Rust!

tim5055

tim5055

True Classic
Well, it had to happen. The tiniest bubble of rust has appeared at the lower corner of the windshield on the drivers side :(

This really disappoints me because I hear so many stories that the windshield will,get broken when it is taken out. My windshield is perfect, it even still has the emissions decal readable. I give credit to Jim for keeping it inside and while I have owned her she has been inside, or under a cover.

I was planning on paint this winter, so I guess it will be a slightly larger job.....
 
Can you pop the stainless trim ring?

If you remove the trim you can get a better look at what's underneath.
Usually it's worse than what you see on the surface but maybe not.

Also, do you know if your windshield is attached with butyl or urethane?

If it's butyl, I think it's easier to remove without damaging it.
Mine was attached with butyl and I was able to get it out without any damage. Just used a windshield removal tool like this one from harbor freight and was very careful.
http://www.harborfreight.com/windshield-removing-tool-99892.html

I also removed my dash to ensure I had more working room and was less likely to break or damage something.
 
No worries Tim...

You said the WS was new... so it hadta be set in the later available sealants.

If you don't feel you can remove it yourself... go to a competent insured pro and have him remove it, store it, and then reinstall it later. Well worth it in my mind...
 
Well, with the move from Northern Virginia to South Carolina this project got put on hold for a while. I checked out a few well regarded body shops in the Columbia area. Two said they wouldn't even touch the car and the third said $7,000 to $10,000 to fix the rust and repaint the entire car.

Well, having been in charge of a vehicle fleet in Atlanta several years ago I had a shop there (small, mm & pop operation) that did a lot of work on our cars. Always excellent work at a reasonable price. I talked to the owner this week and am scheduled to drop it off May 6th. He said he wants it four to six weeks to give him time to go over it.

The only thing up in the air is the spoiler on the trunk lid. I'm torn over keeping it or removing it....

Here are the before shots:



RightFront.JPG


Front.JPG


LeftFront.JPG


LeftRear.JPG
 
Sorry to hear about the rust Tim

Bummer. As far as I know that is the original windshield. Of course you and I have only "known" this car for 10 years total, so anything is possible. Hopefully it's nothing severe.

Regarding the spoiler. Contact MWB and have them ship a nice condition trunk lid to your body shop. Have both the plain and spoiler versions prepped and painted. Then you can switch whenever the mood strikes.

The car still looks pretty nice from here. :)
 
Well, it's 5AM east coast time.... I'm not used to this time of the morning. Three hour drive ahead of me. I have to drop it off when the body shop opens at 8:30 and go over it quickly because I have to catch a MegaBus back to Columbia.

Still trying to decide on the spoiler. Jim may be right, I may need two rear deck lids.
 
Well... I call my spoiler a 3rd Brake Light Mount...

... but I really installed it for the looks!

If it was MY car I would remove it and fill the holes... Then buy another similar one with a 3rd Brake Light and install it after the car is done. (The mounting holes are just NEVER the same...)

Now sell the ORIGINAL spoiler to some purest for mega-bucks and pay for half the body work!

TA-DAA!
 
JimD said:
Bummer. As far as I know that is the original windshield. Of course you and I have only "known" this car for 10 years total, so anything is possible. Hopefully it's nothing severe.

Regarding the spoiler. Contact MWB and have them ship a nice condition trunk lid to your body shop. Have both the plain and spoiler versions prepped and painted. Then you can switch whenever the mood strikes.

The car still looks pretty nice from here. :)
Click to expand...
Black-Tooth said:
... but I really installed it for the looks!

If it was MY car I would remove it and fill the holes... Then buy another similar one with a 3rd Brake Light and install it after the car is done. (The mounting holes are just NEVER the same...)

Now sell the ORIGINAL spoiler to some purest for mega-bucks and pay for half the body work!

TA-DAA!
Click to expand...
Jim, it is the original windshield. It still has the original pristine emissions sticker on it.

