1960 MGA Restoration

[hursst]

Body back on the dolly and chassis back in the rear of the garage (Photo 1).  Had John Deere help me out a little with the chassis with the blown out flat tire.  Next nice day that I'm not busy with something else, I will try to finish the primer touch up.

[hursst]

It's been over a month, but I'm back to the MGA.  I took a 3-week vacation and then spent over a week just catching up on home life.  Caught the tail end of a nice day today, so raced to get the touch-up primer on the MGA body.  Primed about 25% of the trunk again and a few small touch ups on the rockers and inner support brackets.  SHOULD be a little more sanding and finally finished with the body.  I should have most of the day Friday to finish the small amount of sanding.  I still have some minor touch up on some of the other body panels, but this can all be done outside later, which means I can finally start cleaning the garage and building a de facto paint booth after the minor sanding is done.  No photos, as it's just more of the same.

[Model56s]

I’m enjoying this build. My car in high school was a 60 MGA.

 

[hursst]

I'm now 16 hours over two days into thoroughly cleaning my garage.  I removed almost every object from the garage (Photo 1 is about 80% of everything removed), blew off the walls and ceiling with compressed air, then swept the floor.  I then started to blow each object with compressed air and wipe down with a damp cloth to remove all the sanding dust (with the garage doors closed so more dust wouldn't blow in), then put each item back in the garage.  I still have about 4 hours of work left to get it finished.  It should be about 90% less dust than before.  No way I'll be able to get it any cleaner than that, as anytime spent cleaning will still kick up some dust, which will resettle.  

 

I was also able to purge about .5% of it as junk or recycle, as well as bringing out quite a few old parts that I will try to sell or give away, which will free up a little room as well.  

 

When the garage cleaning is complete, next step is to complete a plan and materials list for a basic paint booth, along with referring to a couple friends and articles for reference.  Hopefully my photos will be a little less boring starting now, as compared to the last two years.

Edited May 15, 2023 by hursst (see edit history)

[Luv2Wrench]

4 more hours eh? So you'll be good to start on mine this weekend?

 

[hursst]

Jeff, no problem.  I charge $200/hr + all travel expenses to Georgia.

[hursst]

I've been buying lots of paint booth supplies in the last week, like plastic sheeting to cover the walls and block other parts of the garage off, metal wire cable to hang parts, 8 LED lights to mount around the booth, along with other bits and pieces.  I'll be getting a Tyvek suit and other safety equipment next week, and maybe buy paint after that.  Today, I also made a filter box (Photo 1) to put under the garage door as an air intake to go along with the exhaust fans I'll be putting at the window at the rear of the garage.  So far so good.  Can't wait to get the MG finally painted.

[hursst]

Installed overhead lighting today (see photo).  I will also be putting in 4 more of these units at waist level on sawhorses when I'm ready to start painting.

[Randiego]

Hope you have a good cardiologist on standby.  When you go into the paint store and price the new  paints, get ready for a shock you were not expecting.  Any color, other than white, has gone through the roof ! ! !  After the pandemic, all of the suppliers saw the labor force depleted, from manufacturing to distribution, and material costs skyrocketing so they have really  killed the prices of paint. 

 

I had my 78 Fiat Spider painted a year ago.  From the time that the painter started on the body till the time he went to pick up the paint, it had DOUBLED !  The paint, reducers, catalyzer (single stage urethane) to paint my (small body)  Fiat was coming in around $1,000.00. Three years earlier, I had another 124 Spider painted.  The total cost for the materials, including filler primers and puttys,  was around $400.00.  And this was PPG products.  

 

What color are you going to paint the MGA?  With your diligence, I am sure that you will get good results and have a beautiful paint job.  We will be looking to see the results.

[hursst]

I'm going with the original color, Old English White.  I am expecting to be fully gouged and ripped off from the paint costs, but it is nowhere near the gouging and rip-off if I were to hire someone else to do it.  Down here, mechanics and machine shops average $140/hr.  I should be buying paint within the next two weeks.  I'll share the prices in a future post so everyone can have a good laugh.

[Luv2Wrench]

Allow me to recommend Chad for your paint.  chadspaintsupply@gmail.com 269-426-6000

The base he supplied me couldn't have been any better.  Very highly recommend.   It was a few years ago but I paid a bit over $300 a gallon. 

 

 

[hursst]

Jeff, I'll think about it, but the shipping costs and uncertainty of getting the right thing and having to ship it back may not be worth it.  I'm going to price it out locally first.  Thanks either way!

