Not good at all...

Well it has color on it, and it's put back together. Now that it's all shiny you can definitely see up close a couple of places where I could have sanded it better. A 2" ridge line in one spot is apparent, and the quarter panel extension has a tiny ripple on the inside, but none of this is really obvious unless you're up close and shining a light on it. And the finish isn't perfect, but I suppose it isn't "finished" either. I think some wet sanding tomorrow will do wonders. Hopefully that will take care of the line between the old and the new paint.

The important thing though... Unless you're looking for it, you're not going to notice it. It looks a hell of a lot better than it did, and really with those two big bubbles gone it might even look better than before the damage. But we'll see when I get some sunlight on it, hose off that mountain of dust that's on it, and wet sand. I might be wrong, the paint might be terrible in the daylight. But either way, when it comes time to hire a pro to paint it, the surface underneath is pretty much ready to go.

...And speaking of paint...

Sometimes I do general mechanic work for a guy who sells used cars. Sometimes it's a car he's selling, sometimes it's a car in his collection. He collects luxury cars from the 70's, got some perfectly preserved, huge old Cadillacs and Lincolns. Friday he was supposed to bring me a '77 Lincoln to work on, but he called and moved it to this morning. This morning he called and moved it to tomorrow morning, so I said, "That's cool, will give me some time to do some bodywork on my Maverick." He likes the Maverick. He says, "Man you're going to make that thing a show car, aren't you?" and I tell him maybe eventually. I wasn't planning on having to paint it in the near future, but now I need to and it's looking like probably tax time next year before I can do it. He says, "I've got a body man who works on all my late model stuff, does good work, very reasonably priced..."

To make a long story short, tomorrow we're going to discuss the idea of bartering some mechanical work for a full-blown proper paint job. How cool is that?

 

glad to hear things are working out for you. bartering is always cool. i sometimes prefer it to cash even, either way, buying or selling, depending on what the situation is. in your situation, i think that sounds like one good deal. if you don't end up getting it painted though, and you start getting depressed looking at it, ill send you a pic of the paint on my maverick and my station wagon... you'll never come across crappy paint that you can't put up with untill you can fix it. i can assure you that.

 

Glad to hear you have fixed it, even if it's not perfect im sure it's better than looking at a dent....Im going too use paint shop on my 71,it's got to be better than just leaving it in primer.....

 

Ya got him there! Got a laugh outta that.
Good to see you jumping on this yourself like that. Regardless of how good it came out you are getting some great experience. It's always better to learn this stuff on your own car. That way you can only be mad at yourseld if it doesn't come out perfect. And you'll know from the prep work you did that the finished result is only as good as the prep work...so, the next time you'll spend a little more time finishing out your prepping. So, based on the one picture (post 72) above I think you're doing a great job.

 

Man I love your threads, some great reading. Good luck with the project. Sounds like your not affraid to take on any project.

 

Sounds like you have a handle on it! i agree with ray, all the rough spots on my car are ones that the body\paint guy "fixed" not the ones that i did.. even if you dont go show car quality paint job you can still show it off when its done.

 

Okay, here are some pics. Sunlight doesn't lie, it's not perfect. I think the paint is the weak point. I only had one partial can to spray it with, it's not even, and it's not even a perfect color match. The surface underneath isn't bad, but will need some more sanding when paint time comes. I also didn't quite get the body line right... But oh well. It will look good going down the road.

In the first pics I've just opened the garage and pulled it out a little. Then I moved it in front of the garage and hosed off the dust. Afterwards I started working on the Lincoln. First thing it's gonna need is a battery...

 

Looks pretty darn good to me..... nice job

 

looks great

 

awesome to hear... it looks great considering what happened.

 

Look real good to me. Certainly better then I could do.

 

You might not say that if I had a better camera.

Hopefully it won't matter soon though. I really think it's the paint that makes it look bad to me right now. If it gets block sanded and hit with a high build primer before the real paint job I think it will do.

 

I think it looks good!
That looks like a nice Lincoln too.

 

Yeah, the Lincoln is very nice. Other than a tiny bit of wear on the driver's seat and a somewhat dirty engine compartment, it's showroom perfect. One of only 300 with a factory moon roof.

It's been sitting for a year and developed a leak somewhere, so I'm addressing that and just going over it the way you would any car's that's been sitting. Fluids, belts hoses, etc...

 

I just saw this thread today for the first time, and I think it should be an inspiration to all of us here. It is such a good feeling to learn something new and reap the rewards of your own hard work. I think it's great that you decided to tackle something you weren't sure of and had the patience to see it through to the end. You did a good job and saved a lot of money by doing it yourself. Pat yourself on the back, you deserve it.