Man, That's Rough

While going through the pictures for the blog, it occurred to me that the pictures so far have really made it hard to tell just exactly what I am having a fit about with the red parts. :/

I removed the Founders Performance sticker from the Panhard/track bar and I think this picture finally shows how badly the primer overspray affected the red color. Keep in mind that the Panhard/track bar was one of the least affected parts.

I used a scuff pad to remove all the primer and thoroughly rough up the powder coating. This will provide a good surface for the POR-15 gloss black to bond to. Mom stopped over to check on me a couple times today. I think she is excited to see some progress on the car again. :)

I crawled under KITT to work on removing the primer and roughing up the passenger side subframe connector. Removing the primer took a lot longer than I had planned, but definitely not as long as trying to remove the powder coating.

The passenger side subframe connector from the outside after being roughed up.

The passenger side subframe connector from the inside after being roughed up.

I decided to remove the rear wheel to see if it would be possible to coat the lower control arms with POR-15 without removing them from KITT.

I don't think it will be that hard to coat them with the POR-15 while they are still mounted on the car. If we use a small brush there is enough room to get around the ends. In this picture I have already used the scuff pad to remove most of the primer.

Just another demonstration of how durable the POR-15 is. The center sleeve of the end link was completely grey and using the scuff pad I was able to remove the primer without taking off the gloss from the POR-15. It did leave some small hairline scratches, but they are hardly noticeable. The scuff pad will completely destroy the gloss of the powder coating with just a few light passes. 

Here is the driver side lower control arm after being thoroughly roughed up.

The passenger side lower control arm before starting. I used the scuff pad to remove all the primer and rough up the powder coating.

Here is the passenger side lower control arm from the inside after I roughed up the surface.

The next thing I plan to do is clean out the primer dust from the inside of the car. The silver BXT II RAAMmat sound deadening on the interior is covered in a layer of paint dust and I discovered that the steering column was not masked off either and there are speckles of primer all over it. I am hoping these will just wipe off with some cleaner. The Ensolite foam layer of sound deadening needs to be able to stick to the silver BXT II RAAMmat, so it needs to be at least as clean as it was when it went to the painter.

Cleaning up the interior is next on my list because I want to power wash the underbody to see what is dust and what needs to be painted over with POR-15. I would at least like to get the dust out of the interior so that if a little water makes it inside, I am not dealing with mud.