[njsteve]

Some progress from this week. The full body is in primer. He spent some more time finishing the rear wheel well edges recently, back to their original bad, wrinkly, spot-welded finish. I wasn't too happy with the initial way they looked - they were just too perfect.

Now the car has to sit a few days to cure and then more block sanding and then sealing and paint (hopefully, soon).

[giles]

Originally Posted by njsteve

He will paint it with the doors on but the front clip, trunklid, etc., off the car. Usually he paints his cars completely disassembled but since the doors are so heavy and hard to handle on the 2nd gen F-bodies, he wants to keep the perfect door alignment intact and shoot them still attached.

This is a great idea! From the archival photos taken at Norwood (like in "The Fabulous Firebird") that is probably how the car was originally painted (well, except the decklid was on) so you will have as close to the original process as is possible (probably less orange peel!).

Looks great! You will be cruising by spring!

[keith k]

Originally Posted by njsteve

Some progress from this week. The full body is in primer. He spent some more time finishing the rear wheel well edges recently, back to their original bad, wrinkly, spot-welded finish. I wasn't too happy with the initial way they looked - they were just too perfect.

Now the car has to sit a few days to cure and then more block sanding and then sealing and paint (hopefully, soon).
[/IMG]

Steve,
Maybe it's just the lighting, but it appears with all the priming and blocking he may have gotten the main horizontal character line along the body a little too "sharp" (more like it was on the Camaro)?.

[njsteve]

A lot of it is the lighting (there's only one bank of light bulbs directly over the roof of the car, and it is still has not been finished block-sanded, but the lines are supposed to be somewhat crisp. The problem is that over the last 38 years of these cars getting dented, smashed, and repaired, the vast majority of them have been smoothed over, so everyone has gotten used to the round-sided modern interpretation of the original body lines.

Here's a shot of one member's car here when it was brand new (sorry for the lack of name reference if this is your photo). Check out the side lines:



And an original paint 73 SD455:



and the factory promo shot circa 1970:

[Norwood]

this will start a debate thats for sure. It is hard to tell the real sharpness of the body line on the Blue car or Steve's car because of the lighting. I will have to agree with Keith on this one the body line is more rounded than sharp. The Camaro body line is very sharp compared to the Firebird line. I have a NOS door out in the garage, i'm kinda board right now, I think I might go out and take a few shots of it. The lighting always makes the body line look sharper than it really is..

[njsteve]

Compare the crispness of the wheel arch edge (very crisp delineation) as compared to the side body line. You can see on my car that the the side line is not as crisp as the wheel arch edge. I will be seeing the car in person this week and will check on it and update you all.

[Zirconia]

I have found that the intersection of the rear quarter panel body side line with the radius of the wheel arch edge invariably gets looking more like a 3rd gen quarter panel instead of a 2nd gen quarter panel unless the bodyman is really knows how to work this area. Smoothed over instead of sharp and crisp. Has anybody else noticed this?

[keith k]

Steve,
Well, I went looking through my pics, and I can't really find one that captures the softness of that line just right (attached is probably as good as I have). So it seems logical that your pictures are probably making it look sharper than it is, too...

The line is NOT supposed to be too crisp, (but "crisp" is unfortunately not a very technically precise word, so we could both have the same understanding of what's correct and describe it differently...). I've walked around these cars with Bill Porter a few times, though, and one of the things he always mentions is how much work they put into "softening" that line....

Not meaning to cause any trouble. But it's not uncommon to see body guys used to doing Camaros get this wrong -- just wanted to make sure you were happy with yours before the paint went on.

[Norwood]

OK, I told you I was board, so here is what I found. Mind you this tracing is off a NOS door that has never ever been even so much as had the E coat sanded. My observation is that there is NO true line so to speak. It is a radius, I held a piece of cardboard up to the rear edge of the door and traced it. I am going to say thet the HARD line that apears in the pictures is ALL LIGHTING and SHADOWS. I know that my car has no HARD line, but it looks like it in the picture. I am sure that Steves car is perfect, its just the shadows playing tricks on us.

[giles]

Probably just piling on here, but I agree with Norwood that the character line is a small radius. Here are a couple pictures on an original paint car........

[x-bird2]

a good way to get the body lines spot on is to get a woodworker's profile tool/gauge. it's a 6-inch long "handle" if you will that has a lot of small steel rods that move in when you press it against a countour. i used that on mine throughout the quarter panel repair/replacement process, traced the profiles for reference, mapped the location points where i used it and then reset the tool to match the profiles to the original. costs about ten bucks and is well worth it, especially if you have to use a repop panel. (passenger's quarter for those of us who aren't millionaires)

any photo from above the body line will make it appear as a sharp peak because of shadowing just below the outermost point of the radius. a cross section (head on or rear-on) view is the only way to tell how sharp or not so sharp it really is from just a visual standpoint.

[njsteve]

I emailed the bodyman the above discussion and here is the information he had on his procedure:

"I leave the body line a little more pronounced in the primer coats so we can check the straightness. It gets rounded off in the urethane primer. (you can see it flow from the wheel well to wheel well). This is an old trick to make sure the line is straight. The original panels "round lines" are usually off from panel to panel. So to answer your question it is a combination of both, being sharper than normal and the lighting."



So, I guess all of our eyes are correct when we look at the photos. :-)

[ta-kid]

So whats it been ,three years since you started this project.Seems like a long time,not getting tired of it .You must have a busy schedule outside of this side line.Should look good though.

[njsteve]

Actually, I bought it on Veterans Day 2004 and immediately started work on it. So I guess that's 4+ years now. Ugh!

[weranc55]

Its always the body shops that take a while. You would think that they would want to get the car done ASAP and get paid and stop having the car take up space.

[72_455HO_4SPD]

Steve,
I my car around the same time you did and have been collecting parts since 2004. Someone from eBay referred me to this site and your thread specifically. I am very impressed with what you've done with your car and can't thank you enough for the information. I'll be doing the same thing you've done (without the research painful trial and error process to get it perfect.) I can't wait to get started!
Keep up the good work and THANK YOU!!!!
Bob

[njsteve]

Thanks for the kind words. :-)

Sometimes it feels like I'm running a emotional support group for early T/A owners. I think it's time for an intervention!

This is what I've been looking at for the past 4 years to keep me motivated. This is what it looked like on 11/20/2004:

[ddmrk]

Steve Car is looking GOOD !!!!!! Hope to have the car side by side some day ,if you ever need another Body guy try this guy he is one talented guy and close to home (NJ) he is doing my 69 Camaro for me right now
http://www.gallorestorations.com/

[njsteve]

Is that your Hugger Orange 69 SS396 - the one with the 720 code interior? That's an amazing amount of work into that car. I saw it on Yenko.net.

[ddmrk]

Steve ,yes that be her ,yes I am NUT's I know