I have the front clip off my 67 skylark. I have a replacement RH inner fender and core support. I need to re-bush the door hinges. Now I'm kind of at a point of what order does this get done? If I pull the doors to fix the hinges, I should sand out and seal the door sills all around. But then do I bolt the hinges back over the epoxy coated pillars to re-hang the doors? I haven't established the exact color yet, so its not like I can finish spray the door sills and pillars. Do I disassemble the entire front end, blast and clean and epoxy all the parts and then re-assemble with the better core support and inner fender, or leave the fenders off for paint and just assemble the inners fenders and core support? If I put the fenders on, it will be hard to paint the hinge area of the pillar. Over the next fall or winter, I hope I get to the point of sanding off all the body to see exactly what I have on the panels. I have fixed both window frame channels and the giant holes in the sail panels, along with the trunk weatherstrip channel and trunk floor. If I was doing this all in a week, or a month, it wouldn't matter so much, but this is likely to be a project over a year in the making. This isn't a frame off job, but it is something that will take a pretty rust free car and seal it up good for the next 30 years. It is a modified ride so I'm not worried about number matching and such, I just want a nice car that I can enjoy. Thanks for any pointers. Jon
wow. I didn't expect such silence. Let me narrow this down a bit then. How about just the doors issue? If I pull the hinges to rebuild, should I then sand that pillar down and epoxy seal it and then re-mount the doors? Is that the best way, or just rebuild the doors and remount them on existing paint and deal with that pillar down the road? Mechanical is just taking apart and putting together, but body work is a bit magic and a bit science, so any help is appreciated. Jon
This is all about preference. If you have it all apart and can leave it that way until you are ready to paint the whole car, I'd leave it apart. That's assuming you are painting it yourself?
I will be doing most of the body work myself, I hope, but I'm not sure of my spraying ability. My son has an old Toyota and the paint is peeling off his hood so he wants to spray that. I guess that will tell me how good or bad I am. So having doors off when it goes to paint is ok?
the best thing to do to the hinges is get the rebuild parts from Cars inc then take them apart to bead blast them clean. What we do here after that is reassemble them. without the spring paint them first then the spring tool from KD works great for squishing it back into its location. Done it a lot of times
If you have the room and the time, fenders off, doors off, hood off, trunk lid off, windows out, no upholstery in it. That's the way the pros do it. If you don't have the room (and can keep critters from climbing into it while the doors are open), jambs as a separate item. Me, I had the driver's door off to replace the bushings but didn't get to the paint then. I'll paint the roof (white, again), jamb it, and then take it to a paint booth for the new blue. I don't seem to be able to get a good enough stretch of the kind of weather I need to squirt the whole lower body (even with lacquer, since it's going to take a clear coat) in the driveway, as I have done many times in the past. Had I known the paint I was buying required a clear coat, I wouldn't have bought it. I used to be a lot better at reading labels...then again, that brand has all the colors I need for painting the flames, and I wanted to keep the paint all in one brand. The flames are going to have to be a driveway deal. The paint booth rental is $75 per hour, $250 minimum, and I KNOW that the flame work will take longer. I'd be dropping about $900 on the flames, and for that kind of money, I'd pay someone else. But since that part is localized, I'll be able to protect that part better. ---------- Post added at 07:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:56 PM ---------- Heh, I didn't have that KD tool when I replaced the bushings in my door hinge. My middle son was holding it with monster channellocks and I was using a hammer and something else when we dropped it. We both hit the deck, waiting for that spring to come out like a grenade. Luckily, it stayed in, and we picked it up and got it back together. Good times!
