Painting Dad's 69 GTO
 

Well the process has begun. Finally finished the last job and got started on Dad's car. After a week of block sanding and fixing a few spots it was ready. Shot the car itself Sunday morning. Still need to disassemble the front end and pull the engine for paint and detail work but first I'm currently finishing the other panels. Hope to wrap this thing up in the next few weeks. I think he's anxious to get some chrome bolted back onto the body today, lol. Bought all new parts, tail lights, wire harnesses, weatherstrip, and lots of polishing to do on the stainless. Work work work......

Very nice! Hoping you will post finished pics too!

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I'll keep things posted but bare with me. It's a long process with a lot of blocking, priming, and blocking again, a lot of prep for paint etc...

Tail lights and rear bumper will go back on this week, along with some stainless trim, so I'll snap some pics of that this week.

I have the doors, fenders, hood and decklid already blocked and ready for their first coat of primer filler. Hood will take some work, it's a buldged version of the stock GTO hood, and I'm grafting an L88 air box underneath, with an L88 base on the carb to make the scoops functional.
New front suspension to install, repaint the engine and tidy things up, So lots of pics to come.

Looking good!

NICE WORK. Thanks for keeping us posted with more pics!

It would be nice to have a stock hood on his car, with that stockish 400 under the hood.....LOL

I like the white top.

LOL, He's putting RAIV stickers on the hood to see if it fools anyone :D

Me too, I don't have to paint the roof :D

I painted it 30 years ago so its long over do lol.

Very nice. What size are those tires? Any mods to the fender for front tire clearance?

Rear tires are 275/60-15's on an 8" rim

Fronts are 28" tall Mickey's mounted on either 4" or 5" rims (can't remember off hand)

No mods done anywhere for any tire clearance issues.

More pics. Got some stuff assembled on the back of the car and finished the trunk off with a new mat and wire harness. I modified the bumper brackets to make the bumper fit tighter than it ever did from the factory. I started cutting and welding brackets and dad was calling me Chip Foose, lol. This car won't be overdone with Chip Foose gaps but it will definitely come out better than the factory ever had it. Call it a Larry Jones car :D

I still need to detail the trunk latch area. That was originally half heartedly painted black when the tail panel black out treatment was done at the factory, so I'm going to duplicate that on the trunk latch.

Doors, fenders and decklid are ready for final blocking, then they'll get sprayed and installed.

Another pic

Nice work on the bumper fit. The extra effort really does show..

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...8&d=1497031690

Yes it does, VERY nice!

The wheel opening moulding looks perfect too! I know that stuff doesn't usually fit very well!

Did you already do the pearle overspray/tint on the interior, or did it come with it already sprayed?

I know it's not correct on my car, but I'm not going to do the pearle, going to leave it bright white. In my case, think it will pop more, and will like it better that way. (personal preference)

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The interior is originally that pearl type of white. About 35 years ago it was so nasty looking that my father decided to spray it, which is a bright white now.

It's all original interior that is in perfect shape with no wear or rips, so it made sense for him to just recolor it at that time. Still in great shape now as far as the material goes, but that marhyde paint is a pain to deal with. He's had to touch up the seats a few times over the years. Seems to last for a few years but after a while it just simply cracks and comes off at the seat bolsters from constantly getting in and out of the car and the seat moving around. He's just tired of it.

So this time around I'm redoing the entire interior for him with new covers and door panels from Legendary in the correct pearl color to return the car to factory fresh form. So he's not done spending money yet :D

All the wheel well trim and stainless is the original stuff and always fit nice on this car, just repolished and reinstalled. Bumper is original that he had rechromed 35 years ago and still looks fantastic.

love the understated, yet badass, look of this thing. the black steelies with poverties and drag radials... just looks awesome.

greg is right, your bumper fit is fantastic. i see so many bumpers that have an angle to them and don't fit the body lines at all. drives me nuts. your's looks great!

