I’m going to have my Competition Blue 1970 Eliminator painted as soon as my bodyshop finishes their new paint booth. I’ve never had a car painted before so I’m looking for advice. Here is my plan. All advice appreciated.
I’m pulling the hood. I need new hinges. That will also allow me to do some cleaning/detailing in the engine bay.
I’m pulling front bumper and all headlight assembly stuff to refinish.
I’m pulling rear bumper and tail lights to refinish.
I’m pulling both doors (need patching in both lower corners). I’m going with new door bushings and pins. I’m going to gut the doors completely. Gotta do new weatherstripping and all new seals around.
I’m pulling the trunk lid and taking the rear spoiler off. All new gaskets there.
I’m pulling all chrome trim.
I’m removing both side mirrors and redoing gaskets under them.
I’m removing door scuff plates and installing new stainless steel ones.
Chrome wheel well molding is incorrect for 70 Elim, so it’s staying off.
Hood scoop has some cracks where someone tightened back edges too much. That will be corrected.
All corner extensions will be removed.
An old set of wheels will be installed prior to paint.
Pull all the glass, fender and quarter extensions, separate the mirrors so that the base and mirror head can be painted as separately as possible. Remove fenders, mask off where factory did for paint lines on fire wall and door pillars, etc.
Fill those holes where the wheel lips were installed. Less explaining in the future.
Remove valances, paint off of car.
Paint all of the jambs and under sections of hood and trunk.
After painting, black out the section under the rocker panels.
There are other ‘blacked out’ places behind grille, etc.
Others will chime in with more things to consider, or to give more explantation or correct me. LOL
CougarCJ, I really didn’t want to pull front and rear glass. I’m happy with the glass and there are no leaks. I will consider pulling the fenders however. I mean everything else up there is being pulled.
I would remove the polished aluminum pieces from the fender extensions and rear quarter extensions. Remove the rubber seals. Then put a 1/4" spacer (couple washers) on each stud and bolt them back on the car. Insist that the fender extensions and rear quarter extensions be left in place for all paint and body work.
I’d pull the cowl panel also. Its easy to do and you want to paint the cowl. I think the cowl is black on your car but it will be blue if you leave the panel on.
While the car is away, polish any piece of stainless or chrome you want to reinstall. Take the outer door handles apart and get into the nooks and crannies. Same with the lock sets. Check the side marker light bezels and respray the inside wall surfaces, polish the outer lip edges and the plastic lenses. While you have the tail lights out, disassemble them and buff the lenses. Its amazing how the old parts look great with old paint but look terrible against new paint.
Royce, I’ve seen where the quarter extensions were spaced out from the body but left on there. What’s the advantage to that as to just letting him paint them separately? Assuming he paints them all at the same time as the body with the same batch of paint.
Sanfu, yes I am planning on pulling the cowl. I need to do that to aid in removing windshield trim. I will paint back everything that is supposed to be black. Especially the pinch welds at the bottom.
I believe its necessary to take the glass out to get the new weather stripping in place. I also think it would help when he starts cutting to repair patch panels for the lower corners of the doors.
With windows up, no problem patching doors without damaging glass. Weatherstrips can be put in without removing the glass. Putting all of the glass back in and getting it all lined back up is a huge headache. I can’t count how many cars I’ve bought because owners took the glass out and gave up. Not worth the hassle unless you are going to dip or blast your doors.
You just need to remove the bumper in the bottom of the door. This allows the window to roll down farther. It worked on my '68, but yours is probably similar.
On my 70, removing the rubber bottom window bumper did give me access to almost all of the weatherstrip screws. But there were still one or two in the middle of the door that were blocked by the larger 69/70 window. You might get lucky and the factory didn’t install these. But they did on mine and the window had to come out.
If they are painted separately inevitably the paint shade is off. Bolted to the car the paint shade matches perfectly. The spacers ensure that the painter paints the edges so that you don’t have to go back and touch up each of them by hand. The edges show.
