I think right at the moment PK would benefit from a rather different "up" emoticon

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Simon

The adventures of an owner builder in the Tallarook Ranges

Thanks for this post.

I'll be spraying my '64 Mini in a few months. I had been looking all over the Internet for something just like this. In doing so I had pieced together most of the major points, but some of the smaller tips are really good.

One thing I am interetsed in is the use of "isolator". I think I'll need it as the car is now painted on both original enamel and also some later enamel (I assume it's enamel). I know that in the past, acrylic over enamel (even with undercoat) may cause frying. 25 years ago I resprayed an old car, and used a brown coat over the undercoat called "isolator" before the acrylic. Is this still availabel or needed? I read somewhere that the current undercoats contain this already in them.

Again, thanks for the great post.

Brian

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'64 Mini 850 in need of a total rebuild (and a 1275 A+, and disks, and a whole lot more)

Brian mate your most welcome, Its what its/I'm there for.

The isolater is more often known as a sealer these days. And I'm pretty sure I saw a septone version of it down at Auto1 the other day.

Now what you've bought up is a great point and one that I really should have covered early on. The car would have been painted in Acylic from the factory. Since then someone might have done it in enamel.

It is important that you know exactly what has been put down on the car before you start (if you MUST paint over old paint). Reason being that different paints react differently to heat and and age.

Acrylic is effected more by heat than 2k. What happens is that Acrylic will move more when its heated than 2k. So if you try putting 2k (which dries much harder then acrylic) over acrylic, the acrylic will try and move around to much underneath it and make for a crappy and brittle finish, the 2k will chip off too easily is what you will notice.

However you can get away with doing it the over way around but I can't stress enough that the surface of the 2k finish must be keyed (sanded till there is no gloss) absolutely everywhere, otherwise the acrylic won't stick properly. I would really encourage you to prime it aswell before painting. This will really help with adhession. You can get away with putting just a coat of Acrylic clear over 2k colour if your just trying to spruce up a car to sell it but it won't last very well.

Putting anything over Enamel is very very difficult. I will say now that I haven't actually gone out and done this but I know how it behaves. I don't even know if you could do it using an Isolater or Sealer. I might be wrong. But I wouldn't chance it, I'd just get the old paint off for a fresh start (that just me personally, just cos I can't waste time finding out the hard way).

Did that all make sense? Sorry I tend to get long winded but I just wanted to make sure I covered everything.

Thank you so very much for this thread Alex!!

you have sumed it up so very well, it is just how i was taught just last year with the acception of we used 2pak

could you include the art of masking up the car?

in my panel beating apprenticeship i could never get the hang of masking up even with the auto maskingtaping paperrolls

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1969 Blue Mini K, 1330cc, Weber 45, polished aluminum roll cage, Race seats, 4 point harness, full rewire incorporating 8 fuses, 6 relays and new headlights just needs tyres front shocks and a windscreen til re-register

Thats alright The Ranger 89,

I haven't actually covered repairs in this how to, but in the final one I think I will have to! So that's why I haven't gone into the art of masking and half masking etc.

What was the actual problem that you had? Can you explain it cos I'm sure there are others that have had the same problem(s). That way I can explain it in a way thats useful.

Thanks Budy

You've inspired me PK. I've started taking my car apart now that the weather's nice enough to walk to work every day.

One question though: Is painting the inside any different? I have a few dents in the roof so will be taking out the headlining and won't need to mask that up.

Thanks

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Andrew

Hi Guys,

Just letting you know that i haven't forgotten about this, I've had a couple of PM's this week with a few people wanting to know when I'll be getting my finger out .

I have been flat out with work (thats an understatment how does 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 2 months grab ya? ).

So as soon as my current job is out of the way, I'll get right on it. It should (fingers crossed) be up by December.

Thanks for your patience

Seeing you have nothing to do at the moment PK have you any tips on dent removal using the heat shrinking method? I also have some shallow dents in a roof (looks as if someone has bounced a footy on it). Not sure body-filler is the right approach for shallow dents over a wide area. Cheers mate.

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1967 Cooper S - new front bearings to do.
1965 Cooper S shell - Slow progress. No time or money!
1966 Deluxe- next rustoration!
Mk 2 & XJ6 Jags. Less said the better.

If they are footy sized dents push from the inside

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David L


My greatest fear in life is that when I die my wife will sell my Mini and tools for the price I told her I paid for them!

yeah, i thought of that Dave, but unsure if that would make it worse. Trouble with dents (any dents) the metal becomes stretched. And ripples in the roof are very noticable esp with a nice glossy finish.

