The Curse: I had planned a great vacation for everyone. I had enough points with Marriott and Delta to get a free hotel for a week and free flights for everyone. We were going to surprise the kids the morning of and tell them we were FLYING to Orlando; one day at Disney, one day at Sea World, etc. Well Whitney’s ankles have become an issue. The doctor told her that she can’t stand, sit, or walk too much because it cause more issues. The only thing that will fix it is popping that baby out. So we canceled.
The Blessing: So now I’m on vacation and nowhere to go……mmm…..might as well work on the Oval! I scramble to the phone and make arrangements to borrow my brother-in-law’s trailer (you da’man), call me buds Pete and Brian to see if I can sandblast at the shop, and of course check with the wifey. SCORE! I head out to get all the sandblasting media and take the body over to Pete’s shop (also…da’man). I get the all the bad spots and skim the rest of the body to make the paint stripping a bit easier. I took care of the fenders and hood, too. Sadly, it wasn’t until I got home I didn’t realize that I forgot about the rear decklid and the wheel rims. I’ll just have to figure that out later. I did all this in about two days. I think I really only picked the car up about 6 times with help. After it was done, I felt like somebody had shot me all over my body with a paintball gun…….and then a 2x4. Clearly I’m not quite as fit as I once was.
I got the body home and got here settled again back in the garage. After a couple of weekends, I decided it would be best to finish the job before the humidity set in. I didn’t want to get any flash rusting. I found some powerful stinky stuff that would take off your skin like that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark……or maybe Fight Club depending on your generation. It took me about 8 hours but I was able to get all the paint off, sanded, and etching primer down. A few times the gooey paint that was sizzling up spattered on my arm. YOUCH! I may be out of shape but I can still move pretty quick to get that crap off of me. The wife had to come out a shut me down because it was Sunday night about 12:30 AM and I was using the orbital sander to get the last of the original black lacquer off and some filler. Made the last part go a bit longer, but I finished it off the old fashioned way by hand.
After I stood back and looked at what I had done, I finally felt like I made it over another hump. The next day my wife actually made a comment, as she walks by with groceries in her arms, “look like your making some progress”. MY LORD, that’s huge! If she noticed that then I really have done something. Well I’m ready to finish up that nose, maybe the underside of the heater channels, or the rear apron. I’d like to tackle this myself, but I think it would be better to have two heads around this one. I still need to strip and sand the fenders, hood, decklid, and doors. I got plenty to do so I’ll tackle that and hope that I can get Jon to come over sometime in the near future.
