Golden Jubilee
Posts: 8953
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm
Location: Canada's left Coast
OUR 40 FORD
I will have to say this because it might be important to someone other than myself. We have spent a surprising amount of money having the car body cleaned with walnut shell abrasive. While the surface looked really good, there was rust hiding in a few places and there was almost instant flash rusting on every exposed surface which was made even worse when the first of four body shops used a water based primer and made the situation much worse than it was. The body and all of the parts had to be recleaned and then covered with etching primer.
Yes, there were 4 body shops. The first highly recommended body shop screwed up with no primer foe more than a week then applied the wrong primer. Body shop number 2 agreed to do the work then was unable to get organized in the next 11 months. Body shop number three (3) just plain forgot and when the date came and went, I dropped by to see what was happening and the shop was booked until September and the owner said, "Sorry, I forgot!" Shop four(4) is a restoration shop and the highest priced, but he took the FORD the next day, after we met to discuss the details. The work started that week.
This FORD was started about 10 years ago and got delayed while I went through successful cancer treatment. Then life happened in other ways further delaying the FORD and this ate up more than half a decade. Now that I can see the end of this project, I have mixed feelings and some anxiety about the first drive. The first drive has always been anticlimactic because the build was the big deal, for me.
In 1990, I sent our R120 to REDI-STRIP where they did a chemical strip in a total submersion tank. After a careful power wash and detailed cleaning, the R120 was placed into another total submersion tank where the parts were subjected to an electrolysis treatment that removed all of the rust, hidden and obvious. There were many persons who had nothing good to say about the REDI-STRIP process and told me that the chemicals locked in the folds would take the new paint off and life as I knew it would end, painfully. WELL, after more than two decades and 250,000 miles the R120 had not rusted through except where the etching primer was rubbed off between the fenders and the grill.
What have I/we learned from these two events. We will be sending my son's L110 to REDI-STRIP for metal cleaning and prep. Even though REDI-STRIP can be up to twice as expensive, up front, I now know it would have been a better choice and in the end the cost would have been less.
REDI-STRIP use a thin spray on surface prep that protects the bare metal from rust for a week when dry and maybe a day or so if it rains.
There is no short-cut to success. There is no magic in a can. My Dad used to say, " Nothing in life is free".
Artificial intelligence is no match for real stupidity....