Magnetic Negative Force of Newly Painted Body

[P.J. Romano]

I love reading Pete Egan's articles in Road & Track magazine. He is restoring old cars with a patient and is able to put on a paper stories that reflects this in such a true way that anybody who has ever been involved in restoration of old cars can easily understand and identify with.

This is an excerpt from his latest story:

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When I left for the body shop yesterday, our dog Sam (Black Lab mix) came running after the van, leaping crazily down the driveway, so of course I had to open the door and let him come with me (Irish/German/English mix).
He jumped in and sat on the passenger seat during our 60-mile drive to Marklein Auto Body in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. I swear dogs appreciate a drive in the country more than any human being who ever lived. Sam takes frequent smell samples out of the wind flow as we drive, and seems especially interested in sheep. He looks at them the way I look at old cars when we pass a junkyard.

We were on our way to pick up my Lotus Elan. An early 1964 Series 1 roadster, once a faded red, now redone in British Racing Green.

Shop owner Dennis Marklein had called a week earlier and said, "Your bodyshell is all painted. I won't tell you it looks beautiful, because you should be the judge of that. But it looks beautiful."


And they did a beautiful job painting the car, after much prep work. The whole body had to be soda blasted to remove the old outer coat of fiberglass gel, revealing many deep stress cracks to be filled. Large sections of rotten fiberglass around old repairs were cut out and replaced, then everything was recoated with a spray gel and block-sanded. Fiberglass may not rust like steel, but it creates its own problems at restoration time.

So. With the paint work all done and the body lifted (by hand, this time) and bolted to the chassis, Sam and I drove to Dodgeville yesterday to retrieve the reunited body and soul. We loaded the Lotus on the trailer, thanked Denny and all the guys who'd worked on it and headed for home.

When we got home, I backed the trailer up to the workshop door and unloaded the car, rolling it into the center of the garage. Then I pulled up a lawn chair and just looked at the thing for a while.

Now the hard part begins. Installing the dash and wiring harness, seats, windshield, gas tank, lights, exhaust system, radiator, door locks and handles, etc. Still lots to do, but I think I might wait a few days before I start and just enjoy the view of that perfect green body shell.

The truth is, it looks so good I'm temporarily paralyzed, afraid to go near the car with sharp metal objects and heavy tools. Freshly painted cars — even fiberglass cars — are highly magnetic. They can pull in a bouncing socket or a dropped hammer from halfway across the garage. Keys, sunglasses, spare change...you name it. They'll fly through space and hit your car. Don't even think of going near it while carrying a set of Weber carburetors or a cast-iron exhaust manifold.

Maybe I'll let the Lotus sit for a full week, until the magnetism wears off.

If I drop something on that flawless bonnet, spill some brake fluid or scuff a door, I'll probably have to shoot myself. And if I lack the courage, I'm sure the guys at Marklein Auto Body will be glad to do it for me.

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So true, I also self-inflicted wound to my freshly painted GT. It bothers me since...

[Sparky73]

Great article! I'm sure there are a lot of people out there, including myself, that knows exactly how he feels! LOL (and how you feel as well )

[Aardvaark]

I always read Peter Egan's column first thing after R/T arrives.

[kwilford]

Originally Posted by Aardvaark I always read Peter Egan's column first thing after R/T arrives.

Me too! It's the first thing I read every month when my R&T arrives.

Some days I think we have lived parallel lives, albeit his involves airplanes, more motorcycles, and a lot of more interesting classic cars. But his stories on car repairs and some of his trips are just to damn familiar to have been written by a fellow in Wisconsin. Maybe that is also part if it, as Peter is also from a land of ice and snow.

I have EXACTLY the same feelings about working on a newly painted car. Back when I was 16 and "restored" my first car (a 1961 Austin Healey bug-eyed Sprite, which was also one of Peter's first cars), I was bolting on bumpers, trim and such almost as soon as it came back from the paint shop. The next two major re-paints were my Opel GT and my wifes about 6 and 10 years later respectively, and by that time, the reality of dinging the paint after all that work was somewhat more daunting.

So now I have taken my GT down to absolutely BARE metal, spent hundreds of hours repairing every hint of rust, and am now starting on the serious body work. After reading opelspyder's (Keith Lundholm's) ongoing thread on his GT restoration (and the hundreds if not thousands of hours that he is putting into it to get the body "right),
http://www.opelgt.com/forums/opel-gt...eries-2-a.html
I am almost paralysed by the thought of re-assembling my GT. Oh well, slow and steady!

Thanks for the reminder of one of Peter's better columns.

[jeff denton]

Upon finishing the V8 swap on my S10, I thought the exterior of the perfectly cherry body could use a quick freshening of the paint. It spent three days in a local body shop. When finished, the owner's son apparently couldn't resist the temptation to test drive a 412ci S10. He most certainly didn't have anybody's permission! Nor did he know that the hood is held down by hood pins, which were not in place.
I think you know what happened next. Goodbye hood, cowl, hinges, windshield, and paint job. I discovered this when I went to get it, they had left a message the night before that it was ready, before the test drive... They kind of fixed it, of course, but nothing could ever be lined up and fitted perfect again. I refused to pay them a single dime for the whole job a week later and threatened to get a sheriff deputy's opinion of the situation if they didn't let me have my pickup back. I'm still pissed, and that was twelve years ago.