For well over a week the chassis and underneath of the rod was filled, sanded, painted, sanded, and filled,
I felt like I was going round and around in circles, and I actually wore my fingerprints off
with all the sanding, but eventually the sanding fun was done, and M.R.
was happy with how it looked.
I
Think its safe to say that I was happy with how it looked long Before
M.R. was, but as he was the painting expert I kept going until he said
stop. With the front of the chassis now painted in red lead it was time
to turn our attention to the underside of the Rod.
I
told M.R. that I really wasn't looking for a show winner, just
something nice that I could drive. A couple of layers of red lead went
on, and then, once it had dried would you believe that I endured many
more hours of sanding!
I
wish I could say that before long it was ready for paint, but to put it
simply, it just wasn't! After all the sanding, filling, priming fun the
garage was full of dust, so we carried the Rod out of the garage, and
gave it a good going over with the air hose, before sweeping the garage
out, and carrying it back in. Now surely it was ready to have some paint
squirted underneath it. Nope, it still wasn't ready, I had no idea how
much preperation work goes into painting a car, but now that the red
lead was dry, and sanded smooth it was time for a primer. This just goes
to show how little I knew about painting as I had foolishly thought
that the red lead was the primer, but it appears not.
Because
we'd had a few complaints about the smell of paint while M.R. was
painting his Hot Rod, and we were painting the red lead under mine we
decided that we would do it at night! We started just after 01:00hrs,
M.R. said this won't take long! Famous last words, but by 04:00hrs we
were no longer looking at the red underbelly of the beast, we now had
grey.
This
was then left for a couple of days while I tried to figure out what
colour I wanted on it. I was fairly sure that the colour I wanted was
Ford Tractor Blue, actually, I knew I wanted Ford Tractor Blue! I headed
off to the paintshop to buy my paint, how hard could it be? I stood at
the counter and this fella asked me what colour I was looking for, I
said, Ford Tractor Blue! He said, what colour is that mate? Well, I
said, it's blue! Yes he said, but what's it on? I said, it's on the
Tractors. It's called Ford Tractor Blue! He looked at me, puzzled...
Whos Tractors? He asked. I said, well, if you listen carefully the
clue's in the name, it's called Ford Tractor Blue! He looked blankly at
me and said, we do car paints 'ere mate, have a look through this book
see if you can find it! He handed me a massive book filled with paint
swatches and left me to it. I had no idea that there were so many shades
of blue to choose from, and I noticed that each swatch had the paint
code underneath them. If I only had the paint code for Ford Tractor Blue
this would be a doddle! In the end, after looking at the swatches for
over an hour I chose what I thought was pretty damn close to what I was
looking for, it turned out to be a Volvo colour, and so I asked the
fella at the paint shop to mix me up five litres of this Volvo colour to
get me going. On the way home, feeling pretty chuffed with my choice I
spied with my little eye a Ford Tractor in a field! This was a mistake,
as I then decided that I needed to see just how close to the colour I
wanted was in the tin. I parked up, and wandered across to the tractor
with my tin of paint, I opened the tin and held it against the bodywork
of the tractor, and guess what... Not even flamin' close!! Honestly it
was as different as Black and White!! Well, there was no way that was
going on my Hot Rod! I was furious, but on the way home I spotted a Ford
Transit that looked pretty damn close to the colour. I knew that I
would be passing the Ford dealership on the way home, and so, armed with
my knowledge that all the swatches in the paint shop had the paint
codes underneath them I figured that I'd just pop into the dealership,
and ask for the paint code! How hard can that be? Well, quite hard it
turned out, the guy in the dealership had no idea what the paint code
was, and even though he had a Transit on the forecourt in the right
colour he refused to open the bonnet so that I could read it from the
VIN plate! Helpfull then!! I left the dealership more furious than I was
when I arrived, and vowed to never again buy another Ford!! That bit
hasn't quite gone according to plan! I got back to the garage and said
to M.R., I've got the paint, but whatever you do don't put it on my Hot Rod!
He asked me why not? So I told him the story of how I'd bought what I
thought I wanted, but then tried it up against the actual colour and
found it to be nowhere near! Much urine was then removed from me by my
friends!
On
the way to work the following morning I noticed a brand new Fiat Coupé
was next to a Transit in the traffic, and you know what? They weren't
the same colour, but they were close, and actually I preferred the
colour of the Fiat Coupé! I knew that there was a Fiat dealership
nowhere near where I was working, but nevermind that, I was on a
mission, besides, how would they know on the building site I was working
on how long I'd been held up in traffic? I wandered into the Fiat
dealership hoping they'd be a lot more helpful than they were at the
Ford dealership. There was a blue Fiat Coupé in the showroom, and so I
wandered over to a sales girl and said that I'd like the paint code for
the Coupé, and pointed at it. Certainly she said, and started to look it
up on her microfiche viewer. Here it is, she said, its code is 462 and
it's called Blu Sprint. She wrote it down, and I hurried off back to
work. On the way home I called into the paint shop even though it was a
fifty odd mile detour, but it didn't matter, I had the actual paint
code, I handed it to the fella, and he went off and mixed me up another
five litres of paint!
I
looked at it, and thought that was the colour alright! On the way home I
passed that same field, and that same old Ford Tractor was still
sitting in the middle of it. I looked at it, and just kept driving! I
arrived at my garage, showed M.R. the paint, and we decided it was going
to be another late one! We gave the primer a quick going over with some
sandpaper, and wiped it all down with panel wipe! Just like before, at
01:00hrs we were back! The colour seemed to go on a bit quicker than the
primer, and by just after 03:00hrs we were looking at this...
Not
too bad in my opinion, but M.R. wasn't happy, he'd got a couple of runs
and wanted to rub them down and give it another coat. But honestly, it
was underneath, and they were so small that I'd have probably left them
even if they'd been on the top of the body! I eventually convinced him
that with any luck only the MOT inspector would ever see them, and
although he still wasn't happy he thought he could let it go!
We
didn't touch it then for a couple of weeks for a couple of reasons.
Firstly M.R. thought that as we were painting in cellulose it would be
soft for a fair while. Secondly I was still waiting for my front
suspension parts to come back from being sandblasted and powdercoated,
then the re-assembly could begin! I was quite looking forward to it
looking like a complete car again, even though it was far from it! I
decided that as I was putting on the re-furbished front suspension,
complete with new bushes, springs, shock absorbers, steering rack, and
everything else I might aswell go the whole hog and buy the wheels that
it was going to be riding on so that I could fit them at the same time.
But for now I was kinda happy just to have the underneath painted, and
to be having a bit of a break from it while I waited for my suspension
parts to be done... Oh, and incase you're wondering what happend to the five litres of blue Volvo paint I had bought? Well, it didn't go to waste, we actaully used the lot in the end, just not on the Hot Rod. For a long time afterwards we all had Volvo blue front doors, back doors, and garage doors at our houses, I even came around to liking the colour... Eventually!
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