Yesterday I was working on...

[Veesix75]

Very nice...

[KevJTD]

Very big

[Johnboy]

Cheers
Big yes. I've put about 9.5 litres of paint on it .Still got to do the boot
If any of you chaps are on Instagram. Checkout jbcustompaintworks

[Kegsti66]

That looks a treat JB.
Going from that to a Mini will seem a breeze

[Johnboy]

Cheers kieth

Yeah should spray the mini in 30 seconds

[Kegsti66]

and a litre of paint

[Johnboy]

[junior]

An a lot less rubbing down !

I recall a friend trying to sell a grey Catalina (Pontiac I think) off his lot in San Jose and it would not shift. Then he had a plan.

Paint it so it stands out and the local Mexican descent kids would love it for a low rider.

I got the job of rubbing it down between coats and it felt like it took forever as I was young and got bored easily.

He painted it dayglow orange, like a 1970' British local council vehicle. Lit up the whole car lot in the Californian sun and sure enough

it sold within the week. Made us all smile ever time it went past.

[Johnboy]

great story junior love it

[Alfasixnut]

Whilst we are talking paint here is my work yesterday

My 20 ton Brake Van which is now in for its second refurb! I bought it back in 1994 and it is on the Great Central Railway.

[Johnboy]

That's a bit different chap

This is what I'm now working on . Mk10 4.2 Jag for the rest of the week .

[Kegsti66]

Love it.
Personally, I prefer the look over the mk2.
Even if it is a big , lardy car and under powered. Great lines.
Sorry , just me

[Johnboy]

I wouldn't say this is underpowered. But the brakes are I'll have to have a chat with the owner about them . The interior is nice . I'll get settled photos up later

[Johnboy]

Finished the Jag today .Yes today . Owner really pleased with it.lots of compounding 1of only 50 left . 1970 mk10 4.2

[PETROLHEAD]

You sneak those alfa logos into every job you do, how do you get away with it?

[Johnboy]

I'm as cunning as a fox you see. It's all about subliminal messages.

[KevJTD]

that's a whole load of surface area!

loving the hologram you've installed though

[Johnboy]

Yeah just a bit kev

[PETROLHEAD]

I guess i ought to contribute the odd interesting thing to this thread that i've actually been working on, otherwise you might be mistaken for thinking i don't do owt!


So here is one horrid little thing we had a load of bodywork to do on, a Bedford Naughty Children Van!

[Johnboy]

That looks great . Nice finish

[PETROLHEAD]

It was bloody awful to work on, all the rear body panels were so flexible, and pretty poorly fitted i have to say (we didn't build it!)

Like trying to sand and fill a tent!

[PETROLHEAD]

It was damn awful to work on,

the rear body panels were so flimsy, it was like trying to paint a tent!

[Johnboy]

sounds like fun. Not . Well it turned out great. Chap

[PETROLHEAD]

Thanks mate, we all like a challenge eh!


This has been the last couple of days task, and whoever thinks German cars are made of something special should think again, they are the same as everything else!


BMW E46 M3, rust blemishes all around the bottom half of the car, and this rear panel was rotten as a pear tut tut tut

I've been joking all day that to sort out a rusty beemer they had to draft in an italian specialist

Front arches weren't much better than the back panel, not pretty at all, so had to be ground out, treated, reistanted etc etc, but the owner, a dealer, won't pay for a proper job and just paint he whole car and cure it of all its cosmetic downfalls, oh no, just the essential stuff where the paint is severely compromised,

but i bet they want top dollar for it once its done eh? Typical!!!

[KevJTD]

always gets my goat when folks start preaching about how alfas rust and german stuff doesn't

just look at any merc from around 2001, far worse than any 156!

bmw's with crusty arches are all too common, golf's with rusted out wings. lad at work has an 08 golf gti turbo which he reckons to be the bees knees, bloody great rusty scabs on the sills, door steps and wheel arches! won't hear about it being as bad as anything else though

[PETROLHEAD]

Yeah, i did some golf front arches a couple of weeks back, 58 reg!

Bloody terrible that anything other than an italian car escapes a bad rep for rust, if anything, i'd say that 80% of manufacturers are skimping that much with budget etc that the problem is far worse now than it was 20 years ago.

I've seen more rust and rot in the last few months, on cars less than 15 years old, than i have seen on Alfa's in years!

[KevJTD]

I have a theory on how it all gets overlooked, brought about by starting 30+ years in the 2nd hand/back street garage trade.

I noticed the pattern when we were selling Mk3 Escorts on a very regular basis, when they were about 4 or 5 years old. We used to buy them from the local Ford dealers in Boston who got them as trade in's but didn't want rusty cars on their sales pitch so traded them out.
They'd then get sent through the paintshop, in & out within a couple of days filled with fibre-glass and not much else.
Looking shiny the new buyer would think they had got a cherished car.
Couple of years later and blemishes were starting to appear so it got traded in again, now about 6 years old. Still desirable to the general public so got gummed up again and fresh paint, rinse and repeat as above. This continues until the car is literally falling to bits at around 10+ years old (several thickly undersealed patches, like the battery tray which used to fall into the car!) and still someone buys it as a cheap run-around as it's a Ford and "oh, aren't they good"

Now, contrast that to a Fiat/Lancia/Alfa of the day which nobody in the used car trade wanted even when less than 5 years old because punters didn't want them "they rust, you know!" so because the sales wouldn't be forthcoming then they didn't get tarted up and resold. Left to their own devises they didn't fare that well, as anything else would have, ending up being scrapped before their time with folks saying "rust buckets, worth nowt"

I well remember getting some of the first batches of Sierras fresh form the Ford dealers though the garage when they were less than 3 years old and the arches were already rotten, even the roofs needed repairs! What good cars Sierra's were. eh? Ford make good solid cars, Italian stuff is crap, that was the general publics view mainly fuelled by trash talk in the daily papers.

[PETROLHEAD]

I totally agree, especially on the media reporting, in particular the motoring press which i blame 99% for lancia uk's expulsion from our markets.

Bias towards so called domestic brands, ford and vauxhall, has been apparent for decades, yet they've churned out some of the worst rotboxes i know.

The wipe its arse and flip it trade makes sense mate, i think you nailed it there!

[Johnboy]

Wow kev great write-up. Totally agree chap . UK stuff isn't great . The Bentley I worked on last year was rotten. . 80s -90s jag's the same . Just like BMs and mercs . But as you guys say .The press have a lot to do with putting down Italian cars .

[PETROLHEAD]

On a lighter note,

Here is the last Ford i cut some of the rust out of

And as you can tell from the then owner, it was clearly very fast and cool!

Just in case you're wondering, yes i did actually weld the A pillar to the B pillar, and it all still worked!