[chistech]

Up my way, you aren’t getting a whole car painted for less than $10k in most cases and it seems many have just accepted it. While I don’t paint, I have done the work (except for the actual spraying) and have bought the materials so i pretty much know the work that goes into it and the material cost. What I think is funny is many will pay the cost for paint without much thought about it but will complain to me that $750 for a set of main sills, that are made 100% correctly, made out of clear, select ash, have close to perfect joinery, and are guaranteed to fit are too expensive! If you look in any thread about wood repairs, there’s always someone complaining that the wood guys get too much money. It’s probably because many think it’s just wood, they had wood shop in school, that it must be as simple as using a table saw to make a few cuts, and wood is easily available at the big home stores while painting is something that only a “pro” can do. The worse thing is when someone is asking for patterns from the guys making wood! It’s like asking Campbells soup for their chicken noodle recipe because they don’t want to buy a can. Sorry for the rant as it’s been happening more and more as those same guys are talking about their awesome $20k paint jobs and it irritates me. Maybe because structural wood gets covered they think it should be given to them. 

[hursst]

Went paint shopping over the last two days.  I wasn't surprised.  The PPG store Paint, Clear Coat, and Reducers were about $1,250.  The paint itself was $1,037/gallon!  The DuPont Store was about $1,140.  The paint itself was $815/gallon.  I could get much cheaper stuff, around $450 for everything, but I'm sure it would fail within about a year.  There must be collusion between paint manufacturers, there's no way a gallon of paint should cost ~$900 on average.  Inflation on paint and paint supplies in the last 4 years must be around 180% or so, which means they are gouging big time.  Anyway, haven't placed the order yet, but will go with the DuPont stuff.

 

In the meantime, I've been continuing to set up the de facto paint booth and prep the car.  After a compressed air session and some prep solvent, I gave the body panels that will be exposed a quick once-over with 400 grit to knock down some of the fine contaminants that were on top of the primer that accumulated over the last two years or so I've been priming.  Then gave it another prep sol run, and came out as smooth as it was before.  Did notice a few very minor sand-throughs as I went in detail over the body, so will have to fix those before I'm ready to spray.  Final detailing on the exposed body panels will be more prep sol and a tack rag to ensure it gets as clean and smooth as possible.

 

I taped off the front and rear body sections that will be exposed and will need the best quality spray job (Photos 1 & 2).  I'll first paint the inner fenders, underbody, trunk, and engine bay, as most of this area will not be seen.  I did notice some major scratches on the fender well in the engine compartment where the body rubbed against an engine accessory bracket, so this area will need sanded down to almost bare metal and re-primered.  I'll also give the rest of the inner body surfaces another once over to make sure that the areas that will be seen are smooth enough.

 

Once the body is ready, I'll do the same process to the fenders, hood, and trunk, and I'll be starting by just spraying the inner parts of the fenders and panels that mostly won't be seen.

 

Once I get paint, I'll do some practice runs outside on a junk Camaro fender I have to see if I can lay down a smooth coat with no runs, dial in a spray pattern, and make sure everything seems to work correctly.

[STEVE POLLARD]

I can't wait to see the final product Chris...... I'm sure it will be stunning !

 

 

Steve

[hursst]

Today I installed a plastic double water/oil filter at the end of my spray house.  Now I have a water trap right off my compressor and this water/oil filter combo at the end of the hose, right before the spray gun.

 

Repaired that large scrape on my inner fender in the engine bay today (Photo 1 (before), Photo 2(after)).  Had to sand it down to the green primer, luckily it didn't go thru to bare metal.  Resprayed it after a long struggle with my spray gun needle getting jammed due to too much primer build up inside.  Just about time for a new primer gun, but probably won't need it for a while for any big jobs.  Will have to take note of this when installing the body after paint to remove offending bracket completely so this doesn't happen when freshly painted.

 

Slowly building up to the actual paint work.  The paint I bought has no instructions or sheet that I assume they would usually provide, so will have to research online to figure out the paint to basemaker ratio and the clear to reducer ratios.  Next on the list is to place a box fan in the window and make some type of covering for both sides to create a seal.  Will be doing a little travelling over the next 4 weeks, so probably won't make too much progress, but will shoot for mid-July to begin painting with some dialing in, test runs, and the back portions of some of the panels that won't be seen.

[hursst]

Slowly working towards getting started on painting.  Found some time over the last two days.  Tested my box fan in the back window of the garage, then made a fiberboard cover to block out the area of the open window that isn't covered by the fan.  I'll tape it in place when it's ready to go.

