Belltown Build - 1974 Scout II

Oh boy..sanding dust...nothing like it...all over everything...
Where in Alabama did the caddy go?

 

1/16" filler is nothing. New quarters require that if you're making them flat. Still can't believe you guys took on that hood. That's incredible, really.

 

Greg, the Caddy went to Hoover. Buyer was a cool fella - school principle down there. Alabama seems like a good pace for that thing - will get more time to use it than up here. Though with no AC, it might get more use in the winters. Bob

 

Gotcha..hover is about a hour from me..your right about the ac...I'm betting the top stays down most of the time..

 

It would have been a more efficient use of time to drive to western PA to scoop the one that Jeff offered. But I guess that it's more of bringing this particular one back to life. That said, when we are finished, there will be parts of 6 or 7 Scouts on board. It has been learning experience for sure. B

 

So we got the flocking on the dashpad. I was hoping that it would look more like suede, but I think it looks most like felt. Still, a million times better than it was, for a fraction of the cost of a pro restoration. We flocked the dash in black, and I think that I like the black better than the tan, but still, this is pretty nice.


It take a few days for the glue to set up totally, but once it does the flocking stands up to well to abuse.

Thanks for looking! Enjoy your Memorial Day holiday - Bob & Finn

 

Flockin A !

JJ in TN

 

Dang that looks nice..!!

 

I like the look of the flocking. I wonder how do you clean it? (Asks the man who pretty much never cleans his cars...)

 

That flocking is the hot ticket.

 

Once the glue is fully set - it really does take a few days, you can vacuum the dust/dirt right off of it. I'm not sure what you would do about staining and such - obviously can't spray on cleaner and wipe it off. B

 

So I picked up somewhere here or the FB group that it is a good idea to assemble everything before final bodywork. We are mostly through the "macro" bodywork, but still thought it made sense. We re-installed the doors with the vent-window frames to get the windshield frame angle dialed. We put the nose pieces on and we also put the hood on (and off and on and off and on X20). So glad we did it. We had to make some adjustments that would have been really stressful if we were doing them with fresh paint on. We had to make some spacers for one the hood hinges and for the hood latch. Ate up our Scout work time for the weekend, but worth it I think. And we got a fresh motivation re-charge by seeing it put together.
The biggest challenge was the hood. And most of that was due to our rebuild of the inner structure. We did our best with the hinge landings, but they are a little bit different. We got it about this close on Saturday night, but didn't go any further because it was late and we know our decision making goes downhill once it gets towards 2200:



We got the hinges set up correctly and then had to address a couple of bows in the hood. We were up 0.75" in the middle of the rear edge and about 0.5" in the middle of the PS edge. So we went all "sausage factory" on the hood:


In the end, Finny was not the right tool for the job and I had to hop up there and bring a little more weight to bear. I guess this means I'm a bigger tool than Finn.

We got it pressed into shape pretty well. I can't imagine doing this with fresh paint.



And one last shot:


Here you can see the fenders not too bad filler wise, but the doors were a mess. I think if we knew more we could have shrunk some of those valleys out of the doors, but we are not that good. Nothing deeper than 1/8" - but still. We did manage to shrink an oil canning situation out of the PS door. Taking the pointy hammer and the donut dolly to the door was a little wacky, but it worked.

Now it all comes back apart as we march towards paint...

Good day - thanks for looking - Bob and Finn

 

I hear ya; I turn into a pumpkin at that time!

I would like to know how Fin is going to sell his "sausage factory" repair method on his collage applications?

Sad to take it apart, but I know what y'all gotta do. Still, the build is looking awesome! Really enjoy following along.

On a related hood note, when I first started my build, I was driving around without the nose and thus the hood latch. Even though these hoods weigh in at about seven tons, I found out that lift occurs at about 45 mph in my case. Talk about having to change one's shorts! I was able to safely pull over and close the hood. Drove home at perhaps 20 mph. Once home, I found that the top of the windshield frame made a perfect impression into the hood. I was able to get 95% of the dents out by placing a 2 x 4 and some shims in the engine bay and closing the hood. Like 20X!

 

Looks good Bob..!

 

A lot of time on the Scout, but not much picture worthy. Just sanding. I have found it pretty enjoyable though I've got to admit.

