My 1964 Impala Restoration - Page 8

March 8th 2011 - The body is now in the body shop. It is nice to see dents being fixed, like this fender bender from 20 or more years ago.

Rusty area around the tail light has been repaired.

Roof has had it's paint removed now. The rust coming through the paint up there was minor surface rust, so that is good news.

March 9th 2011 - Pulling out an old shallow dent that pre-dates my knowledge.

March 10th 2011 - Suddenly the doors fenders and trunk lid are back on. Looking more like a car again.

One of the patches made to the rusty corners on the doors.

March 26th 2011 - New hood fitted. Martin and the guys are doing all the fiddly work of getting things lined up and panel gaps even.

April 2nd 2011 - The body shop guys have been working hard getting things to line up. Things get interesting when you are trying to align 4 doors, fenders and hood to a body that is 47 years old. They had to shim the front and rear body mounts a bit to correct some bend in the body, so that things would line up straight. You can see that a couple extra washers were added to this rear body mount.

The roof also got it's primer and filler, shaping things up nice and smooth. With the doors and fender alignment taken care of, it is time for lots of block sanding.

April 7th 2011 - I had the seats stripped down buy Sergio at Orange Auto Upholstery in preparation for new padding and covers. First I had to take the old springs and frames out to be powder coated at Americoat Powdercoating. They have been doing great powdercoating work on various other bits on the Impala.

April 9th 2011 - The Impala went into the paint booth for a primer/guide coat.

April 12th 2011 - The stainless trim is back from polishing. It is nice to see it all shiney again, with dents and scratches removed.

April 15th 2011 - Getting ready for what should be the final block sanding in the body shop.

April 27th 2011 - Another round of primer and guide coat.

With the steering wheel, column and shaft removed, it takes some wrestling to move the Impala around from the paint booth to the body shop.

Lining up the trim.

April 30th 2011 - The final bits of rust repair welding have been done.

A rust spot in the passenger side rear wheel well was found and repaired.

The rust spot in the trunk on the back side of the body mount.

The trunk had some dents removed from the corners and seam sealer put on.

The rust spot on the front passenger side floor was taken care of. Not sure why they bothered to bondo an area that will be covered by sound proofing and carpet. I think they guys are really getting into this project. I hope they will give me the car back when they are done ;-)

Same spot from the bottom. Soon to to get the grinder on it.

May 10th 2011 - Body parts are being prepped for sealer and later "jambing", the first of the final color to be sprayed in hard to get at areas.

May 10th 2011 - Body parts are being prepped for sealer and later "jambing", the first of the final color to be sprayed in hard to get at areas.

The dash is getting some attention in preperation for it's repaint.

Even the damage of my stereo installations of the distant past are being smoothed over.

May 11th 2011 - Parcel shelf repairs to accomodate the non-stock 6x9 speakers.

Sealer coat applied on the inside of the body panels.

Rust Proofing the insides of the doors will be done with 3M™ Rust Fighter-I

Sprayed in with a long wand.

Results inside the door.

May 13th 2011 - A "Test Spray" panel was done of DeBeer's idea of what Ermine White should be. Somehow I thought this would be closer to what was on the car, but it is quite a bit creamier. Now I am left wondering if DeBeer's is off or my remaining sample of old paint is not original thanks to replaced parts from past accidents (pre 1982). I am certianly used to the whiter white that the old paint had become.

I compared the test spray to a couple Ermine White cars belonging to local VCCA members. This picture compares the test spray to a 64 Chevelle, which has been restored to a very high standard. Both are creamier than the photo looks. This was taken in the garage with artifical light messing with the color perception.

This picture compares the test spray to a 65 Impala that had been color matched by eye when it was repainted. On my monitor the test panel looks pretty close to the actual color. This picture was under overcase sunlight. In full sun, the panel looks almost pure white.

Somehow, I thought picking a white color would be easy :-o

May 25th 2011 - A minor set back. The trim restorer polished out the textured surface in the middle of the trunk lid and quarter mouldings. I don't know if the textured surface can be restored or if I will have to get some good used parts. I looked at the reproductions and they used paint this area to try and reproduce the textured look and it does not look that great.

May 26th 2011 -The first of the color has been sprayed on the door jamb areas of the doors and a couple other parts. Looks great to see the color on bigger pieces and start to appreciate the body work that has been going on the last few months. These have been clear coated as well, but not yet “color sanded” which will bring out a more even shine.

The cowl showing the shine.

Door jamb area.

Test spray of the dash color has been made and awaits my approval. I am trying to match the area below the test card, near the screw. This area was protected by the hinge being screwed on top if it, so it did not weather as much as the rest (this paint seems to darken with age). I think it is safe to assume the protected area also darkened a bit, so the test spray looks about right. This slightly lighter shade seems to go with the other restored interior parts (seats, carpet, etc) better.

June 13th 2011 -The outside of the doors got painted in the final color.

June 17th 2011 - The experiment of sandblasting the aluminum to recreate the finish on the rear deck lid has worked well. In the picture there is still some gum on the shiney part from the duct tape used to mask it, but that comes off easy.

June 20th 2011 - Hood and fenders got their turn in the spray booth. The trunk needed a bit more sanding before it gets it's turn. The hood and fenders have not been sanded and polished yet, so the finish is not yet done, but you can see in the reflections the overall even surface created by all that careful body work. The waves on the edges of the refelections (orange peel) will come out with the 'color sanding' and polishing. It is exciting to start to see the finished product emerge.

In the picture, the hood looks a bit different in color than the fender because of the skylight above it giving a different color light to it.

June 26th 2011 - A little side project. I needed to fill the speaker grill on the front dash. I also thought it would be nice to have a speaker to play through using the built in amp of the conversion radio. RetroSound makes this fairly shallow dual voice coil speaker. While I doubt there will be much stereo effect, it does give some use for the combined outputs.

Some hammering on the original bracket to accomodate the magnet of the RetroSound speaker.

And it more or less fits. Just need to add something across the opening in the bracket to allow the screw to the speaker to attach.