Car got Keyed time for a repaint

December 2nd I met up with my old buddy from out of town who was here on business. When I last saw him at my wedding the vette wasn't running so I promised him a ride the next time he was in town. We cruised to a local sports bar to catch some Thursday night football and the Miami Heat game. Woke up the next morning and went to the garage for something and noticed the left side of the car had been keyed.

Called a guy who is a member of the local Corvette club who does paint and body work (I'm not a member of the club) met him and showed him the damage and he said he could match the color but couldn't make the new paint look old, figured Ok, I'll roll with it since I really wasn't ready for a repaint cost and didn't feel like doing the work myself.

A weekend goes by before I'm suppose to drop the car off which gave me too much time to think and determine that if I repair the side the rest will look like crap and I'll regret not doing the whole car though I know how much work is involved since I worked in a body shop as my first job out of high school.

Well, needless to say I call the guy back and tell him I'm going to have him paint the car but I'll do the majority of the work myself and trailer the car to him when it's ready. So the nightmare begins  lol

I started by using a razor blade to remove the red paint then found 5-7 layers of sealer, primer, original Classic White paint then more primer until I hit fiberglass. Not what I signed up for but too late now.

Amazing what Paint can hide, alot of body work that I wouldn't have expected, then I remembered, Bubba has worked on this car.

Drove to Ecklers today to pickup a High Rise hood. After 5 hours round trip I opened it at home and found the part number on the box was correct but inside the box was a Stinger hood :doh:  and The Florida Highway Patrol stopped me on the way home for my window tint on my 2004 Avalanche :wtf:, that was a new one. Oh well 

Going to paint her Black. Base coat / Clear might go with a silver or white stripe down the middle similar to the Baldwin vette but that's up in the air right now, I have far too much work to do before deciding the paint scheme. I still need to pull the hood and doors and tackle the door jambs, fun, fun, fun.

Had to replace my Harbor Freight air compressor of 6 years too, the old 2 hp 8 gallon died so I went to Lowes and picked up a 30 gallon belt driven compressor  :thumbsup3:

Pictures of the Keyed damage:







Day 1



Day 2





Day 3 and 4





Day 5



Day 6



Day 7




Today, Day 8

Lucky for me I'm self employed and work from home so that's how I got this much done. I probably have 50-60 hours into it so far and have a full day planned today. The pictures of the car painted are very deceiving, light manipulation is wonderful but up close it had tons of places where the paint had curled at some time in the past and was touched up with the wrong color. The paint was all spider web cracked, just in general bad condition.

An excuse to a certain extent yes, but I knew how much work this was going to be and was dreading it and hoped to put it off another year or so but it is what it is and progress is being made. I hope to have it ready for paint by next week, pending the arrival of the correct hood.

The air compressor was not in the budget that doesn't exist  lol but is much better than what I've been using, maybe my impact can break a lug nut loose now instead of me doing that with a breaking bar and the impact unscrewing it the rest of the way. Definitely a good investment and very quiet.

Man that makes two of us  lol

http://s1138.photobucket.com/albums/n529/Philip_Curran/?action=downloadfile&download_id=983153&filename=Philip_Curran_661b8b9e.zip

Here is where I stand I feel your pain Palmbeach

Nice!! paint, I seem to remember having that once  lol  though I'm kinda diggn the grey look, well not really.

So whatchya doin with your old hood?

Looks great I'm waiting for my radiator frame last thing on the car I'll send pictures soon came out better than expected.

Last Monday I rented a UHaul car hauler and brought most of the car home. The hood and T-Tops had just been painted last weekend so I left them behind to cure and be color sanded and buffed. During that time I put the bulk of the car back together and fixed a few things along the way. Did alot of cleaning with more in my future. Yesterday I drove the car to the shop (45 mins one way) and we installed the hood and I put the t-tops in the storage bags.

The photos were taken yesterday with the AstroTop on but I've since put the T-tops back together and will post some photos with them in place after I receive my order from Adam's Polishing and do a final detail on the car before the show this coming weekend in Ponce Inlet, Fl.