Redid the Epoxy

 Ground all the epoxy off again and redid it.  Still not sticking in spots.  This is very frustrating.  Spent hours and hours redoing this sanding, washing, degreasing etc.  I'm starting to think its the paint.  Called the manufacturer and spoke of my frustration.  The epoxy is drying very soft, comes off in sheets and feels like vinyl.  Not right.  They took down the lot numbers of the paint and hardener I'm using and are going to run some tests Monday.  They seem anxious to help me fix this but I'm ready to go to another brand before I go through all this work again.  I have $200 invested in this epoxy so far.   Its $100 everytime I paint the car with it.  This is the same company where I bought all the other primers and the Daytona Blue Pearl color coat so it would be better if they can fix this so all my paint will be from the same manufacturer.  Everyone says thats best.

The scary part of this is that the instructions say you can apply the epoxy, wait 30 mins, then apply you high build primer right over it and then your color coat.  Had I have done this I would have not known the base coat was not sticking good and would have found out while polishing the color coat and seeing it peel off.  Sickening to think what that would have cost me.  I didn't want to do it that way because its too stressful to me to paint, sand, mix, paint, paint, paint with no reliable help.  I'm having to so one step at a time at my own pace to keep myself healthly.

I'll give them a week or so and then just move on if no help from them.

In the meantime I'm keeping busy by doing other stuff that I'll need later.  Here's a little timer I built with parts laying around.  Just had to buy the box.  This timer delays the start of the car by .5 secs after you push the start button.  I wanted to do this because the EFI computer needs time to prime the throttle body with fuel.  Once it sees the ignition come on it starts the fuel pump and .25 secs. later it primes the throttlebody.  If the engine starts to crank before the prime it skips the prime and it takes longer cranking to start.  The push button start system doesn't wait before cranking normally so the car will start better with this little timer that puts a slight delay.  You will notice some new cars do the same thing if they have throttle body injection systems.

3/18/2024 UPDATE - This weekend I worked some more on the paint issue and finally figured it out.  I was the cleaner I was using from another paint kit that turned out to be incompatible with this epoxy.  I stripped and repainted one door for a test and used a different cleaner and it is perfect.  Stuck real good.  In fact, if it has to be removed now it seems next to impossible!  What a relief.  Now I need to order some more paint and while waiting for that I will strip the other door, the two quarter panels, trunk lid, one fender, and possibly the hood.  I need to check the hood because I did use the cleaner on that but it was not bare metal and it may be OK.