My 1987 Two Door Crown Victoria AKA THE BROWN BLOB

[Mr Bean]

What's the best way to paint hood and door jam areas without leaving a distinct masking line?

[87gtVIC]

Weather was not conducive for body work on the drivers side door bottoms so I made the best of it and swapped out the dented drivers side dew wipe trim as well as painted (quickly before the rain fell) the drivers side interior door pull strap.

The drivers side dew wipe trim got dented by a hail storm. I was bummed (not to mention the rest of the car was hammered too(this is years ago so I am calmed down now)) and was looking for a NOS drivers side dew wipe trim to replace my dented one with for many years.

Few weeks back on ebay I came across such a piece. The rubber was damaged so that was unusable for my purposes so I had to swap over my existing rubber to the NOS piece. Little did I know that the full windowed tudor trims are specific.

Take a look:





Anyways, I had some cutting and hammering and dollying to do all because I happen to have a vent window on my car.

The Hammering and dollying was to make clearance for the dew wipe trim to fit between the door and the vent window. It all worked out perfectly though and I got rid of that nasty dent.





Next up was attacking the door pull strap since the door panel was off.

This is what it looked like currently:



With the pitted chromies peeled off:



Once entirely stripped of the chrome tape there was a backing material still left behind. I peeled that off as well.



Once side peeled:



And both peeled:



I kinda liked it like that but decided to paint it:



That’s a silver metallic finish. It POPS! Letting it dry thoroughly before reinstalling it onto the door panel.

[87gtVIC]

Friggin beautiful!!!

I was just looking at my core support last week and was thinking that I should start cleaning it for paint. The lopo and AOD leaked stuff on it as I was lifting the combo out of the engine bay. Trying not to make a real project out of this, but since I am stuck, I might as well do something.

Thanks. Just strip the radiator core support of all the excess shit and go to town on it. I wanted to DA it but I was outside at 5:30 am already doing the prep work on it and did not want to annoy the neighbors anymore.

What's the best way to paint hood and door jam areas without leaving a distinct masking line?

Id first remove the hood to paint its underside so you dont that to worry about the hood hinges. I'd then take some two inch tape and place it over the outside of the hood leaving one half of the tape to overlap over the edge of the hood. Id then lightly press the tape over the edge of the hood. Mask rest of hood to protect from overspray.

When spraying make sure to not spray paint into the crease between the tape and the hood. Shoot paint from the opposite direction so the paint is flowing over the underside of the hoods edge and onto the tape. This will feather the paint out naturally and leave no paint lines. Never shoot directly into the edge.

Same principle applies for any hard edge you are trying to blend into/not have a hard paint line. Basically back-masking the edge and dont shoot the paint hard into that area. Shoot from the opposite direction so no paint builds up in it. Same method for the door jambs and you should have a good result.


I did this for painting my trunk rain gutter jambs and you cannot tell anything. If anything does come out fuzzie because of overspray you can always lightly apply some compound by hand to blend everything back in on the edge.

[87gtVIC]

Radiator core support complete:







Shes purtie.

Complete with NOS hood bumpers! Nice and rubbery.




Also finally closed the trunk and got a surprise. This past week I disabled the trunkmuncher so the trunk would close at the highest most latched position...basically no munching. Now that I let the paint dry enough I decided to have the trunk close fully. Nah ugh the trunk said. I guess the trunk weatherstripping relaxed so much that the muncher could not suck it all the way to the fully closed position anymore. I tore things apart looking if something was damaged with the motor and all I concluded was that it just couldn't muster sucking in the now relaxed weatherstripping.

I really put the motor through its paces while I was trying to diagnose what was going on. She was HOT HOT HOT. If the motor does not reach the most full down position the motor appears to continue trying. This would result in a dead battery for sure, or something worse. So I decided it was best to adjust the catch up a c hair to make everything happy. The trunk is so just a smidge out of alignment.

Otherwise all is well.

OH I also checked if the AC still works. Good old R12 still kicking. The keen may notice the r134 adapters on my car. That was needed to put in some r12 that my dad recovered and could only recover into a r134 canister.

[87gtVIC]

Finished up on the old girl today.

Lubed up all the moving pieces inside the drivers side door since the door panel was off and also drenched the inside of the door with Eastwoods heavy duty anti rust spray. Waxy, greasy, oily stuff.

Popped the door panel back on and then clayed the car really quick and shined her up with some wax. Then I hit the roads and encountered this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esmXn6HRf70

He like it.

Anyways I took some fresh pics and included a video. The original audio was lost in the universe so no burble burble exhaust sound underneath it all.

I caught myself in a reflection:



















Shiny:









More shiny:





Video:

[DerekTheGreat]

Ah, glad to see a fan of oily rust prevention stuff. I love me some oil.

And here I thought I was the only one who looked at my car's reflection in windows if it was clear to do so.

Your car sure is purty, I love those pin stripes, and the wheels. What happened to the hood ornament?

[87gtVIC]

Thanks. The pinstripes I did by myself in the back yard. The wheels are DIRTY. As i said for a LONG time now they are getting refinished shortly. I have the new tires just need to get the wheels freshened up.

The entire underside of my car is drenched in fluid film.

I just happened to look over and see my reflection...had to snap a quick picture of it.

It wears a shaved hood ornament. I have a couple nos ones (79 style and later ones) I put on for special occasions but most of the time it wears the shaved one so it wont tear the car cover.

[BigMikeIT]

Dave,

Why with the 2k vs 1k clear (quicker dry time, less vapors)?

[87gtVIC]

Dave,

Why with the 2k vs 1k clear (quicker dry time, less vapors)?

It is way more durable and provides a much glossier finish. It is just simply better.

[87gtVIC]

Bombed around in her this morning. 116 mile round trip out to LIE Exit 70 and back. Average speed was 79.3 MPH MPGs were impressive as well. over 19!

On the way back though I was struck with some rocks falling out a dump truck. Three nicks on the hood more towards the passenger side midway up in the raised center section. Made me sad. Windshield took the brunt of it. NO cracks at first glance.

Plan to fix those up tomorrow. Shouldn't be too bad as they only appear to get into the primer some and no bare metal this time. In between coats of paint in those war wounds I plan to clean, clay, polish (have special grit pads glass polish) and finally rain-x the windshield. Ill probably do the same to the rear window, but just clay and rain-x the side ones.

[87gtVIC]

Went out at 5:30 and started cleaning and claying the windows. 6:30 is late enough to start with the da polisher right? Got the windshield and back glass all polished up and then rain-x on everything.

Moved onto paint touch up on the hood. Masked off the area and cleaned it with wax and grease remover. Lightly sanded down the area with 3000grit wet sand paper and then dug into the chips with 600 grit wet. Applied several dabs of touch up paint and now letting that dry a good long time before I go over the area again with some 3000 and some compound and polish.

[TecNickal]

I detest dump truck operators that do not properly contain their load.

[87gtVIC]

I did something:

[DerekTheGreat]

Cheese 'n' rice, seems like every time you take that thing out you get assaulted by dump trucks..

[Rodentkiller]

After getting my car painted I am now more worried about being assulted by other cars and being stuck behind dump trucks and garbage trucks.