 

Next, I got out some of my ancillary pieces that mostly won't be seen (Photo 3).  These are pieces that I practically can't mess up and will not require any clear coat.  Should be a good way to start and see how the painting goes (I will paint a junk fender as the first thing I do to establish a good spray pattern and practice techniques).  I am now going over these panels in great detail, and unfortunately, am finding a few minor problems.  I found a crack in the lower front valance panel (Photo 1) and a bad weld on the door latch outer cover piece (Photo 2).  These both required some quick welding and grinding.  I then cleaned them and applied some rust inhibitor.  I'll then need a small amount of body filler, then some touch up primer.

 

I think the paint booth is ready to set up as soon as I'm finished with these first body panels. I really just need to staple up some plastic covering to encapsulate my "paint booth," then set up the filters, fan, lighting, and other minor steps and I should be ready to start.  My plan is to do the not-seen parts first to see how it goes, then the inner portions of the fenders, hood, and trunk lid, then the body portions that are not the exterior of the body that show, then the interior parts, like the battery cover and the dash board, then the exterior body portions, then finish with the exterior portions of the fenders, doors, hood, and trunk.  This should give me a good path where any major problems in my technique and prep should show up on the panels that matter the least.  By the time I'm doing that pieces that count, I hope to be dialed in.  Theoretically, I could paint the whole thing in a day, but I'm going to spread it out and take my time, since I'm an amateur.  The goal is to have everything painted correctly by Sep 1st.  After painting will be a long series of wet sanding and buffing the areas that matter.  I hope to be able to leave the hidden areas with maybe 2-4 coats of paint, 4 coats being for the inner fenders that will see lots of road debris, and no clear coat.

[MjSieler]

Thanks for the detailed descriptions. I’m hoping you will post a pic or two of the booth setup to see the ventilation and lighting schemes. I wasn’t surprised at the paint cost, I was shocked! Whew! 

[hursst]

I'll post some photos once I'm fully set up.  Yes, the gouging on paint is insane.  I don't know how it's legal.  Someone is making windfall profits.

[hursst]

Today, got out my junk Camaro fender, sanded some of it with 120 and shot some rattle-can primer (Photo 1).  I'll hit it with some 400 grit sandpaper to simulate my actual MG panels, then use this fender as a test bed for establishing spray pattern and spray technique before I do any damage to the MG panels.  Hope to have this step done by the end of the week.

 

Also added body filler onto the two panels I had to weld yesterday.  Will try to sand tomorrow.  I'll hit all the small panels I have out at once with a little more primer, as I've found some thin spots, minor scrapes from previous test fittings, and some other minor imperfections that I'll correct before paint.

 

Need to do one final dusting and sweeping of the one side of the garage that will be the paint booth before I put up any plastic sheeting and start to build up the actual paint booth.  I'm also reading and re-reading the paint/clear tech sheets so I know exactly how to handle the paint products when the day comes.

[keiser31]

My test panel for painting my truck was the door on my A100....

[Randiego]

Chris,

Another tip for keeping the particulate matter off of your freshly painted surfaces;   Wet down the floor under the items that you are painting.  Any atomized paint that falls on the floor invariably gets "kicked up" as you move around the fender, door, body shell, etc. This will settle on  the painted surface along with  any dust that was missed during your prep. When the atomized paint hits the floor, it is held there by the film of water on the surface of the floor.  

 

My buddy painted his 66 Nova in his garage that he set up like yours only he used two window box fans and a 2 X 8 filtered opening.  He rolled up the garage door and secured the 2X8" frame holding the filter battens (2' X 2', four of them) secured to the frame and then secured that to the bottom of the garage door with plenty of masking and duct tape.  The garage door was opened up 2'.  His paint job came out superb. Very few imperfections from dust and particulate matter.  After color sanding and buffing, you would have never known it was painted in a residential garage.

 

Good luck.  We all want to see the MGA in it's new, regal paint job !

[hursst]

Thanks, those are my plans exactly.  Having trouble, as it has been raining every day and I've been on an AACA tour for the last week, so zero progress.  Need to do the touch up sanding and priming outside to keep the garage clean, but haven't been able to get outside yet.  Still may have a lot of small-time work to do until I actually start spraying color.

[hursst]

Weathermen were WAY WAY off today, it was sunny and hot most of the day, no rain.  Was able to sand the two pieces that I had to weld and add filler.  Also got the body out, swept the floor again, and did some more sanding to the areas of the body I had primered a few weeks ago.  I think the body will need additional sanding; there are quite a few areas where the primer is too rough.

