Engine bay is in primer - UPDATE 9/29 - Top coated

[Dino]

After tons of sanding, scraping, cleaning, rinsing and repeating, I was finally ready to put some primer on this thing.  

I used SPI epoxy in white and used some on my wife's daily as well as it had some issues on the roof.  I built a makeshift paint booth with some 3.5 mill clear plastic, a hammer stapler, and some duct tape.  

The one "booth" fits a car and will later be used for the hood and other parts.  The Charger booth is much smaller to keep the heat in.  I also had a drop cloth under the car, not to protect the garage floor but to keep the car clean as the old concrete is cracked everywhere and it's impossible to really get all the dirt off.

Despite following SPI's required cleaning procedure I still had some fish eyes.  I think the air line is the culprit, despite having two filters on it, so tomorrow I'll see if I can do something about that.

The second coat covered the fish eyes easily so no biggie but I don't want a repeat of it.  

This is two coats of epoxy.  The garage door is now closed and the booths help to keep the temps up.  I also have two heaters with thermostats running to keep the metal above 70 degrees.  The plastic is really working well because the heaters are not running a lot at all.  Outside temps are around 50 and should not go down any more than that.

Tomorrow I'll be applying Rage filler where needed, one being the seams of the patch piece under the battery tray I welded in.  One skim coat should do it.  Same with the apron on the passenger side where I welded several holes shut.   The metal is level but I left some grinding marks.  Then I need some filler on my wife's car before both will get two more coats of epoxy.  I still need to spray the underside of the hood, the hinges, fender tag and some other stuff so it'll be a few days before I'm ready to put actual top coat on there.  But it's getting there!  

[Dino]

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[Dino]

Last ones for now.

[DC_1]

Lookin good D! 

[keepat]

Looks great! Nice job on the booth!
Pat

[cdr]

       

[ws23rt]

  -- Dino-- I'm going to add a couple more just because I've been just where you are several times.

This can be done at home. --It can come out very nice. I hope your experience shared here helps get some off the pot and back to work.
We can fix these cars ourselves and the value of doing it ourselves is worth a great deal.

One can always want and then buy a charger that is finished. That is good. But to always have one, and finish it one's self is much better.

I've had most of my satisfaction in this hobby from making an old car new again. Driving a car I fixed feels better to me than a car that is just purchased.

[six-tee-nine]

Niiiiiiiiiiiiice !!!!   

[ipstrategies]

Dino this looks great, I have been working on rear wheel wells (stripped of undercoating (heat gun an scrapper).
I hope to epoxy this weekend. My project started replacing the trunk floor and ordering new brake and fuel lines (finelines -  www.sstubes.com).
The underside looked bad so I started stripping undercoating so I could epoxy. It looks great under there now. I will post pics.
I was  getting ready to change lines so I needed to clean wheel wells so that has been last 2 weekends rear wheel well and the underside of rockers since the lines run on both sides.
I will say the devilbiss dekupps (sp.?) really made it easy to spray at all angles under the car.

[Just 6T9 CHGR]

So fresh & so clean!

[tsmithae]

Looking good, Dino!

[WHITE AND RED 69]

Way to go Dirk! Looking great!   

[tan top]

 

[VegasCharger]

Great job Dino

[PlainfieldCharger]

  That White Bay is beautiful

[green69rt]

You have inspired me to push the painting chore as far as I can.  Good work!

[Dino]

Thanks for the comments folks.  I am happy to hear that others want to do some of the work on these beasts themselves.  It is very satisfying to be sure.  I used to do this work in a professional setting but I'm having lots of fun in my garage!

I finished my wife's car on Friday with base/clear so the second bay in the garage was free for my hood an small parts. I applied some filler to the engine bay and sanded it all before giving it another 2 coats of epoxy.  The other parts received 2 coats as well.  Today I'll be prepping everything for top coat which should be painted tomorrow.  I have to watch the weather a bit and time it right.

Pics to follow when it's all done!

[Canadian1968]

looks great!!!

[71 SE3834V]

Looks great! I'm back in town if you need a hand to get the hood off the hangers. Can't wait to see it in person.

[Dino]

I finished it today, everything is in shiny white single stage. 

I thought about hanging the hood from the rafter but since I had other stuff hanging up, the hood would block the only light source I had so I layed it down on padded saw horses.  I spent most of the time getting the dust out of the hood and althought there's still some that ended up in the paint, the end result looks great!

The engine bay turned out really nice.  I have one small run in the front crease of a shock tower as a fly landed in the paint and I tried to remedy it.  The spot where it landed is fine, but the Shopline paint is so thin that I have a small drop in the creas.  I'l get rid of it when it's fully cured...maybe.   

Everything is nice and shiny and looks better than the outside of the car.   

I painted both hood and engine bay all the way up to the outside skin so I curled the tape over the edge and just before the paint set I ran a paper towel with some lacquer thinner over the edge to melt the paint and blend it.  A quick polish tomorrow and you'd never know there was tape there.   

I painted the entire front end as well as it's easy enough to scuff and shoot it black, but I'm not sure where the body color ends and the black starts.  Only the top rad support crossmember is body color right?

Pics to follow tomorrow.  It started raining a few minutes after I finished cleaning up so I had to close the garage door. 