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...8&d=1497031690

Thanks, I spent all day on that sucker, lol. But the excitement on dads face makes it worth the effort.

The black steelies and hubcaps is exactly how he bought the car brand new (minus the drag radials of course :D) Obviously 14x7's then, which are stored up on the mezzanine. He duplicated the look with 15's.

He has rallys too that he wants to switch back and forth for a different look once in a while.

I should say if there is one drawback to having the back bumper fitting so snug....it's the fact that now you can't get the license plate light out, since it's partially tucked up above the trunk/tail panel pinch weld. It should still shine enough light on the license plate though.

Not that you have to change the bulb very often, but if you do, I'd have to loosen the bumper and pull it back about an inch. Small price to pay for a good fit though.

Outstanding. Love the white top

I agree! I stared at that pic for a considerable time, there's a lot going on there most don't recognize. It is very nice.

I like the pearl, it looks great, more so with certain colors I believe/feel. Green and white are the 2 that come to mind, I just can't imagine having it any other way. Green exterior cars, look great with green interiors also, but I personally prefer the pearl.

So which is it, PUI or Legendary that ships the cans of pearl overspray with their' parts? Always get that mixed up.

I had a lengthy conversation with folks at Ames regarding the quality of the 2, on two separate occasions, and the biggest difference I remember from those conversations was that Legendary has proprietary materials. The grain is 'different', some don't consider it nicer. In my case, I was sold on the Legendary stuff at first, because I wanted to use the comfort weave inserts, but was told that PUi is very close, and in some way better.

PUi used to do 'Platinum' and 'Gold' series. Now, they only do one line, and it's all 'Gold'. (or was it Platinum?). Point is, my understanding is, to compete better, they stepped up their' game.

My front buckets were butchered by a previous shop who installed new springs and foam, and I wanted it as close to perfect as I could get. I was going to send my buckets to Legendary, but the backlog was ridiculous. PUi makes complete, brand new stratos, so, mainly due to time constraints, I ordered those, and the panels so they would match. I am not disappointed, and feel they are on par with the quality of the Legendary stuff. (maybe I got lucky).

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He did let me spray the trunk splatter paint and do the window and trunk rubber also the stainless install. I'll have to snick out there and spray some green before he gets up lol.

Oh no you don't!! You get within 20 feet and beepers go off :D

looks great. love thecolor what is motor?

571

The build and dyno is here...

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...light=571+dyno

Looks fantastic and the engine build thread was awesome! Wish my kid was into cars and would redo mine LOL.

I now have everything painted except the bumper and hood. Dad being a clown and ran outside with a fender so the car would look complete.
Got the doors hung today with all new weatherstrip and window reveal modlings. Couldn't put the door handles on. The new gaskets just didn't fit correctly so ordered another set from a different supplier. Waiting for those to get here. I'll install the decklid later this weekend.

Here's the original, never on the ground, spare tire. To put that in perspective, Dad bought this car brand new, and put something like 270,000 miles on it. I can't remember the exact number off hand but he's well over the 250 mark. He's never had a flat tire in this car.

I cleaned up the spare before reinstalling it in the trunk and found these markings still on the tread as well as a couple different colored stripes. This thing even still has that blue stuff they put on white walls and white letters to protect them. Pretty cool.

Top quality workmanship and attention to detail like every other job I have seen you done. Dad should be proud.

I see you're installing the painted fender with the inner fender already bolted to the car. On a 68-69, is it easier to install the painted fender with the inner fender already bolted to the car or with the inner and outer as one piece fastened together?

We have not removed the inner fenders yet. We will remove and paint them and the firewall after I take the motor out to clean and re- gasket it. More disassembly before the fenders go on lol.

The fender thief strikes again!

