We’ve had a lovely little MGA in for a respray in Old English White. It arrived in bits and was painted and then returned in the same separate parts.
Every panel was covered in tiny little dots in the paint, almost like bubbles. The only way to sort them was to sand down to the metal, treat the issue, repaint the metal in epoxy primer and then the normal primer and top coats.
However going down to the metal revealed A LOT of filler covering all sorts of damage and old repairs. They hadn’t been done too badly actually but it did mean that we had to build the panels back up to the correct shape again. A very time consuming task!
In addition, the back of every panel was covered in underseal and flaky old paint. All had to be removed before any paint could be added.
With all the filler, underseal and old paint removed the first job was to treat any rust with a rust inhibitor/convertor and then paint both sides of the panels with epoxy primer. This goes on lovely and is the best paint to use on bare metal. It also helps you to see the imperfections before adding filler where necessary.
The underside of the wings together with the parts of the body that would be covered by the wings, were then painted in Gravitex, a stone chip protection paint usually seen on the sills of factory painted cars. I also painted the six little splash guards which sat between the wings and the body with the same paint. The Gravitex is then covered with primer and the 2k top coat.
The rest of the car was painted in primer and 2k top coat. The top of the body and of course the outside of all the wings, doors, bonnet and boot lid were also sanded and polished.
While all this was going on the owner refurbed the chassis. When everything was ready we delivered the body and between four old fellas we managed to carefully lower the body onto the chassis without damaging the new paint or the cork padding which sits between the body and the chassis in places.
The panels will be delivered to the customer when he’s ready for them and then the next time we see the car it’ll be back on the road!