Jeff I can probably muscle the hood back against the wall but I won't say no to a hand if you have the time.   

[71 SE3834V]

Everything is nice and shiny and looks better than the outside of the car.   

Why does that sound familiar?

Jeff I can probably muscle the hood back against the wall but I won't say no to a hand if you have the time.   

Not worth the risk. I'm sure I can get away. Good excuse to get the car out again.

[Dino]

Everything is nice and shiny and looks better than the outside of the car.   

Why does that sound familiar?

Jeff I can probably muscle the hood back against the wall but I won't say no to a hand if you have the time.   

Not worth the risk. I'm sure I can get away. Good excuse to get the car out again.

Hey at least we have clean underhoods!   

I need to make some room for the hood as it will be stored until the rest of the car is done.  I'll be home for the next two days at least.  It may rain though so you may need to leave the blue beast at home.

[Troy]

That's great!

Troy

[Dino]

Alright I'm done with the big paint jobs!  I'm happy with how it turned out.  I polished up the front valance and took it to Painters-Supply where they found a close match for my unknown paint.  I did not use a primer other than the SPI epoxy since that one by itself is more than sufficient for engine bays and the likes.  You don't even have to top coat this epoxy but of course it looks a bit better this way.   

Top coat is single stage acrylic urethane JAU from Shopline.  It's pretty decent paint but is so thin I had to remix it and leave out the reducer.  Coverage was so-so, not like the top of the line paints I'm used to but it did the job.   

This morning I scuffed, masked, and painted the front of the rad support flat black.  I did not do this according to factory specs because frankly it's pretty poor.  Normally the inside of the fenders in front of the support is body color but since we're talking about a white car here I decided to paint it all black.  I could always see white between the fenders and the grille so that's solved once and for all. 

I wasn't sure how far to paint the black on the lower support so I decided to split it.  I used fine line tape to make a nice, crisp line and it turned out perfectly.

All in all, I'm very happy with how this all turned out and I can't wait to start bolting parts back on it.  Which means it's time to start painting all the small stuff.   

[Dino]

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[Dino]

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[hemi-hampton]

Looks good, Don't forget to paint the caster camber access plates black. Semi gloss if I remember right. LEON.

[Dino]

The metal access plates?  I thought only the rubber ones near the firewall were black and the metal ones were body color?  Easy fix if they need to be black.   

[cdr]

it looks really good !!! so glad you took the shocks off before paint. 

[green69rt]

Very nice job on the radiator brace!

[BLK 68 R/T]

Looking good 

[WHITE AND RED 69]

Fantastic job! Looks great!  

You gonna swap out the a/c box hardware?

[Dino]

Thanks guys, it was fun but I'm glad it's over!   

Fantastic job! Looks great!   

You gonna swap out the a/c box hardware?

Did you ask because the lines are uncapped?   

I realized I hadn't recapped them when I took the picture so that's been remedied.  I'm not doing anything to the a/c box at this time.  Everything's still in good shape, heatr blows hot and a/c blows ice cold.   

Only thing I'm redoing is the fan just because I had to remove it. 

[WHITE AND RED 69]

I just meant the 5 nuts on the firewall side.

I wouldn't mess with the box if it works. I restored mine just cause it was looking a tad rough...biggest waste of money I have spent in a long time.

[Dino]

I just meant the 5 nuts on the firewall side.

I wouldn't mess with the box if it works. I restored mine just cause it was looking a tad rough...biggest waste of money I have spent in a long time.

Sorry to hear that!

You know, I forgot about the nuts until I was painting.  I could remove them and either get new ones or paint them with Duplicolor metalclad.  Not sure yet. 

[hemi-hampton]

The metal access plates?  I thought only the rubber ones near the firewall were black and the metal ones were body color?  Easy fix if they need to be black.   

The metal ones are not body color. Black. LEON.

[GeneralLee440]

Looks great!

[tan top]

 

[E5 Charger]

Man that looks nice! I'm planning on doing my engine bay next summer. Now I'm even more excited to get to it.

[timmycharger]

Great job!

[Dino]

Thanks again! It's worth doing it yourself if at all possible, it's satisfying to do this yourself.  For me it was a fflashback to a previous career. I hadn't painted a car in over 10 years.

Question:  which nuts/bolts were originally yellow anodized.  I have a can of the metalcast paint, not metalclad as I previously stated, and just did the nuts for the blower motor and the bracket for the wiper motor resistor and it looks really nice.  It's not the same as the real stuff but for my non original bay it works just fine.  What else is yellow besides the heater box nuts?  Wiper motor nuts?  Anything else?

[WHITE AND RED 69]

I'm pretty sure the only bolts that are yellow/gold are the blower motor and heater box. Wiper motor nuts are silver plated.

[Troy]

Looks great!

The inside edge of that little "lip" around the radiator hole is going to show through your grill. You need to learn to be as sloppy as the assembly line!




Troy

[Dino]

I'm pretty sure the only bolts that are yellow/gold are the blower motor and heater box. Wiper motor nuts are silver plated.

Great!  Thanks!

Looks great!

The inside edge of that little "lip" around the radiator hole is going to show through your grill. You need to learn to be as sloppy as the assembly line!




Troy

Ha!  I'll get sloppy!  Didn't think of that so I'll just touch it up with a brush then.