The choice on the trunk lid/spoiler is settled, the DW says she likes it the way it is.....

The first the body shop actually saw the car was when I dropped it off. Due to an accident messing up traffic I got there, dropped it off and left immediately to get to the bus to go home so I was not able to go over it with them.

The brothers have gone over the car (one runs the front of the shop and the other is the painter and runs the back end operations) and their first impression is that it is in great shape. At some point before Jim purchased the car it had a complete repaint. They found overspray where things were not masked properly on almost all panels. Of course, they plan on pulling as many parts as they can rather than making. Their comment was that this car has a "gazillion" little parts that need to come off.....

Work to be done:
Pull windshield/excise rust
Repair many door dings
Repair multiple dents in rear trunk (Jim can explain those...)
Full paint
Replace striping

As to the stripe, The one on it appears original to 1986. You can see overspray on it where it was masked on the last paint job. Obviously, it's coming off now, so what do I replace it with? Tape or painted stripe? It was orange/silver originally, but I'm just thinking a single color painted stripe. maybe orange again or red? Other thoughts/options?

The really good news is that they gave me a "ballpark" price from the photos before I dropped it off. They think they can shave $500 - $1,000 off that price. Once the windshield comes out we will see if that holds.
 
The story I got on the dents is

The story I got on the rear trunk lid deck dents is that someone put a set of golf clubs in the back and dropped the lid. Sure looks plausible from the grouping of dents and the fact that they are on the underside of the lid creating "bumps" on the top of the lid.

I figured the pass door had been repainted since it was shedding its clear cost, but I thought the rest of it was original.

Not sure on the need for a stripe. It never bothered me, but I could go either way. Definitely get it painted on rather than tape. I would also not replicate the portion of the stripe that turned down at the ends. A nice stripe on the high body line is all I would do.

You can see the drooping stripes in these pics for those of you following along that haven't seen the car up close. You need to look past the light blue car in the first pic. :)




The two color red/silver stipes did make it stand out
 
FWIW I had my car repainted and the cost seemed considerably less than what you were quoted. I did all the stripping of bumpers, trim, windshield, etc myself which may have contributed. He also took A LONG time to do the work (six weeks?). However, I had several minor rust areas in the trunk, front spoiler, windshield frame, passenger rear quarter, and headlight pods repaired and painted. I also had body side molding mounting holes welded/repaired etc. Two stage paint job and my total was under ~3.5K. I paid an additional $500 to paint my bumper trim parts, repair and repaint my rusted engine lid as well. It's not a high-end finish like you might see on a $30K show car but it looks fantastic up-close and better than the factory paint. I'm certain he would have put another coat of clear and then buffed it all down to a mirror finish for another $500-600 or so. Anyhow, thought I'd supply this information in case you want/need to negotiate further with your body shop.

My experience and photos here: http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/21069/
 
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Stripes...

I see a lot of custom stripes done by hand on many different Rods and Street Rods... and they look great!

As far as our cars go... I believe tape is MORE than good enough. My "new" Pilot came with tape stripes and they look "factory" by today's standards.

PLUS... you can come up with more personal designs or change colors any time you want for less than 20 bucks!




(Trans was missing at this time in 2006. Brick was for added security on slope.)



One foggy morning...



Here was my "Blue Period"... Wil Hurd photographed this and added caption.

HTH...
 
Windshield

Tim,
NIce looking car that will only get better.
FYI-I removed the trim and windshield from my 74 all by myself. Took a while but with sharp implements, patience, and not trying to hurry, it came out pretty easily.
I have some delamination, but not bad. But it did have the wire buried in the sealing material (whatever it is), but it was corroded thru in several areas since I could not get any meter continuity.
Good luck and just take your time.
Glen
 
The work has begun

Well, the work has begun. When I worked in Atlanta (I managed a fleet of about 100 cars) I found this body shop by accident (no pun intended). Its a little mom & pop shop but they do good work for reasonable prices.. When I dropped off the X I told them no rush, handle the insurance & money jobs first. Slide mine in when you can. Well, they figured they would start in a couple of weeks, but it's been three. No loss for me - other projects around the new house are getting my attention.

