1979 Opel Rekord E Belina 2.0S Auto, now 2.4 manual - PAINT!

[The Doctor]

if you know somebody who is handy with a sewing machine, it's not too hard to do.
I had my aunt make me a new vinyl headlining for me, with the old one as a pattern, and i fitted it with my mate. Both of us hadn't done it before.
When it was done, only 1 c pillar wasn't 100%, the rest was very good.

I used clothes pegs to test fit it and then use a decent glue, start from the middle (front and back first and then the sides) and work your way to the pillars, vinyl is very forgiving and if you work yourself into the pillars, you can get away with most of the wrinkels you made right at the beginning. (at least, i could! )

The only thing i didn't do right, was using the right glue, it's coming off now in several places, and refitting the headlining means removing the rollcage, guess i'll have to live with a flapping headlining

[mylittletony]

I reckon a good clean of the main portion should work wonders. Then you could apply some covers/patches to the ripped c-pillar sections in a contrasting/complimentary colour?

why isn't the shell painted yet? Stop dragging your heels man

[stealthstylz]

Can't wait to see it all painted. Pimp Violet is a badass colour, when we did the MG the other week we spent a good hour afterwards just looking at it giggling. I don't know what it is about Montana paint but it's almost like a matt pearlescent, in direct sunlight it goes a really bright pink.

[HARDCORE]

Thanks again for the positivity & kind words (except mylittletony it's not painted because the prep is ENDLESS)
Matt, I agree, the colour/paint is mental cool. The thought of seeing this out in the sun, with all the chrome trim and yellow interior, is what's keeping me at it..

Looks like I need to reconsider my position on the headliner; certainly an attempt to clean it up has nothing to lose. Failing that, LadyHC is dead handy with a sewing machine, so could do something I'm sure


Quick update from a loooooong weekend of bodywork prep...


Started out Fri eve after work, looking mostly car-shaped. It's at the high-build then DA/sand stage on all but the roof




Dusky / dusty..



Plenty of amusing TAB-shonk in the background


Prepped & painted the sunroof panel.. Kinda wish I could leave the whole car like this! Looks cooooool..




Many areas are now ready for an etch-prime before paint. I'm pretty pleased with this bit (go back a few pages to see how much of this has been repaired or welded up)




Sat night now, another long day / late night - basically sanding all day, in between drinking cider & eating bbq'd meats.




Back panel now in primer - remember how much of this was cut out?







Sorry for the rubbish pics. *Late/*dark/*exhausted/*drunk/*room full of fumes... *pick your favoured excuse.




This bottom corner is all repair too:




Sunroof done (I so nearly forgot to paint a filler flap - that would've been much annoy!




Sunday was all about the roof. This is the single worst part of the shell / bodywork. Pitted, surface-rusty, wibbley, generally krackered.
A boring, dusty, noisy, time-consuming job. My hat off to the many on here that do bodywork professionally. I won't be taking on anything this krackered again for a loooong while.


Finally for this weekend, VIP was kind enough to roll the rear arches for me. They will *probably* need doing, so makes sense just to do it now, before the paint goes on.







That's about all for the weekend. Disappointingly little to show for the amount of time & effort put in.

More soon (I was there after work this eve - pics just uploading..)

[bstardchild]

Taps fingers and waits

[varelse]

Looking great

[craig1010cc]

Looking good Andy, can't wait to see it all in colour :)You'll then soon forget the horror of all the prep work....... untill the next one

[Clement]

I say fiberglass headlining with yellow fake fur glued to it. Or beige (for a classy look).

[eternaloptimist]

Good work! Looking forward to seeing this in paint.

[HARDCORE]

Quick update before the weekend, got a couple of evenings in this week..


Finally finished DA'ing the roof:




It's faaaaar from perfect, but it's 100000000% better than it was before. All in primer:










Sills look pretty good




From this:




To this:




It'll be all painted this weekend. Honest.

[bstardchild]

Jun 12, 2014 22:43:57 GMT HARDCORE said:

To this:




It'll be all painted this weekend. Honest.

If you stop painting all the walls you might have enough paint left to do the car

[Mark]

Great work! How many sanding discs did you go through dude? Was it a new Rekord?

[Vintage75]

I can't wait to see this painted,
Totally PIMPTASTIC.

[speedy88]

Jun 12, 2014 22:43:57 GMT HARDCORE said:

To this:

That's impressive, what technique did you use to get that pitting down to that sort of level while keeping everything flat? It can't have just been a case of sanding until they were gone? I've got similar pitting to get rid of at some point...

[HARDCORE]

Jun 12, 2014 23:27:13 GMT bstardchild said:

If you stop painting all the walls you might have enough paint left to do the car

Doesn't everyone do that? (to check you've shaken in up enough, and the upside-down thing at the end to clear the nozzle?) Brightens the place up a bit anyway

Jun 13, 2014 2:44:02 GMT Mark said:

Great work! How many sanding discs did you go through dude? Was it a new Rekord?

Enough sanding disks to make my own Dessert Island out of sanding Disks*

That worked much better in my head. I'm definitely still counting it anyway.

Jun 13, 2014 9:42:20 GMT speedy88 said:

That's impressive, what technique did you use to get that pitting down to that sort of level while keeping everything flat? It can't have just been a case of sanding until they were gone? I've got similar pitting to get rid of at some point...

Thanks dude Basically it's a LOT of sanding, then the thinnest skim of filler possible, then sand pretty much ALL of the filler back off again. All's left is tiny green dots of filler where it's in the pits. Mega labour intensive, but short of starting with a shell that isn't rubbish, I don't know what else you could do? I did some of the 'better' bits with high-build primer, but it really hasn't worked as well, and I kinda wish I hadn't now, but it is a LOT quicker!



*Rubbish Pun Count: 21

[varelse]

This will be how I have to deal with the minor as well I guess. Not that any progress has been made for ages

[HARDCORE]

Jun 12, 2014 22:43:57 GMT HARDCORE said:

It'll be all painted this weekend. Honest.

Boom

Tease for now, more later, I'm still at TAB working on it.

[Vintage75]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

[Robinxr4i]

F**K YES!!!!!!!

[jpsmit]

Barney, the dinosaur, is the you?