Painted Epoxy Again

 Just finished putting the epoxy primer down for the third time!  Ugh...  I used an awl to scratch through it to see how it stuck and its perfect!  I'm real happy now.  All of the panels are now finished to black epoxy.  Next step will be to sand them all and spray them with high build urethane primer.  This primer will then be sanded and because it goes on real thick it helps to smooth out the panels and hide any remaining scratches and small dents.  If any dents remain after the first coat, that I missed filling earlier, then I fill them and put the high build on again for any panels its necessary.  This process is repeated until everything is perfectly smooth.

I have decided to do the job is sections now in case there are other issues with any of the other paint processes.  I will first sand the trunk lid and the two doors.  Then I will perform the rest of the painting on those three panels first because they are easiest.  I will do the high build process described above and them apply a white sealer coat followed by the color coat and clear coat.  If all goes well this will be completed in one day.  When paint layers are applied one right after another before the lower coat cures you don't have to sand between coats...unless you screw up and get runs or something like that.  Then the next day I will wet sand the clearcoat up to 3000 grit and perform a cut and buff process to get any defects out of the clearcoat.  I have to wait for the next good weather day to do this which will be in a week and a half.  In the meantime the remaining epoxy will be sanded to get ready.

So the first day is the 3 panels just listed, then I have the two fenders I'll do one day.  One won't need the high build process because its new sheetmetal.

Then the next will be the hood.  This is new sheetmetal also and the epoxy appears to have stuck to it.  On this I will paint the bottom with a single stage high gloss black and the top will get the process starting with the white sealer, color, and clearcoat.

After that then just the main body remains.  I was hoping for my mexican to help with that but its not sounding like that will be possible so I'll have to find a new helper.  Maybe Chuck.

The third painting came out pretty good.

Here is the trunk panel after the expoxy is sanded ready to receive the high build.

The fact that I was able to sand this without it peeling tells the story that the paint is now right, otherwise it would have peeled in spots.

In the meantime while doing all this stripping and repainting and trying to figure what went wrong I have begun to install the wiring harness.  The entire dash wiring is done.  I just have to do the rear of the car and the engine bay.

Liz is helping me a little bit on this.  Here she is labeling the wiring for the stereo amplifier that gets run under the carpet to the trunk.  I'll get some more pics of the wiring progress later.