Bondo Queen II

MichaelP

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Earlier posts follow below.
June 2008:

Following a long winter of complete inaction on my part of not straightening out all the panels and filling in the bullet holes on the Bondo Queen, this week I picked up someone else's nearly completed shell pretty inexpensively. Bondo Queen in black primer is visible on the right:
e78080b6aac1b6c3f32cb1c52808a394.jpg


8ecb12af8f51378197fff96c552531c4.jpg


It's a '73 3.0CS autobox with the motor and driveline still in it (to be history), but there's all kinds of good news with it. Along with the bodywork being, oh, about 90% finished, it has brand new front fenders on there, restored rockers and floors, one brand new door and a nice tidy backside. Front and rear strut towers look great and the fender/strut weld line is very nice. From what I can see so far, the firewall looks pretty good. The underside, subframes, engine bay and inside still need to be cleaned, stripped (to a certain extant) and finished. But, all the stuff that takes real talent - the body - is done Yay.

Very few parts came with it, aside from a bonus front windscreen, some aluminum waist trim and miscellaneous stuff, so a lot of the 2800CS Bondo Queen will be swapped over -- such as the driveline, interior, glass, etc.

I'm taking a few weeks in July and August to get going in earnest with this, so stay tuned.
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July 2007:

The queen in bare metal, before getting primed:
[Broken External Image]:http://home.planetcomm.net/atelier/stripped.jpg
My brother came to visit this weekend, so naturally we devoted our time to stripping paint and bondo from the coupe. Armed with chemical stripper, razor blades and a some wire wheels, we filled a 32 gallon trashbin with four layers of paint (Chamonix, Baikal(ish), Riviera(ish) and silverish) and primer.

The good news: almost no rust at all. Yay.

The bad (but predictable) news: the amount of bondo on the car was truly amazing. At least one of the POs had to be a drunk; there are sideswipes and dinges in every panel but the roof that were hurridly filled with bondo with no attempt at popping out the dents. This car was delivered at Beverly Hills BMW, which begs the question: did Dean Martin own a coupe? If so, we found it.

I suspect that something like this happened:
[Broken External Image]:http://home.planetcomm.net/atelier/Bent.jpg
to the queen at some point - right before it was painted Riviera-ish. The back end is still drilled out and warpy and was slathered with a quarter inch of bondo that reached a centimeter thickness in places.It gave the rear end of the car a pretty weird profile. Given more time hammering the panels flatter than the body shop did, it shouldn't take nearly as much filler to shape things. And no, I'm not going to replace the rear quarters. My brother already has the megabuck coupe resto corner covered. I know what's involved in that.

The next step is trailering the primered, running hulk to my father-in-law's over-equipped, but defunct service garage (it has a pit!) for a full tear down. After a lot of hammering and filling, I'm going to try my hand at painting a la the $50 paint job, but with real paint, laquer thinner and a sprayer. We'll see how that goes...
 

AndyM

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Nice project! Its shocking what you find when you start stripping paint. How 'bout some more pictures -- especially the bodywork once you get going. I bet you'll surprise yourself with the paint. Its amazing how a little wet sanding will remove all traces of orange peel, dust, small bugs, etc. Hey, if that guy with the Corvair can make Rustoleum applied with a brush shine. . . .
 

Malc

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Dang! What happened to the windmill?
Nice work 8) , stripping paint isn't high on my list of fun things to do. I admire that fact that you managed to do it in a weekend, impressive

Cheers
Malc
 

MichaelP

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We moved the whole Bondoqueen circus (motors, dozens parts boxes, wheels..) from Charlottesville, Virginia to my father-in-law's place in NW Pennsylavania this weekend. As a ex coal truck repair shop and service station, it has tons of room and all the tools and machines you could ever need to work. Some road trip shots:

Who says you can't have a coupe on a Budget?
[Broken External Image]:http://home.planetcomm.net/atelier/roadtrip1.jpg

We arrive in one piece. Could they have rented us a crappier trailer?
[Broken External Image]:http://home.planetcomm.net/atelier/roadtrip2.jpg

Quietly rusting in her new home.
[Broken External Image]:http://home.planetcomm.net/atelier/roadtrip3.jpg

Stay tuned.
 

MichaelP

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Nice. Instant barn find.

Actually, you don't have to dig very deep in that garage to find parts for Packards, Lasalles and Pontiacs you've never heard of. The orange piece of equipment at the right edge of the picture is a bumper lift -- from a time when you could jack up a car by its bumpers.
 

MichaelP

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TomP said:
are those 235/60's on your new coupe? What's the off-set on those shoes?

Yeah, they're pretty big boats. I didn't look at the offset, as they're just for rolling the car around. I don't think I'll be using them once the car is under its own power.
 
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