CUSTOM TOUCHES – PART 2

Welcome back to the second installment of the work being carried out by car modifier Shayne Walmsley on his 1990 Nissan Vector. In this issue, Shayne explains that unfortunately not a lot of work was able to be carried out as the weather did not permit it. However, we are glad to see that his persistence has paid off and that he has been able to carry on with what he was able to do. The most grueling part of modifying the body of any car is the sanding, fiber glassing, bogging and more sanding of all the panels.

Shayne has explained what type of work can be done by the average person with basic panel work.

As you can see above you need to sand the paint off around where you plan too weld any metal, simply because it burns off anyway with the heat of welding & secondly the paint can cause impurities in the weld therefore weakening the welded product. It turned out to be quite an awkward thing to line up as the supplier of the part had twisted the panel a little as he cut it in half for postage. This still took a while to get clamped down for tack welding as there isn’t really much too gets a grip on.

Shayne did not personally weld this section as he did not have access to a Mig or Oxy welder, but luckily family contacts got him onto a panel beater by trade who gave him a hand. Ultimately, it took 3 attempts to weld it properly. Asian cars are constructed of thin metal & the panels suffered a few blowholes that needed too be filled. Shayne then got a grinder & sanded the raised sections of weld down too the existing surface of the panel without going past too much as this means a larger amount of bog needed.

Shayne then gave everything a light sand with 60gritt sandpaper to see if there was any lows in the panel and to ready the panel for the primer layer. Shayne then filled all the lows that he found with bog.

Shayne explained that it wasn’t the best job that he had done and that the finished bogged sections were far too high and in the end created more work for himself in the way of sanding. All learning experience and that is one thing that Shayne would like to pass on to anyone reading this.

“If you want to do a lot of DIY stuff to modify your car, then you are going to makes mistakes occasionally. How you learn from these mistakes improves you as a modifier and a person.”

Shayne recommends 60gritt again too take the bog down level with the panel as it will just cut through the bog. Be careful not to go too far down as you could take some of the metal out of what you are sanding, leaving another low will show up horribly once painted. Following the lines of the panel so that you do not loose the existing corners/lines in it will avoid the surface looking worse when painted.

This is the finished product & as you can see there is a little bog still in some areas.

You can’t see it very well in this picture but Shayne has also kept the lines that we were talking about before. Next on the agenda, Shayne sprayed the panel with some rust kill liquid, so that he does not have to strip it all down anytime soon to fix rust from the exposed metal. It is very simple to use and all that you need to do is follow the instruction on the bottle. The next step is to use the wax oil & grease remover.

Shayne chose to spray this panel this with an etch primer first for its dark color which will show up under the next layer (Primer filler) when sanded too far, and because the dark color also shows all of the horrible mistakes that you may have made so that you can fix them.

Pictures have been taken at several angles so you can see how much the dark color shows the lines of the panel and the mistakes when bogging and sanding. After this had dried for over an hour, Shayne sprayed a layer of primer filler. Remember not to apply a heavy layer. This is important to remember because if you put too much on, runs occur and you have the same problem as the bog before. You will be left with too much to sand back down.

Letting this layer of paint set for 12 to 18 hours just so that you know that it is cured nicely, so that when sanding next time, you do not ruin the job by moving wet paint.   Some 240grit sandpaper is now used to start smoothening out the filler. It will not take too long and if you go too hard, you will get a dark spot showing through which was the etch primer mentioned earlier. Once you have got a finish your happy with, use some 600grit wet and dry sandpaper and do it all again. You should come up with a really smooth finish almost like the original paint that was on it before all of the work.

Next month, read on as Shayne paints the body parts and shows us the difference that a little bit of time and patience can achieve.