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...3&d=1497646587

Yep, what you're seeing there is actually still a lot of work ahead. Engine is coming out so we can strip and detail the firewall and frame, and all new suspension going on, wire harness, etc... So in a few days it will be nothing but a pair of frame rails sticking out. Front sheetmetal won't go back on until engine is back in. I did the car this way in order to keep it in running condition during the paint process, it's much easier to pull it in and out of the booth. Pushing these cars up and down that concrete driveway is doable but much easier when they run.

To answer that question, on these particular cars I prefer to install the inner fender to the fender, then install as an assembly.

Thanks Mike.

Hope the house is coming along okay..

Stop that guy!!!!! :D

Ha good one Greg, don't know why I didn't think of that. He does look like he's up to no good.

I've used both PUI and Legendary. I've liked the PUI stuff, did a complete Mach 1 Mustang interior last year with it and that was excellent quality. I have some of that interior resto on my youtube channel.

On Dad's car we'll go with Legendary, new seat covers and door panels. Headliner and carpet was replaced 30-some years ago and still looks perfect so that will be left alone. I do all my own upholstery work here. This will probably be done after summer/fall is over so he can get back to enjoying the car sooner.

I tackled him and got the fender back, resting comfortably now :D

Looks great, Larry

lol...

The car looks great!
Any color variation from painting the car in pieces? I'm still on the fence doing mine this way.

I'll do them either way depending on what the customer wants. But my preference is to do them in pieces so I can control things a bit closer and do a more thorough job on coverage. No problems with color variations at all as long as you follow some simple tricks and practices.

Hang the pieces for painting as they would hang on the car. Especially metallic paints so the metallic lays the same way throughout the car.

Make sure you are consistent with the air pressure at the gun

Make sure your spray technique doesn't change (ie: same distance, same spray patterns etc..)

Make sure the temperature and humidity are close to the same.

I prefer to do all my painting very early in the morning (4am) When humidity will be at it's lowest (Arizona doesn't have much of that anyway) but it's also when the temps are lowest.

And some more pictures...

Got the deck lid on this morning and dad couldn't wait to put on the decals, lol.

Jack decal is where it's supposed to be. These cars never had a posi sticker that I'm aware of but couldn't resist putting one on so it went on the left side. Typically on GM cars that used a posi sticker the jack instructions went on the left and posi decal on the right side. We didn't want to change the correct location of the jack decal so it went this way.

I think he's trying to fool people with his RA IV decal, lol.

Nice car,good luck with the build.(over 250K wow!)

Well the body and the interior does, lol. I don't have to tell you he has enjoyed the hell out of this car over the decades. The original engine/trans/rearend had about 180,000 on it before it was pulled for the first refresh that started with a 455, rebuilt original 400 turbo, and a chevy 12 bolt swapped in. That was back in the late 80's or early 90's. Eventually that morphed into a couple more 455's getting progressively faster. That led to the current 571 cube Pontiac about 2 years ago, and a different 400 turbo beefed up at that time. The original 400 turbo was then retired permanently and resting next to the original engine and rearend now.

All the front suspension was rebuilt back in the late 80's as well. This time around the front suspension is getting refreshed with some tubular components installed, a different set of springs etc...

More of that with pics will come later this week, then the engine and front sheet metal will go back on. Try to have this ready for the big Watson Lake show first weekend of August.

Engine is out for a detail. Pulled the pan to check things. Interesting how the piston skirts were ground to clearance the crank. Looking at other details and you realize there is a lot of effort in assembly.
I got up this morning and shot the bumper, lower valance and a few small pieces. I'll take pics shortly.

Is that a "thin" oil pump plate? I thought everyone used the "thick" plate? ; )

Here ya go Ted, a better picture of the pump. It has all kinds of things going on with it, lol. What ever Tony deemed necessary I'm good with it. Dad says it has about 85 lbs. of oil pressure.

More pics. Engine is sealed back up and painted. Sending intake and valve covers over to a friend of mine that does powder coating.

Bumper and valance and other small parts are painted. Now it's on to ripping the front suspension off and stripping the firewall.

That fender troll managed to come back and steal everything this time :D