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Another long weekend spend sanding sodding filler again! I’ve had to correct some minor imperfections on both cab doors, the rear hatch, the sliding door, the large side panel and both rear arches (so basically the whole van!). 

I’ve got some further work on the O/S rear arch to do tomorrow night then I’ll re-prime it all later in the week. I’ve got a day booked off either side of the last weekend of this month which is my target date for getting everything painted. If I’ve not got the filler and primer work perfect this time it’ll have to do as realistically I reckon that weekend will be my last chance to paint before it starts getting too cold. I’d rather have the van ready for next spring and have a few minor paint blemishes than spend another summer with the van stuck indoors!

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Both cab doors and the sliding door rubbed down with 240 grit tonight. 

The O/S cab door needs a dab more filler in one spot, the N/S rubbed down ok but is a little thin in areas where I’ve rubbed down to the epoxy so I’ll re-prime both doors.

The sliding door doesn’t look so great, I’m not sure why I primed it as it needs further filler work in a lot of areas. I’ll re-fill and re-prime this too. 

Tomorrow’s job will be to rub down the roof and the remaining rear quarter and then that’s everything initially rubbed back. Slowly Slowly.

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More Paint Prep

The paint prep continues! I’ve been making my way round the van with 240 grit to see where we’re at.

Rear corners and rear end are fine bar a small area to the right of the N/S light aperture which needs some fine filler to bring the level up a bit:

Front end, front arches and B pillar are good to go over again with 400 grit as they look bob on (apologies for the back lit pic):

The large side panel has some lows which need further filler work and a re-prime but it’s not far off at all (the epoxy primer under the high build is a slightly different colour which makes it easy to know when to stop):

Similarly the N/S rear quarter has some lows that need filler and a reprime but isn’t far off. I’ve been using Proworx Silk as my fine filler. Lots of people rave about Dolphin glaze, but I’ve found it a nightmare to work with as it doesn’t sand very well, the silk stuff still goes on very smoothly but sands sooo much nicer.

Cab doors and sliding door tonight!

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Cab and Sliding Door High Build Primer

A busy weekend saw the cab doors and sliding door into high build primer. That’s everything primed now and I can start rubbing the primer down! No doubt some bits will need further work but I think that’s to be expected.

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Well it’s taken considerably longer than I thought it would (nearly a week), as someone had previously covered huge chunks of the interior in white emulsion which was a pig to remove so I ended up bare metalling much more than planned. The interior is now completely epoxy primed and I can move onto prepping the exterior for some high build primer!

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A slightly better picture of the N/S all epoxied! Feel like I’m getting somewhere now.

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N/S Rear Quarter Shaping and Epoxy

The past week I’ve been focusing on the N/S rear quarter.

First off back to bare metal to see what we’ve got. There’s a bit of a dent towards the back of the panel but on the whole it’s not too bad.

I found a few sections around the sliding door seal channel which needed fresh metal letting in, so I made up some repairs in my folder:

Followed by days and days of filler work (must be close to 20hrs to get to this point, even though it doesn’t look like much!):

And finally today I got it all epoxied. I’m really happy with this panel!

I also re painted the bottom of the corner, having reshaped the area where the battery tray welds were visible:

Onto the O/S rear quarter this week, the final panel!

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Large side panel shaped and epoxied. I think this is the first panel I’ve primed that I’ve been nearly happy with! I’ve also wet sanded the primer on the engine lid, which is pretty much ready for top coat now. In between jobs I’ve also stripped down the engine to get the tinware off to the powder coaters.

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Stripped the O/S panel tonight. Aside from a deep dent on the left that needs hammering out it’s pretty straight.

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