A Big Day

1999-before moving the whole project from Atlanta to Florida

The top picture was taken in 1999. My oldest son, in the first picture, was 11 at the time and in middle school. He's now almost 29 and living a successful life in Austin. Bill Clinton was President, "911" only meant an emergency call, and the words "year 2000" still sounded weird and distant.
It's taken almost 18 years to get from that condition to now!
Last week, I finally decided "enough" and finished the last round of sanding and prep work prior to painting. I knew there would be imperfections, but I just decided that I could live with whatever they were. After all, I'm not building a trailer queen, but a car that I can drive and enjoy without worrying about a "perfect" paint job.
Today, I enlisted the help of my dad and my two brothers to lift the body off of the dolly and position it back onto the frame. I was a little worried about alignment, because back in 1998-99, when I welded the new floor pans in, I also had to replace a number of the floor braces, and I confess that I applied a less than scientific method in doing so. Basically, I eyeballed and welded them in to what looked like close enough.

2018-last day on the dolly for ever!

The whole process took about two and a half hours, and sure enough, there were three mounting points that were somewhat off. I decided to go ahead and set the car down and I'll most likely drill up through the floorboard and make new holes. Not the most elegant solution, but it will work and never be obvious from above or below.
Next step is to wet sand and buff out my paint job to take all of the orange peel out. I don't know what it takes, if it's even possible, to avoid the orange peel texture. Polishing at this stage will be much easier and thorough than if I tried to do it at the end with all of the trim installed.
I also would like to find something to wrap onto the body to protect the paint as I move around the car and work on it, as I'm sure I'll be bumping it or dropping stuff on it many times in the months to come. 

Guide on, Guide off

The guide coat will tell the truth

At some point, body work has to finish, and since this project is a driver and not a show car (a level of which I could never achieve with my skill set), I've reached a point that is satisfactory to me.
After months of welding, filling, sanding, and primering, it was time to shoot a guide coat on to see what dips and bumps remained. It's impossible to see the very minor imperfections without this coat.
I have a half gallon of some black chassis paint that I first used years ago on my first attempt at restoring the frame. I'm glad that I removed old paint and repainted using the epoxy, because even after sitting in a covered space for 15 years, rust had started to work it's way through the paint. Therefore, I had no reservation about using this stuff as a sacrificial coat to sand off as a guide coat. It also sprays on right out of the can, making it easy to apply.
My only mistake (after the fact, of course) was not thinning it a bit, so it was a little difficult getting it off.

The black spots shot the low areas

The first guide coat revealed what I expected--lots of little spots that were not apparent to the naked eye or the hand, but would've showed up terribly on the
final product. A couple  more days of lightly block sanding showed me what needed a little more attention, to which I applied successive layers of glazing putty until I was satisfied.
As a side note, while I was working on this step, a paint and body guy from the shop next door stopped by and was surprised to see someone using glazing putty. He said he hadn't used the stuff in twenty years. I have no idea what is used in today's auto body world, so I'm sticking with the old school way.
After the first guide coat was removed, and the numerous blemishes filled and smoothed, I applied a second, more aggressive coat of filler primer. It's not possible to catch all of
the little pin holes with the glazing putty, and on this car there were a lot of them after sitting outside for so many years. Once the primer was down again, I shot another guide coat on, this time thinned out a bit and less heavy in the application.
I wanted to get the roof painted with the final finish of India Ivory before I left town for the Christmas holiday, so I was really pleased when the second guide coat came off the roof with only as few tiny imperfections remaining. Last week, in my improvised "paint booth" and perfect evening weather and temperature, I shot the final coat on the roof, then closed the doors and went out of town.

Finished roof

This week, I hope to get the final sanding done on the rest of the body and, weather permitting, shoot the final coat of Harvest Gold on. Then it will finally be time to reinstall the body on the frame.

Battle of the Bulge Part 3

Cutting the bulge out was definitely the way to go.
I've gotten the fender to be reasonable straight--I think it'll be just fine and noticeable only to a real expert that things aren't exactly as they should be. I've gone through about ten more layers of skim coats and sanding, and now I'm down to glazing putty for pin holes. My hope is to shoot the first filler primer coat on by Tuesday.
One thing that has made this whole process much easier, and resulted in a much better end product, is an air file. I wasn't aware that such a tool existed until I came across a used one on Craigslist. After researching some videos, I went to my local Harbor Freight and purchased one for myself. I figured that, for $35, I couldn't go wrong.
This is certainly not a top of the line tool, but it actually works pretty good. And, it's made this whole body work process so much easier and tolerable. There's so much more control using the air file, and the length ensures that I'm getting the straightest panel possible. Over the past week, I would lay down a layer of body filler in the morning, and then go to town with the file in the afternoon.
To paint, I've erected a barrier of plastic between the back and front of the shop. I've got the car close to the garage door. I can pull the door down and rest the bottom of it on a box fan, which I point outside. The top is open, so it's not perfect, but if I select the proper conditions to paint in, I can get a pretty good coat. I'm not too worried about the primer coat, but I'll take extra care on the final finish.