Vanessa's Makeover - '77 Mark V

[Navigator]

Looking good, cant wait to see it with paint minus the vinyl top.

[Perry Bush]

Getting closer to the fun part....All glass out, trim clips removed, first coat of primer applied! Spent the last two nights underneath with wire brushes and sand paper, degreaser, and finally some hand brushed POR-15 on most cast pieces and the frame rails. Floors are near perfect already even though no undercoating was ever applied - leaving it original. For a driver, wouuld have been fine to leave everyhting alone underneath, but even when I know it's just truly surface rust, I don't like seeing it. Will be a lot easier to keep clean this way also when driving it. Still a LOT of work to do cleaning up the engine bay. I may trailer it to a place that does steam cleaning before any color goes on. I've done this a couple times with mixed results. Giving my back a rest for a few days and will see how I feel then! Not sure what's up with my camera going into black and white mode...?? Will get that figured out before it's shiny again

[Perry Bush]

Another major milestone finally reached, prep is finished and color is on! Currently in various stages of wet sanding and polishng.

Pictures aren't great but gives an idea of the color and the slick top, no vinyl, look.

Now getting close to putting all those bits back together again.

[Perry Bush]

More pics...

[Perry Bush]

Last two

[Perry Bush]

Ok, last one. anybody else get the Submit button perseed for them automatically?! Never saw this one before, I hit the add file button, then the full post gets submitted right away, hands off the leyboard?!?!?

[sauceman]

Lookn' snazzy!




cheers

[LithiumCobalt]

I am liking the color. Looks real nice!

[dcm5652]

Did you paint the deck-lid hanging like it is pictured ? I did that on some fenders once and when I assembled the truck when the sun was out from a distance the fenders looked a different color than the rest of the truck, after doing some research as to why the color was different I was told the metallic in the paint was pulled by gravity and made the paint look a different color.

[Perry Bush]

I didn't do the actual spraying, but yes, it was done hanging as shown - I have no concerns at all. The effect you saw was almost certainly due to how the paint was applied, very likely with only side-to-side motion, probably applied too thick/fast. I think very doubtful that gravity had any impact. Maybe it was a single stage paint also?

This paint, four coats of color, was applied in thin layers with the spray oriented differently to the panels each time, just like you should do when spray can painting a large area. The paint also dries very fast, the painter actually uses a sort of tack rag between coats and you could touch it just several minutes after being applied. I think the older, single stage paints went on thicker and wetter, and maybe in that case the flakes could actually have time to "settle"...still doubt it though. More likely about technique.

Here's a much better look at the rear quarter view that inspired me to delete the vinyl - that shoulder is just gorgeous to me!

[CurtC]

I really like that paint color. What kind of wheels are you going to use?

Curt

[Perry Bush]

Thanks, Curt. Yep, one of my favorite colors for these cars. Really something to see in person when it's fresh. The vendor/painter team did an amazing job duplicating the right appearance, the color itself is dead on, two different metal flakes; one standard and one red pearl. Really something to see in person when it's fresh. Looking forward to getting it out in the sun.

Just got these wheels back from a buddy that owns/operates a metal refinishing business, mostly but not entirely aimed at the automotive/cycle world. They look almost like chrome, good chrome, but it's bare polished aluminum with just a good coat of hard wax on top. He and his brother built a robot/machine specifically for polishing wheels, he can even do the big 18-wheeler wheels with the tires still on! If anyone in the WI area (or willnig to deal with shipping) ever needs any metal finishing done, he's the guy. Let me know and I can provide contact info (same for the painter). He also does the chemical de-anodizing process for trim parts and then makes these look new without doing the flash chroming. I actually found a set of the correct rear window glass moldings from an original vinyl-delete parts car (!!) They were straight but quite rough looking. They're so beautiful now that I'm going to install them as they are, without the body color band around the outer perimeter (making the metal trim appear thinner, as original).

I'll be taking off a couple weeks from work around the holidays and expect to spend a lot of it reassembling this baby, then home to begin the engine compartment clean-up, refresh. I know, I got those out of orfer, but a slot opened up at the shop, and he let's me do the wrenching, so I went for it....

[Joe Nemec]

Wow! great job on your (Forged Aluminum Wheels) just beautiful.

[dcm5652]

I used PPG 3100 series base-coat clear-coat and applied 4 layers of paint before putting on the clear-coat, I painted the 1986 full-size Bronco inside and out at one shooting with it completely disassembled and the only thing that was hanging different than the way it was put on the truck was the front fenders and they looked a darker color than the rest of the truck. I wish you the best of luck in the restoration of your Mark V, I also have one in this color, but mine has the Ramano Velour interior.

[CurtC]

Perry:
those deep dish wheels will look awesome on the MK V. I have the same wheels on my MK IV and I love the way they look on these Marks.

Curt