machine to do the job. It took around 6-7 runs over same area to achieve adequate shininess.
It literally took 6 hours (although, without any rush) to polish the bonnet, most of front wings and A pillars. But the result is as good as it gets:
At the same time I was painting the grill strip and eventually left it over night to fully dry. Next day it was raining so I couldn’t do much, but when it wasn’t pouring I put it all together. I call it a result!:
Yes, the bonnet doesn’t quite align with the wing (same on both sides) and that’s because they are bent and I don’t want to cause more damage trying to fix them. The top bits do adjust a little so I might try that in the dry day. But for now, I am happy with what it is and maybe when prices come down I will get second hand set which will be straight.
On the interior side – I have received some vinyl samples but it looks like I made a mistake, what I really needed was 4way flex vinyl. So ordered another sample set again. Why I need this? Because after some research I found that the way dashboards are assembled will make near impossible to fix it in the state I have it. So it will have to be fully re-upholstered. Never done this before so stay tuned for some laugh.
If you interested how dashboards are made these days, here’s a good video I found on the internet from one of the OEM suppliers: High-quality car instrument panels with Bayfill® PUR foam | Covestro (scroll down for the video)
So that’s it for now, next week I am hoping to get the interior moving!