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1967 Cooper S - new front bearings to do.
1965 Cooper S shell - Slow progress. No time or money!
1966 Deluxe- next rustoration!
Mk 2 & XJ6 Jags. Less said the better.

Lucky for you I stop for brakefast, lunch and dinner

Yeah, have you done hot shrinking before? I'll just give a quick run down.

You really only need to use hot shrinking on dents where there has been excessive shrinking... To try and draw a picture here, think of a ping pong ball cut in half, if that is the size and shape of the dent, then the metal would have stretched alot to get there.,, Any thing shollower than that, you can get out pretty quickly with cold shrinking.

hot shrinking

Ill continue with the half ping pong ball size dent picture...

1. Heat the highest point of the dent from the convex side with a neutral flame on an oxy. heat it just in that spot (you should do a little circle around it the size of a 5c piece) until it is cherry red.

2. quickly get a dolly under it, that is place the dolly on the concave side of the dent, use a dolly with less shape than the panel. Only use light pressure with the dolly or you will only stretch the dent further and make more work for yourself.

3. with the right dolly in the right place, start beating it. I prefer to use a wood mallet for this (tinsmens mallet), but some preffer a planishing hammer... I reckon its easier with the mallet. Start beating it at the very edge of the dent, and move towards the center of the dent in a sprialling motion (start at the out side and do laps of the dent getting tighter and thighter each time as you get closer to the middle... Does this make sense?)

4 when you reach the center just give it a quick 6 hits.

5 quench it with with wet rag


Ok sound easy enough? .... The hard part is that you need to do this whole process while the metal is still cherry red, it is already cooled off before you start hammering, you need to reheat. You may need to do it a couple of times to work it right down flat... Now you with find that if there is any shape in the panel that you will have shrunk it flat in this process so you may need to restore some of its shape again afterwards.

Cold shrinking

Same as above with out the heat. Only difference is that you will need to give it a lot of light hits rather than firm hits. If you strike it to hard it will strecth more, and create a new problem and more work.

bogging

After reading the above your head might be spinning to much to want to even look at a hammer

So it you are going to use bog a couple of tips I will give you are

1 make sure you have stripped off all paint and old bog

2 once you hit bare metal make sure you do not touch it and do not put any chemical of any kind on it, if you do you will only get 7 years at best out of the bog before it cracks off. The metal should be sanded (keyed) with 30 grit sand paper..

3 make sure you expose an area 2/3 the size of the dent and spread the bog out that far so that you can feather the edges properly and avoid and hard lines or ripples.

4 sand the bog dry, do not use water because it will suck it up like a sponge and rust the panel out from under the bog

5 sand using the longest block you can to make sure that the profile matches the body perfectly,,, this is one that people suff up and why you often get "ripples" in newly "fixxed" bodies. You can start with 80 grit and make your way down to 240 if you like, I normally go 80, 120, 240.

Is all that pretty easy to follow? If not let me know and I'll try and write it better

edit> any more than 1/4" of bog is bog abuse!!!! and it won't last well.. ohh and try and leave it as long as you reasonably can before sanding it, because it can take a while for bog to "shrink back"

Or what he said... sometimes you can just "push" them out. If any of you guys drive new cars, it is not uncommon practice to take of a damaged panel, lay it on the ground and "stomp"it back into rough shape and then finish it by hand. Sound rough hey? "trust me mate, she works a treat "

AEG163job!!!!! LOOK DOWN HERE SORRY BUDY THERES MORE!!!!

Sorry I hope I caught you before you go attacking you car,, I just thought
I should point out that you can have a Lage dent with little stretch,, I don't think I worded it very well earlier.

So often if it is a big dent over a larger area it is easier to push it out (with your feet, a block of wood and a huge f*** off hammer etc..) this is called "roughing out" once ya have the rough shape you can finish it off with hammer an dolly... and then if need be bog...

If you could get some good photos froma few angles I can give you better advice for your situation? I'm happy to if you can post them.. Thanks

OK mate, I'll take some snaps tonite.
Thanks for the tutorial -Your'e a champ PK.

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1967 Cooper S - new front bearings to do.
1965 Cooper S shell - Slow progress. No time or money!
1966 Deluxe- next rustoration!
Mk 2 & XJ6 Jags. Less said the better.

here you go Alex. I guess it would be better to strip off the old paint before attempting a repair. If you can figure out why the hell someone would want to paint a burgundy/snow white mark 1 cooper s in orange, please let me know!

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1967 Cooper S - new front bearings to do.
1965 Cooper S shell - Slow progress. No time or money!
1966 Deluxe- next rustoration!
Mk 2 & XJ6 Jags. Less said the better.