It is finished.
It’s hard to believe, but I think I’m done. I had one last marathon weekend. And I couldn’t have done it without Andrea’s help! So without delay, the new look of the Toronado!
Click for larger pictures and to go to the gallery.
Here’s what it looked like the day I bought it:
Here’s how she looks today!
These were taken at 2am. So if the sun comes out this afternoon. I hope to get some nicer (prettier) pictures.
So I’m getting close.
Just about there! I need to find some more paint because I still need to get a few more coats on the doors for durability. But then it’s off to polishing, waxing, and then just put on the trim back on and I guess it’s done!
Falling behind…
Yesterday I finally started work on the doors. Took me a while to figure out how to get the damn thing off. First door took probably 45 minutes, but once I figured out where all the tabs and clips and screws and crap were, the second one took about 10 minutes. haha!
Got the door handles off and the doors ready to prep, but had some “honey do” items that took priority, so my work was cut short. Without any door handles outside, I couldn’t really roll up the windows. So I put these stylish “window covering apperatuses” over night to keep the outdoors out.
You can actually see the paint shining too! Something this car hasn’t seen in a looong time.
Somebody said in my last thread I’d learn somethings, both good and bad. Yeah, here’s one of the bad. I had a bad feeling about masking around the pinstripe trim, but figured it was better than breaking all the clips. Well after a few coats it started to look like crap. So I said screw it and I pulled the trim. Only broke about HALF the clips. :rolleyes: I’ll figure something out to get ’em back on.
Here’s why I pulled it. Nasterriffic!
So yup more prep work to do there. No biggie. That’s why I’m doing this to an ’85 Toronado. Haha!
Here’s a nice picture of what it looks like riding in the driver’s seat.
And this little project is on hold again until Sunday. I was hoping to get it all done this weekend with my time off, but Andrea’s family is coming to town and we’ll be busy for a lot of the weekend. Maybe Monday I can go balls to the wall and knock it out, but it’s looking like it still might be a couple more weeks before it’s all said and done.
08.4.07More progress
Alright, this is quick. Because I’m tired, I’m dirty, and a I have to get up for church tomorrow. Got a lot more done on the car today. Still a lot to do though.
Stripped the paint and as much rust as I could from the lower quarter panel. It wasn’t as bad as I though. I was worried it’d be rusted all the way through, but it wasn’t. It was bad enough that if a guy was doing a real restoration he’d cut the metal out and weld new metal in, but my metalworking skills are even worse than my welding skills. Which is to say, non-exsistant.
Even Andrea got down and dirty!
Here the front is with the bumper gone and most of the trim removed, waiting for me to prep it for paint.
Here’s a shot I took on a frustration break. Got the rear bumper and bumper fillers off. I had to take the back tires off to get the chrome wheel trim off. The screws on the back were more stubborn than the front. I almost had to drill some of the friggin screws out.
A close up of the rust. Here’s what has been hiding beneath that paint…what was left of it. I got it as good as I could with the tools I had.
Finally got the front prepped for paint.
It’s a dirty job.
Rear quarter ready for paint.
Got one coat on. The stuff goes on pretty thin. Tomorrow it’ll look better.
And paint for the front.
And that’s how I left it. By tomorrow, everything but the doors and roof should have new paint on it. Getting close but still a lot to do.
07.26.07Slowly but surely
I’ve got some more paint on the car. Only two coats on the hood and right fender so far and still have some wet sanding to do and such. But I’m happy with how it’s turning out so far. Better than what was on there. I can actually see light reflecting off the paint now! It’s a slow process, but it’s getting done.
07.17.07No turning back now!
I started painting today. I can see now why they charge $5000 to paint a car. It’s a lot of friggin work! I started with the left front fender since it had about the worst surface rust next to the rear quarter panels. First step was stripping the cracking paint and rust underneath. It’s hard to believe what’s underneath that paint. What just looked like a 12 in. x 12 in. spot turned out to be about half the fender that had started rusting. Everywhere the paint is gone is where rust was.
From there I took some body filler and tried to fill in some of the pit marks and make a smooth level surface to paint. It turned out okay. Probably could have been better, or I should have just taken the whole fender down to bare metal but I got it as smooth as I could block sanding it. It’s not going to be showroom perfect, but that’s not what I’m going for anyway.
So after stripping, cleaning, filling, sanding, cleaning. It’s finally time for!….masking. Yeah I know I should have removed the chrome pinstripe trim, but I couldn’t figure out how the damn stuff was held on. It’s some sort of clip, and rather than break all the clips trying to get it off, I just masked around it. Yeah, it’s a hack job, but hopefully my careful masking does the trick.