I got an e-mail just now - the work has started.

They have stripped her down and are beginning the body work. The windshield will come out a little later.

1986FIAT008.JPG


1986FIAT009.JPG
 
I am so jealous! That car needs new paint like I need additional cranial ventilation! Mine is a combination of rust spots, chips, primer, and Rust-Oleum!
Gorgeous. I'm sure it will be a real treasure when you're done!
 
jasco said:
I am so jealous! That car needs new paint like I need additional cranial ventilation! Mine is a combination of rust spots, chips, primer, and Rust-Oleum!
Gorgeous. I'm sure it will be a real treasure when you're done!
Click to expand...
Thanks! I could have lived with the paint for long time, but when the rust popped out in the corner of the windshield I figured I'd take care of,it at the same time. Sometime before JimD had the car it underwent a repaint. Whoever did it went cheap - if you looked hard you could see the lines where they masked rather than take parts off. The hood and drivers door had the clear coat breaking down and the rear trunk was beat up.

Looking forward to a nice job.
 
Shows what I know

So basically the bulk of that car had been repainted? The only thing I suspected was the passenger door because the clear coat was coming off of it. Was there any damage hiding on any of the repainted panels?

I wonder if the second owner who sold it to me did it? He had a shop behind his house and a few old cars in there he was working on. Of course, it could have just as easily been the first owner. I know it wasn't the third owner, he was too cheap and lazy, but the fourth owner seems to be taking better care of the car.
 
JimD said:
So basically the bulk of that car had been repainted? The only thing I suspected was the passenger door because the clear coat was coming off of it. Was there any damage hiding on any of the repainted panels?
Click to expand...
From what we cold tell, the entire car had been painted at some time. Looking at the side stripes you could find the tape line/overspray down both sides. The body shop had a hand held guage of some sort that could actually determine the thickness of the paint on a panel. Factory paint should be evenly distributed. Every panel showed a different thickness, which they indicated was evidence of a repaint.

So far they have not told me of any damage we didn't know about. But, that is not to say they didn't find small things and just keep on working. That is the only problem with it being 3 hours away, I can't stop by and "watch".
 
Well, I got my (almost) daily update e-mail with photos.

The really good news is that the rust that started this whole crusade was nothing more than surface rust. After they prep this area is there anything special they may need to do to make sure the dreaded rust doesn't show up in the corner of the windshield?

The windshield is out in one piece. They did find some small bubbles in the lamination along the edges. Did I read that this is common to find?

1986FIAT017.JPG


II can't think of much else they can disassemble to get a good paint job on the car. I didn't think they were going to remove the back window, but they did. Their thought was that it will be a better job than if they masked the window.

1986FIAT011.JPG


Am I missing anything? What else can/should I do?

Jim, they have taken all the panels down and found no signs of previous damage. No idea what it may have a repaint in it's past.
 
Well that is good news

I would have felt bad if I had sold you an "undamaged" X that was actually damaged all over the place. Maybe you should sell it back to me, just in case there is damage they did not find? ;)
 
Looks great!

Seems like you're doing a great job and doing it right with respect to stripping and painting. When I removed my windshield, I also found delamination bubbles around the edge. I spoke with a windshield guy and he said they'd PROBABLY be ok but might get bigger or spread in the future. Obviously no bubbles is better than bubbles.

I found a local windshield supplier that found me a new one for a reasonable price. I think it was ~$200-250. I installed it myself. Figured it wasn't big money compared to all the painting and other stuff I was doing and didn't want to have to replace it 5-10 years down the road due to further delamination, pitting, etc. My (limited) experience here: http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/21672/

Keep us posted on your progress!
 
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