So, we finished all of the filler work - the last bit was the nose of the hood where we replaced a good portion of it. Then we sprayed with epoxy primer. I wasn't thrilled with the finished - an overall covering of pebbling - "Orange peel" I guess. I have now come to understand it was simple: orange peel is caused by too much paint, or not enough air, or air pressure too high, or perhaps too small of a tip or maybe too big of a tip and then the temperature wasn't ideal and my compressor was too small or the hoses were too long or the desiccant was used up. So, yea, I've got it figured out now! Ha! But really after some more farting around, I think that the new epoxy I have is thicker than the Eastwood stuff I had before. I thinned the practice batch a bit and used a larger tip (which in retrospect makes no sense if my problem is too much paint). Tonight we have the last coat of epoxy to go on, and I will thin it and use my medium tip and paint the inside of the garage doors some more to balance everything out. And then hope for the best.

I wasn't too concerned with the texture, because a coat of high build primer was going on next. And that took care of it. So, here it sits with the high build all blocked out to 600 grit:



It's about as smooth and straight as we are going to make it. Afterall it's not going to pebble beach - Plenty other beaches, but not that one. We are pleased with it at this point.

Here's how the garage looks now:



Everything laid out for the next coat of epoxy nd then color.

So, my practice epoxy included painting the grill and the piece below the grill and the tunnel cover to see if I had my orange peel problem sorted out. There was very slight orange peel, and I wanted to see if the urethane would cover it, just so I know how much to freak out. The urethane covered nice:



However, I got some fish eye craters here and there:



So then I got to learn about how to try to prevent those - and my thought is with the not-perfectly-clean rag I used to wipe the preclean solvent. We are going to wet sand this part down - as much as an experiment to see how much we can sand it before going though the color as anything - and recoat. And hopefully get rid of those.

Anyway, on to more painting...stay safe - Bob & Finn

 

Great work fellas! That rig has come a long ways, looks like you will actually be DRIVING it sooner than later too.

JJ in TN

 

So we did get our shit together and pulled off a nice layer of epoxy over the high build:




That means today is color day - where the rubber meets the road. No stress here!

 

So we got the color on and the paint stuck to the metal. The surface is rather - ah - inconsistent. Overspray, orange peel, etc. Some areas spot on shiny and smooth, others not so. Plenty of dust but only one run and one bug. We did 5 laps - coats - on everything so there is plenty of color to support our wet sanding cutting and buffing. I'm sure we will be able to smooth it out nicely at the end. The color looks greener than we thought it might - its definitely glue or breen. Haven't see it out in the sunlight yet but under the lights and with the clouds today it looks green like a forest service truck. Not bad, but not what we expected.

I would like to know why we ended up with the surface we did. I'm sure it was technique mostly. It seemed to be spraying just fine. But I'd love to know if it was mixture (we opened up the paint flow after a couple of light coats), or if it was moisture related (humid day and in fact we had to change out our desiccant about halfway through), or maybe it was too much time between coats (it took me about 30 minutes to get everything painted and back to the start).

Maybe I cursed myself by stating out loud that I enjoyed the sanding part of the work.






Tomorrow we will spray the monstaliner on the inside. Have a good weekend - thanks for looking - Bob & Finn

 

Bob, I know how you feel...based on my recent issues (not expert btw)..lots of things can affect how the paint goes on..gun to close, gun to far away, low air pressure, high air pressure ,etc etc etc..on and on and on
When I set my gun I had the paint flow wide open..but the 1st two coats I'd go really fast and just put down light coats..then I'd slow down and cover good with the next coats..
Hopefully you won't do like I did and burn thru the paint while buffing ..
My red is alot brighter in the sun than it looked when I picked it out and did a color test
Overspray is likely due to not enough air movement around the panels..and should sand off fairly easy with the dust and bugs...when I painted my C30 about 10,000 gnats landed on it when I sprayed the last coat...cant tell it now..
There are 2 clock times that are important..flash time and recoat window
The flash time allows the solvents to work out of the paint you sprayed...mine says 30 min..so I'd wait at least 30 minutes between coats..
The recoat window is 24hrs..
As long as I was in that 30min to 24hr window I was good...
Good luck with it..!!

 

Nice job guys , and well done. I think you guys did great to take on this part of the build. I say if we want something perfect we would pay some " professional the big bucks " and even then it's not guaranteed.