And NOW I can finally paint…with a roller. Haha. It looks kinda funny right now, just like the first coat of white you just rolled on a wall, but with some wet sanding, another coat or two, and buffing it’s supposed to look pretty good. The paint already drys pretty smooth and glossy, but it’s not perfect. So still a lot of work to do, but here’s what it looks like now.
All in all this took about 6 hours of work not including drying time for the filler and the paint. Of course it’s my first attempt at such things so hopefully as I go along I’ll get better and more effecient. But either way, I gotta paint the whole car now. Whether it looks like crap or not!
07.14.07Always getting in over my head.
In one post I complain about how busy I am, and then next thing you know I’ve taken on another project.
I picked up all the stuff today to start painting my car (the Toronado). This could be interesting. I found a guide on the internet for painting with Rustoleum. Not the spray kind, but the kind that comes in a can and you roll on. Who knows how well it’s going to come out, but the rust on my car keeps getting worse and worse, and it’s not going to start looking any better any time soon. So my only requirement with this project is that it looks better when I’m done than before I started. Certianly not going for a show car here.
I’m just going to be painting one panel at a time, that way I can work on it and drive it at the same time. Pics coming starting Monday (hopefully)!
06.19.07It doesn’t LOOK illegal anymore!
Rodney and I got the bumper and grill put on today at the radio station. I figured there was a reason the bumper was off. It’s bent on the passenger side, so I guess they were going to replace the bumper and never got to putting the new one on. Good thing I have another one in the bed!
06.11.07Whatcha gonna do with all that junk?
All that junk inside your…bed.
Here’s some pics of the car since I parked it at the station. Got the car cover on it. It’s for protection and also so people don’t complain about me having an old car full of car parts sitting in the work parking lot!
Without the cover it would look like this:
Upon closer inspection some of those parts could come in handy! You can see that the old parts car was similar, but there’s a definite difference in the blue.
I’m so anxious to get to work on it, but I can’t yet. Just a couple more weeks and I’ll be able to park it and start tearing into it. The first step is going to be laying everything out and getting organized. Until then she’ll just sit quietly covered waiting.
06.8.07Alright, I’m completely nuts.
Sunday I’m going to buy a 1977 Chevy El Camino.
So by now you’re either thinking…OMG!…WTF?…or just laughing out loud (LOL).
But before you judge my judgment consider the facts. 1) The car runs and drives. 2) The parts that aren’t on the car come with the car. Plus spare doors, bumpers, hood, trim, etc. 3) It’s $250. 4) It’s an F’N El Camino!
The idea originally came about when we decided to move and I wanted to get a rusty old truck to have around as a workhorse. I started looking around in the paper but never really found anything promising. Then I saw the ad for this thing and decided to call on it. The old guy who owns it was hoping to restore it one day, but now he’s on disability and just can’t do it. But luckily for me he’s collected a TON of parts for the car so a lot of what I need is already there. There’s a few things I’m going to probably have to buy like lower quarter panels and floor pans, but the beauty of it is they’re actually reproducing parts for these cars now so you can get brand new sheet metal without too much trouble.
The Good: It’s pretty much complete and fairly rust free. – It runs so I don’t have to tow it home. – Comes with tons of parts. – It has a positraction rearend. – It’s a hell of a deal for $250!
The Bad: The transmission doesn’t shift into 3rd gear. So it’s not going anywhere very fast. Could be a linkage, or could be something internal, won’t know until I mess around with it. – It has a wimpy 305 motor – Needs a new tailgate – Needs some paint.
It’s definetly a project. It’s not something I’m going to be driving everyday, not for a long time anyway. But it’s a car I’ve always wanted. And it’s something I can tear apart and not have to worry about when I get it put back together because I have to drive it the next day. Parts are realitivly easy to come by and fairly reasonably priced. I finally have a place to work on something like this and I’m excited to get started. My ultimate goal is to pull the engine and put a rebuilt big block in it, beef up the drivetrain and build something that will pull about anything short of a fifth wheel trailer. I don’t want something that will go insanely fast, that’ll get me in too much trouble!
It’s a long way off, but you gotta have a target in mind right? Here’s some potentials as to what I’m someday aiming for with this ride.
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If I were to go with single color job it’d probably be something like this. Red, orange or black. Sure mine isn’t an SS, but that’s never stopped anybody from sticking SS in their car before! Ha ha.
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Here’s an El Camino Classic like mine with a factory paint job. I really like this color combo and I have all the trim pieces needed for it. I’m a big fan of the rally wheels like this and plan on cleaning up the set that comes with the car and using them regardless of what I paint the car.
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The rear end of these cars just looks so bad assed! I hope to mount a Reese style hitch to the frame below the bumper for towing.
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I also think they look pretty good with a bed cover.
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So there ya go. The lastest nuts thing I’ve done. Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be subjected to my progress as I post it here on the blog. Any cool ideas let me know!