Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Painting With Dad

I wanted to get started painting nice and early today, so I turned the heaters on in the garage at 6:45AM this morning. I kept checking on the garage temperature, but it took until 10:30AM to get above 50 degrees and warm enough to paint.


Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Fighting With A Fender While Holding A Cold At Bay

Last night I went to bed with a little bit of a runny nose. This morning I definitely had a full blown cold. Cold or not, I had a fender to prep. Mario (my paint and body guy) is coming over on Wednesday night to pick up the fenders, hood, and few other small parts. He wants to get them stripped, get body work done and get them in primer. That means I need to get the insides of fenders painted with POR-15 so they are ready for him to take. It will be nice to get them out of the garage and out of the way.

I went out to the garage as soon as I woke up and turned up the heaters. The last thing I wanted to do was work with water in a cold garage when I did not feel good. It took until 10:30AM or so for the garage to get up to temp, but as soon as it was above 55 degrees I started working on the passenger fender.

I still had that stubborn ground effects bolt to remove. We had tried previously to remove the bolt when the fender was still on the car but could never get it to budge. Today, as you can see from the tools I gathered, I was not taking no for an answer. I was prepared to cut the bolt off if I had to. 


Saturday, November 24, 2012

See How Smart We Are?

While we were at Menards today we decided to get some more 1" brushes since we are running low. We started to grab another dozen brushes and then Sara asked what all needs to be painted yet. I started listing off the inside of the front fenders, the wheel wells, the steering linkage, track/Panhard bar brace, gas tank, calipers, the cowl area and differential cover. Sara put the dozen brushes back and grabbed the 36 pack. She pointed out if we bought a dozen brushes two times it would cost more than the pack of 36 brushes. 

I did find a way to successfully save and reuse a brush a second time with the POR-15. I found that if I wrap and roll the brush in plastic from a Menards bag, it will keep for use in the second application. The brushes and POR-15 cans seem partial to plastic from Menards bags; the Walmart bags did not have the same successful results. 


Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Painting My Day Away

Today was going to be my day to paint all of the parts I had prepped: the rear end, the rear bumper, the springs, the brake pedal bracket and the rear of the car. It was going to be glorious. I was out in the garage and ready to begin at 9:00AM.

I was trying to figure out how I could paint the rear end all in one shot. Even resting on the jack stands, there was not quite enough room to get under it, which was necessary to paint all of the nooks and crannies. It dawned on me to set the jack stands on cinder blocks to gain extra height. This gave me more than enough room to paint it all at once. You should have seen me trying to lift the rear end, position the jack stands on cinder blocks, and maneuver the rear end into place all at the same time. Unfortunately no one was around to hear it, but I think my Yosemite Sam impression is improving. 


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Prepping My Day Away

My goal for today was to get the rear end, rear bumper, the back of the car, springs and the bracket for the brake pedal prepped for paint. The warm weather yesterday made it easy to clean these parts outside. That was not the case today, however. The temperature was about the same as yesterday, but it was much windier. I had to set up three tarps in the garage so I could prep the parts. This is less than ideal as it makes it very messy to move around. I only have four pictures for this post because I've heard water and cell phone don't mix.

The bumper, springs and brake pedal bracket were cleaned yesterday so all I needed to do today was prep them. The rear end had to be cleaned again with MarineClean after the thorough wire brushing Sara's dad and I gave it last night. After I got the rear end cleaned off, I moved the rest of the parts onto the tarp for prepping. I kept everything wet with Prep and Ready for thirty minutes.


Monday, November 19, 2012

Did You Know?


Did you know it is much easier to get paint all over yourself than it is to get it into the interior areas of a car frame? I am talking ALL over yourself! In your hair, running down your arms, splattered on your face, and if your shirt happens to be a little short, all over your stomach.

It was a nasty mess painting the interior areas of the underbody today, but I got it done. And if you notice a spot I missed... well, ask me if I care. I am not going to attempt to cover it any better than it is now -- any paint I got in there has to be better than none at all!

These are the before shots of the interior frame areas under the front of the car I painted with POR-15 today.



Sunday, November 18, 2012

Another Dirty Sunday

This morning we tackled organizing the garage. There will be no more parts coming off the car now, so we got rid of the extra boxes we had and combined and labeled the existing ones. Here is a picture of Jonathan standing in the middle of our organization mess. 


Saturday, November 17, 2012

Almost Finished Painting The Underbody!