 

In the meantime, I continued building out my defacto paint booth.  Hung a plastic sheet on the one wall (Photo 1) and started hanging one down the center of the garage (Photo 2), but the tape does not like to be hung from the ceiling and stick for very long, due to the weight of the rest of the sheeting as I move down the line.  I'm going to try tape with a staple to see if I can get it to at least stay while I install it, then give it a couple days to see if it stays up there for the long term and see if I need more tape, more staples, etc.

 

Once I hang he sheeting completely, I'll be ready to paint, as far as the paint booth is concerned.  Setup of the other things, like fans, filters, fly paper, floor wetting, etc. should just take a few minutes.

 

I still have to give my first round of lesser-important parts some more primer to fix various imperfections I've seen, but I think I can knock that out tomorrow and do a quick sanding soon after.  Once that's done, I will start painting the practice fender first, and if that goes well and I can dial in my sprayer, I will move the body outside and start spraying the various brackets with color.

 

Happy July 4th!!!

[MjSieler]

It might peel the ceiling paint off when removed but what about Duct Tape?
You’re setup is looking good.

[hursst]

I'm using painters tape so far, so that won't peel off the paint.  Duct tape would almost definitely peel off the paint, so staying away from that.

[Luv2Wrench]

If you don't mind hooks in your ceiling, you can put some hooks up every 8' or so and hand a thin board from that.  Tape the plastic to the thin board and roll it once or twice.  I put screw eyes all around so that I could hang various things inside the booth.  I use 14 gauge solid (insulated) electrical wire to hang things with.  It is very strong and easy to wrap around things to secure.  When you're done you can take them down and fold them back up and use again.  While copper is still expensive you can buy bulk rolls or take a 14-3 combo and remove the outer insulation. 

 

You might do a dry run or two.  I know that the first time I shot in my booth I ran into all kinds of issues I didn't think about.

 

Good luck!!

 

[hursst]

Jeff,

   Thanks for the tips, but trying to work it as cheaply and quickly as possible.  I did buy some 14 gauge wire to hang the larger parts (not insulated).  Ended up using the painter's tape with staples.  The plastic is very light when evenly distributed.  My problem was that whatever section I was taping had to hold the weight of the rest of the plastic sheeting.  Unless I had someone to hold everything up as I taped, the tape on the ceiling would just slowly fall off.  The tape sticks like welding to the plastic, but not as much to the ceiling.  Putting a medium duty staple in through the tape attached to the plastic seems to give it enough grip, especially when everything is up and the weight is evenly distributed.  Here's the finished product (Photos 1 & 2).

 

I'm still need to seal up a few small gaps so I don't get overspray into the other parts of the garage that will be closest to the painting.  I also left a gap and a little more room for a workbench at the back right of the garage so I can prep the paint there.

 

Jeff, I'll do a dry run, as you suggest and see how the logistics work out.  I'll also be starting with unimportant parts, so messing it up would be no problem at all at the early stage.

 

No primer spraying so far, as it's 95 degrees outside with a heat index of over 100, plus risk of thunderstorms, so going to wait.  Maybe from about 6-9pm tonight...

[TAKerry]

Following along. Looks like you have covered all of your bases. I am a couple of hrs north of you at the top of the bay. I would suspect that your humidity range is about the same as ours, which is high! This is not a good thing as far as painting is concerned. Especially with the clear coat. 

Working in construction for the past 40 + years I have hung a lot of plastic curtain walls up. The best thing is a product called zip wall. They are a telescoping aluminum pole with shoes on the top and bottom to lock the plastic in place. I used those when I set up the paint booth in my garage. Only takes a few minutes. Big problem is the price though, they are around $200 for a set. Sherwin Williams usually has them in stock.

[Luv2Wrench]

I see that some of the lights (maybe linked together??) on the inside of the plastic wall.  You might make sure those are sealed.  Would be really bad if you got a spark in there with those paint fumes.  Really bad.  I have LED lights inside the booth but they are hardwired into the ceiling and sealed with silicon.   They're technically not explosion proof but I'm satisfied with how I sealed them.  It looks like your lights are linked.  If so, I'd be very careful with those connections and really, really careful if there's a switch between them.  If you're going to paint with those lights chained together you might think about wrapping the connections and switches with electrical tape. I don't know if that will eliminate the hazard but it might help.   Make sure to never switch on/off with paint vapor in the booth as those switches could provide a spark.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Luv2Wrench (see edit history)

[hursst]

Jeff, yes, they are linked.  Great tip, I will wrap and try to insulate them.  I'll also make sure to not turn them on while painting.

