The most amazing thing about restoring an old car is the journey of discovery that has the unique abilty to produce a rush of adrenalin one moment and disappointment the next! When I purchased the Zed the paint was 'crazed' all over and it had endured the torturous body work of someone that was more adept at butchery than car restoration, however the beauty was that it was a genuine one owner, with not a scratch of corrosion in the floor or chassis....so it was a great prospect to restore.
I fixed a couple of the notorious rust spots early on, such as around the fuel filler door and the bottom of the drivers side rear quarter and then gave it a quick prime and topcoat to preserve the body as best as I could until the time came to get into some serious body work. The day finally arrived when I was able to spend some time to begin cutting rust, fabricating and welding in new panels, however my adrenalin rush turned to disappointment when before I even got to the hatch I noticed a slight rust stain on the hatch sill which exposed the 'DARK SIDE' of the rebuild!
The great thing with cutting rust is once you start there is no option but to finish it! so with this repair it was also decided to give the rear end a remodel and go for the bumperless look. I began by cutting all the rust, treating and spraying rust inhibitor behind any of the double panel areas and then began fabricating mew panel pieces, mig welding them in and then grinding and using body filler to straighten everything.
So with the repairs done and into the morning of day 2 it's time to prime, sprayputty, sand, prime and apply color and then topcoat clear! I hate all the prep work but I love the painting side of the resto! This was going to be an interesting paint job because I had to fade it into the existing paintwork without any masking lines. I faded the paint nicely by really thinning out my last coat of color and topcoat, this allows for an easy wet sand once the topcoat has hardened and then out with the cut, buff and polish.
