The big Healey has had a couple of issues that were bothering me, nothing mechanical, just stuff that was not right. The car is a 1957 Austin Healey 100-6 that I have owned for 16+ years. At the time of purchase, it had been sitting behind a garage in central Minnesota for about 25 years and was in pretty tough shape. Dan and I did a lot of work to bring it back to life and it has since become a pretty good road car. A most comfortable cruiser.
There were two problems with the car. When I initially painted the car, the color choice was intended to be British Racing Green. It didn't turn out that way. The paint I had chosen was more teal colored, which I felt was ok at the time, but to me, it appeared less and less like BRG as time passed. This had to be fixed.
The second problem was a misshapen grille opening in the front shroud. This condition was the result of a choice that I made while building the car. I opted for a shroud based on the integrity of the flanges that are used to mount the piece on the car, figuring I could reshape the grille opening later. Wrong. This time I fixed the flanges on the original shroud, which already had a better grille opening.
The unfortunate initial color choice and shroud being replaced meant that a total repaint was in order. I also know that British Racing Green does not denote a single color as it seems the Brits were painting cars all shades of green and calling some BRG. So I did a little informal research and found a color on an MG forum that looked the part and had a PPG color mix code. Then it was just a simple matter of going to the auto parts store that mixes PPG paints and having the color made.
Oh if it were that simple.
Keep in mind that this is 2020 and things are not normal.
I shaved my beard, sprayed a coat of etching primer over the entire car, and fixed the dings and dents. When that was done I sprayed two coats of high build filler primer. Lots of sanding and more filler primer later I was ready to paint.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic led me to order the paint by phone. We, the auto parts person and I, decided that 1 quart of paint, a quart of reducer, and a half-pint of hardener would be enough material for the job at hand. When the paint arrived and I started spraying, I decided to paint the under the bonnet, under the boot lid, and the inside of the door frames since the color had significantly changed. Painting more stuff resulted in the paint running short. By the time I fully realized what was going to occur, the paint gun was sputtering, I had a partially painted car, it was late Saturday morning, and the parts store was closed, closed for the weekend.
What to do? Get out the 400 wet or dry and scour the entire outer surface over the weekend. Monday morning, order another quart of paint, and a half-pint of hardener, which all comes in on Wednesday morning. Use the leftover reducer and get the whole project going again.
So I shaved my beard again and got to painting. Unfortunately, the air temperature had changed since the reducer was purchased. It had become really hot. I was spraying dust. I put on a coat of very nice dust that hardened into a perfect non-skid surface suitable for a pool deck. Not good, not good at all.
Get out the 400 wet or dry. Smooth the whole surface. Order more paint. Two quarts this time. Order a quart of higher temperature reducer and another pint of hardener. Wait a couple days for the materials to arrive. Shave my beard, again. Paint.
The first thing, the gun clogged. All the spray, respray, and respray again had clogged a small tube in the paint feed part of the gun. Knowing that the pot life of mixed paint is in the area of a couple hours, I poured the paint back into the mixing can and disassembled the gun. I found the offending tube, determined that it was impossible to clean, discarded it, and made a replacement from some plumbing stuff I had in the drawer. Reassemble the gun. Paint.
Color sanding and buffing are going on now. This is the stage where the spots where the paint ran or the color coat is too thin begin to show. I have since resprayed some small areas, I still have some extra paint.
Sand, sand, sand, buff, buff, buff... Reassemble the car. Vacuum. Wash. The front shroud and grille look great and the color is perfect. My beard is coming back.
What a summer! I have a put solid month of time and a barge load of moola into this little paint project. I am thankful that I am essentially in lockdown with time on my hands and have a gob of money that I saved the past 8 months on gasoline, restaurants, and the like.
Does a gob fill a barge? Can I buy experience? Would I learn anything if there was no stake in the matter?
Play.
Keep 'em running.
As always,
The GlassStacker's Assistant