[hursst]

Quick update, got the primer on the parts this morning.  Will need a little sanding, hopefully tomorrow, then on to my practice fender.

[hursst]

Big day today, finally shot some test paint!  Hopefully no more boring photos of sanded primered panels. 

 

First, I discovered that my Basemaker for my paint was only medium temperature, which means 60-70 degrees, which is way too low, so I bought some hi-temp, which should be good from 70-85 or so. 

 

I did the painting test on my junk Camaro fender today (Photos 1-3).  Color is perfect, so that's good.  I used 1.5 oz of Base Color with 1.5 oz of Basemaker as a trial, mainly to dial in the sprayer and work technique.  Didn't want to use much as paint is more expensive than gold at this point.  I was able to dial in the sprayer to about 85% perfect, but will still need some fine tuning.  I painted outside and the conditions were 87 degrees, but I painted under a tree, so it was in the shade.  High humidity.  The paint came out quite dry to start, but got much better once I dialed in the spray pattern and pressure.  Paint went on smoothly, but was still pretty dry, giving it a very slight spatter pattern rather than a smooth even spray.  The paint dried VERY quickly, maybe in 10 minutes.  I did, let's call it, 1.5 coats until I ran out of paint.  No runs at all, but probably because everything was hot and dry.  The now dried paint is quite smooth to the touch, but looks pretty dry and not shiny.  I assume that's because paint dried a little too fast and this is supposed to be clear-coated.  Can't do more work on it as I beat the storms coming in by about 30 minutes.

 

I'll check it out in the sun next week (I'm out of town for a little while) to see how it really looks. Maybe I'll do one more test run with slightly more paint and hopefully a cooler day, before I start on the unseen parts on the actual car.  Any further tips or thoughts are appreciated, but so far so good, I think.  

Edited July 6, 2023 by hursst (see edit history)

[tenugent]

Been out of the game for a long time,in the old days if we were painting a black car we painted very early in the morning when humidity was low.On hanging the plastic,try stappeling through small cut pieces of cardboard.

[Luv2Wrench]

I can't tell from pictures, but the base shouldn't be shiny at all.  As long as you can't feel tiny balls of dried paint it is probably fine.  Shoot clear over it and see how it look. 

If it is drying too quick, as @tenugent said, paint really early in the morning.  In addition, you should be able to call the place you got your paint from and they'll recommend an additive to help the base flow.  I'm not sure what kind of gun you have so I can't recommend pressure but I can tell you my DeVilbiss FLG4 670 worked best at 23psi for base and 27 psi for clear.  If you have too high a pressure (and too low flow) the paint atomizes too well and can dry on the way to the surface.

[hursst]

Thanks for the tips.  The staples in the tape on the plastic sheeting works great, so sticking with that.

 

As far as the paint, yes, I'll be starting very early in the morning to beat heat and humidity.  I'm using a Devillbiss gun I bought at Eastwood.  I had the pressure at 31psi, so looks like I may have too much, will dial it back on my next attempt.  At this point, I'll probably do one more practice round, lower the pressure, try at a lower temp (in the AM) and add some clear coat and see how it looks.  

 

Good to here the base shouldn't have any real shine to it.  Guess I've seen too many photos taken while the paint was still wet on other cars.  Paint was quite smooth when I ran my hand over it early this morning, so I'm at least on the right track.

[Luv2Wrench]

Here's the MG TD fender before I shot clear and then after clear and wet sanding and buffing.  Base should be very smooth, no "fuzz".

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Luv2Wrench (see edit history)

[Luv2Wrench]

I shot a couple rounds of epoxy primer this weekend and I was reminded of the cleaning ritual.  That's a key to a good paint job.   After cleaning everything twice I hang it up to paint.  Then comes the wax and grease remover.  You really lay it on generously in small sections and wipe off in a single stroke.   The wax and grease remover goes on and causes dirt/wax/grease to release and float.  How you wipe it off is important.   Needs to be one stroke off, then a clean rag and another stroke etc, etc.  Need to wear gloves while doing that because your hands have oil on them.  I go through a ton of small towels and wax and grease remover.  

 

[MjSieler]

Thank you all for the details. It is very informative and appreciated.

[hursst]

Thanks Jeff, I will use your technique.  I'll have to buy even more lint free towels, then, I probably don't have enough for the whole car at this point.