Jonathan and I are finishing the majority of painting the underbody today. Jonathan will go back under and touch up any spots we missed and some of the crevice and interior frame areas this coming week. I am really excited that today is (hopefully) my last time to paint underneath the car!


Friday, November 16, 2012

A Little Painting

Needless to say, I did not sleep very well last night. Although I was excited to work on KITT this morning, I had trouble finding the motivation to get started. I got started in the late afternoon and decided to focus on the parts still needing to be painted with POR-15.

I started by using a small blade to scrape the places where the POR-15 had dripped on the backside of the parts. These pictures are of the brake shields Sara painted last weekend.



Roadblock Ahead...Better Hit Turbo Boost!

This week was moving along fairly quickly. I had decided to take Friday off because it was supposed to be warmer out and I wanted to get the underbody painted. Yesterday at work at the end of my shift I received some very unsettling news. I was informed that due to restructuring within Xerox, effective 11/16/12 my position was being eliminated.

I am upset, but I am strong. I will survive and move on. I am not worried about securing another job as I am confident in my abilities and qualifications. I do want to say thank you to my wonderful friends who during all of this have been a shining example of why true friends are irreplaceable.

Time to hit Turbo Boost: One of the positive things to come out of this is that I now have all kinds of time to work on KITT! I plan to make the most of it.    

Monday, November 12, 2012

Email Updates

I know that many of you enjoy getting updates on Project: K.I.T.T. by email, however, the service I have been using (FeedMyInbox) is shutting down. Starting December 1st the email updates you have been receiving will contain a notice at the top stating the service will discontinue on January 10, 2013.

I have located another company (Blogtrottr) which provides the same service. There is a new sign up at the top of my blog. Even if you are already receiving email updates you will have to sign up again in order to continue receiving them. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thank you for reading my blog, it means a lot to me!

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Too Cold To Paint

18 degrees = too cold to finish painting today.

Our new plan is to finish painting the underbody and the parts next weekend.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Christmas Comes Early This Year

Sara decided to get me an early Christmas present and told me that I should order the set of 15" Turbo Cast rims that Billy of Knight Designs had for sale. These rims are getting nearly impossible to find in good shape and cost a small fortune. They are selling for between $800 and $2,500 depending on the condition. These rims have been restored in the past, the edges have been machined so they shine and they have clear coat on them. About the only thing they need is a good cleaning and polishing.

It was snowing when I brought the boxes inside, so it really did feel like Christmas.


Painting The Day Away

The parts dried overnight. We brushed them off with the parts brush to make sure there was no loose dirt.


Friday, November 9, 2012

Ready, Set, Prep!

Today after work I cleaned and prepped the rear end parts we want to paint this weekend. I used the same process we have been using with the MarineClean and Prep and Ready. Here are the parts just before I rinsed the Prep and Ready off.



Sunday, November 4, 2012

An Extra Hour To Paint

This morning Jonathan wanted to start by first putting the remaining three drain plugs back in KITT. The first drain plug he needed to put back in was in the trunk, so we needed to keep the hatch raised. Unfortunately our trusty hatch-raising mop handle is no more...


Saturday, November 3, 2012

A Little Privacy, Please

I came across this today and realized I had not mentioned it. I bought this privacy/cargo shade back in April. It needs to be cleaned and I need to repair a couple of pieces, but over all it is in good shape with no tears, rips or holes in the shade. This shade covers the rear hatch area from just behind the rear seats all the way to the back. The handle hooks onto the hatch lid and actually goes up with the hatch when it is opened. This is spring-loaded so it will retract when unhooked from the hatch lid like a window shade.


So Tired Of All The Dirt!

Jonathan spent this last week wire brushing and scrubbing the front fender clips and the area where the rear bumper mounts. He used wire brushes, the drill with the wire wheel and the angle grinder to remove the dirt.

Here is a picture of the driver side of the dirty rear bumper mounting area before Jonathan worked on it this week.


Friday, November 2, 2012

KITT's New Amber Side Marker Lights

Today I received the new front amber side marker lights I ordered for KITT. The side markers we took out of KITT were scratched and cracked. I ordered these from Modern Day Muscle and they are new old stock (NOS) GM parts. The price was right, and the side markers came sealed in their original GM bags. These side markers are GM part #915589 and #915590. These did not come with the retaining clips, but I can reuse the ones from the old lights.