Paint and Exterior Assembly

Gettin' There..... It runs, but it SURE IS UGLY!

What The Heck Color IS it, Anyway?

I didn't take any pictures of it while it was being painted, other than the two with the front and rear windows coming out.  Basically, it took a long time to paint, because the guy who painted it did it for nothing, other than the cost of the paint.  He owes me for several large loans (my bad!), and in exchange he paints cars for me.  He did the truck, too, in a really nice pearl clearcoat over new apps of the original brown and beige.  He also has a bad back, and periodically that takes him off the job for a week or two.  I have found another painter that is reasonable, and he will possibly paint the Slorider wagon a new shade of blue, from the '05 Mustang....Windveil Blue  Its hood needed repainting badly, during '06, and it is painted that color now.  It looks nice. Originally BD was going to be the factory black on black.  But after getting it back, and when I started to assemble it, he came over to buff it, and we discovered way too many waterspots in the clearcoat.  It had been raining while he applied the clearcoat, and even though it was indoors, it was not in a booth.  So moisture got under the clearcoat, and there were too many small water bubbles.  So he did it again, and at that time I decided to change the color.  It was to be a secret, what the new color was, but that assumed I would be able to drive it to the next convention, which would have been Kalamazoo this summer, of 2007.  But due to my work not allowing me to be off this summer (due to a nationwide equipment changeover) for more than a day or two in addition to  my normal weekend, I don't have time to drive it across the country.  So, since it has been so long, and would be an extra year hiding in secrecy, I'll just reveal the color now.  It's painted the same shade of Lexus Graphite Pearl Metallic that the GS-300 is that I drove to Indianapolis in 2005.  I really like that color, and when set off with cladding, spoiler, and bumpers of gloss black, I think it looks pretty nice.  At the time I decided to paint it, I thought I would be getting rid of the Lexus...it was sort of gas-hungry, and the stereo wasn't too good.  But since I've fixed both of those problems, the GS will be hanging around for a (long) while.  I thought I'd only have one car this color...but they look nice next to each other.

Here it is, arriving home after its black paint job, before I started to assemble it, and before we discovered all the water spots.  It looks good from a distance.

I definitely have my work cut out for myself....don't anyone remind me how old I am....it turned out that my shoulders would do an outstanding job of that, when I got to the struts and springs.

This is the picture I published, after it came back home in Graphite Pearl.  It was taken at night, with a flash, to show that it was definitely shiny, but the color was in doubt.  The bumper was still being done, and I was about to install the high power headlight harness.  All of the visible front end above is now painted semigloss black, except for the a/c condensor.  I want this car to be a 100 pointer when it goes to the next carSHO. Notice the headlights.  They came off of a beautiful Plus I found at the local PnP.  The car had not even been placed in the row, but was waiting in the aisle for the fork-lift to put it in its final place.  I walked right by it, and just happened to look back and see it!  (The only reason it was there was that someone had taken a razor blade to the interior....the seats, door panels, and headliner had slashes in them.  There was no body damage.  I could have fixed that car for a couple hundred bucks...it was mocha/mocha, like Don's car.)  I ultimately got the deck lid and spoiler, the headlights, the idler pulleys, and a couple of other smaller parts.  At the time I got the lights, we were talking about where to get aftermarket lights on the SHOlist.  Out here in California, there are good sets on cars at the PnP, if you look hard enough and often enough.

These two pics were taken next to where it was painted....some old creaky (as opposed to "Crikey") guy was standing around and offered to hold the glass while I took the pictures.  The mirror mount had broken off the windshield a couple of times, and the back window was covered with tint, which was not sticking to the glass.  I've previously tried to fix the rear defroster after the conductor wires have been cut, and I'd just as soon not try that again.  I had a new rear window for when Lowrider got fixed the year before, and did not need to use it, so I put it in this car, about a year and a half after the old window came out.  The windshield (actually, all the glass) is covered by zero deductable glass comprehensive, so I just get a new one when I need to.

Those TOUGH Rear Quarter Windows

Gen 1 Tauri are really tough when it comes to dealing with the rear quarter windows.  In Gen 2 cars, I am told it is easier to remove and install them when needed.  But the Gen 1 cars use gobs of that really tough hard rubber sealant, the same stuff that holds the windshield and rear window in place.  It is the devil to cut, and with the contours of the Y and Z pillars, on either side of the quarter, it is almost impossible to use a cable cutter like one uses for the w/s.  Here the original black quarters are being removed by the same shop that spliced Lowrider together the year before.  Because of that job, he did this for free for me.  Eva would be proud!! I found some really cherry replacements at my PnP, out of another SHO Plus.  They were almost pristine, with one having just the tiniest bit of weather degradation in one spot.  I had spent hours and hours on another set taken earlier,   They are kind of expensive, due to the difficulty of cutting them out...they were $80 each.  But I got a discount of 10 bucks because the guy took a week to get them.  No sweat timewise for me, but a penny saved is a penny earned, right? I have some pics of the new quarters down a bit from here.

Graphite Pearl?

Here's a closeup of the paint....right rear fender and decklid.  The paint is unrubbed at this point. (It looks like there is a dent just above the truck's taillight reflection....there isn't.)

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