the making of my 480 passion

[SMOOTH 480]

today ive finally come to decision on the paint for the car
im no longer going to be painting her vase green with a gold flip instead i was thinking of satin black with gold tinted laquer
just to help me out esta did a quick chop

[SMOOTH 480]

The stealth bomber look is under way
I had a spare 2 hours at work today so i took a load of wet and dry brought the car into the shop and started rubbing back the dull paint work
im not going to go through to bare metal all over but i will be taking the arches back to bare metal and then apply rust inhibitor
pics will follow shortly once i remember to take a few

[SMOOTH 480]

ok well ive been driving around in a very dull 480 lately and my new compressor is coming in the next week
so fingers crossed i can get the bump strips off and remove the gorilla snot
then all i need to do is smooth it all down with the old rotary sander and give it a few coats of new paint
ill be taking a load of pictures while i do this this and ill add a step by step account in the diary thread of how the cars coming along

[SMOOTH 480]

On this pictture you can see how deep the dented the rear arch was but after pulling and working its coming back out















Ready for sanding and blending !



More to come when i get the time to upload them

[SMOOTH 480]

On the above pic you can see i still have a bit more shaping to do
but its a damn site better than it was

[SMOOTH 480]

just a quick upload of a few pictures so far -
I wisely decided not to remove the bump strips on the side as cerburus pointed out it could look a little slab sided with the satin black paint ...

so here are a few more pics taken in the past few days







The filling spray to ensure the paint covers the filler well

then onto the first coat of the satin black i still have to paint the bonnet and the nose cone tomorrow

















Bonnet still to go

[SMOOTH 480]

pop ups will need a quick rub back The ripples from scratches is still showing through )
now ive just got to rub it back lightly and add the second coat ready for the lacquer on saturday morning

[SMOOTH 480]

Here she is with the three coats of satin black dry and ready for a rub back for the clear coat


New rear lights being picked up today so will be having a coat of lacquer and then fitted sunday





The next stage will include some of the most bizzare chemistry
A clear coat 2k ms lacquer mixed with 2oz's of gold pearl dust

[SMOOTH 480]

well first off a big thank you to esta for sourcing the rear lights for me
I think there going to set the rear off nicely now

they were already in mint condition .... but just to make sure they had that deep luster i gave them a quick rub back and de-grease then i applied 2 thin coats of 2 pack clear coat lacquer, The 1st coat was applied last night around 10, the 2nd was first thing this morning --- 6:30


then it was back onto preping the car for the 1st coat of lacquer .

100% gold pearl dust mixed with thinners









now its time to start mixing more gold in
















Time for a good mopping next
Also took the time to try a bit of colour coding on my spare dash surround


Thanks for reading
Adam

[SMOOTH 480]

a few more pics now ive washed, T-cut, washed,t-cut, polished and mopped the paint
i had a bit of a scary moment this morning when i was t-cutting the car. The t-cut on first rubbing got stuck in the small indents of the satin paint and made the car appear very very dull .... soooo i got out the p800grit sand paper and started to cut the paint back with a very fine amount of t-cut unill the lacquer became smooth
then a quick wash and dry then it was out with the polishing mop and on with a few coats of mur clear wax .....
To produce a very sexy satin effect
but in the shade i couldnt see the gold too well until thye sun came out
















I also fitted the new rear lights in ( thanks again to esta )






Hope you all enjoy thanks for reading
Adam

[SMOOTH 480]

today i have the day off work to do the smaller things on the car
so i finally got round to tidying the boot up and hid the amps


No more strewn wires lying over the floor



Im now going to have to remove the boot cover and trim it back to size as its a little baggy after moving the box backwards


The amps are now hiden nicely and all wires have been put in tidy



You wouldnt even know it was there

[SMOOTH 480]

well after all the rain we have had it turns out my lacquer has reacted with the wax and the rain has made it look very streaky

never mind though optomistic as ever i decided to get more paint !!!!
this time 2 pack polyurethane satin stain black 5litres
also dan the man forwarded a few pics of a very similar car
this has spurred me on to get the bump strips off and make it 100% smoothed

[SMOOTH 480]

The first part of the smoothing started in the week when i decided to pull the bump strips off ERM i know lee told me the gorilla spunk was hard to pull off but DAMN ! that stuff is persistant ...
So after trying every sort of thinners and solvent cleaner i could get my hands i opted to use 666 spray gun cleaner and a stanley blade !
suffice to say i got a few small cuts on my finger tips that really hurt when the cleaner got in ! ( but at least they were clean cuts )




After this i started with a resin and glass fibre matting to make a good bed for the p38 to adhere too ! the its was a quick rough over with a good 80 grid sanding pad and on with the p38 filler leaving sufficient time to prime after each rub back



















This morning im going to be errecting my paint tent AGAIN and giving it one last rub over and a final inspection of the smoothed areas, Before the masking off and first coat of primer

[SMOOTH 480]

priming is done and dry car should be ready for baking this afternoon