Post #10, 5/2/10 Prepping the body for blasting

65 Mustang Restoration

We started today by doing the wonderful job of scraping off most of the seam sealer from many of the joints that are to be blasted,,, Wow,, how much fun can you have? It's a long & tedious job,,, but it makes the "Blaster's" job much easier,, therefore saves us money. There's not many things harder to blast than rubbery goo, caked on grease or undercoat,, the blasting media just seems to bounce right off of it.

There were a lot of hidden areas that need cleaned out,, some harder to get to than others. Once that was done,, it was round 17 for the vacuum cleaner.


Next, we moved to the outside of the car & removed a couple of small patches of old bondo. I soon found out, that it's not easy to grind out the lead filler that was originally used to fill the seam where the roof & the quarter panel are hooked together,,, I just couldn't tell what I was grinding,, metal or filler. So I got the old Map Gas torch out and was able to melt the lead right out,,, at least good enough to see the spot welds that we'll be drilling out in the near future.

It actually comes out quite easily using this method, but you still have to take precautions for it popping & possible spatter. I was surprised how much was in the seam, as seen on the floor. You don't want to hold the torch in one place for too long though,, we don't need any extra warpage. 

And here's what it looked like once we were done. Once we had the majority of the lead out,, starting at one end, we re-heated the area and in one direction, we used a wire brush to remove the rest of as much of the lead as possible. It turned out pretty well, considering it was my first time messing with lead filler.

Finally for the day,,, I sprayed certain areas of the car with red paint,, I think, 50 year old cans of red paint,, pitiful stuff. The areas I sprayed, are areas that the Blaster's don't have to worry about blasting, since those panels are to be replaced anyway,, once again, saving us money. As long as all of those seams I have to drill spot welds out of are good an clean,,, that's what I'm looking forward to.

 

If this car comes out like the sample of blasting work that was on display by Advanced Blasting,,, I'll be super excited. Now I just have to figure out when I'm going to be able to get the car to Advanced Blasting so they can do their thing,,, soon I hope.