Michigan Mick's 71 Comet Project

looking good

 

Very Nice!!

 

Wet Sanding

It's elbow grease time. Lots of wet sanding with 1600 grit paper.

 

been there done that! I feel your pain!

 

Mick

Very nice job to you and your brother

Jay

 

Thanks Jay. There is no way I would have been able to do this without his help. He is a genius.

 

Rear End and AC

Rear end is almost completely done. Only thing left is installing the Mercury script emblem.





Air Conditioning from Classic Auto Air is completely installed fully charged and blowing frigid air.

 

Interior Repainting

Well as I mentioned in an earlier post we (I mean my brother Dan) originally painted the interior Light Gray Gold. When we saw the color next to the Medium Green Metallic exterior paint it looked pretty bad. Since I am now going to do a complete custom interior in green vinyl with fabric inserts the interior paint was matched to the light green vinyl.

On a side note I just picked up the recovered dash today and it looks fantastic (picture to follow shortly). I had Jerry my interior guy completely re-sculpt the padded dash and recover it in vinyl. I was just going to put a dash cap on it but I heard they start to buckle in the heat after a while.

The guys at PPG did a wonderful job of matching the paint color and here are the results.

Prep work




Painting the slanted area behind the package tray



Interior parts. Even repainted a par of sun visors I got from a local junk yard for $10

 

Very nice!!

Could you post a picture of how you connected and routed the AC lines to the dryer? I have the same system but haven't decided how to make those connections. Looks like I need a fitting with a 270 degree bend to connect to the dryer and go thru the core support but there's nothing like that in the kit.

 

Power Antenna and Steering Column

Decided to install a power antenna I got from JC Whitney. It fit perfectly.





Since we decided to put in a floor shift my brother filled in the PRNDL and shift lever holes.

 

Hood Sccop

Well I am finally caught up to the work completed this past week. Future posts will be less frequent since I only get over to help my brother work on the car a couple of nights a week.

This week my brother finished taping off the hood for the black paint around the hood scoop. We are not painting it Flat Black like the original color. I still cringe when I remember trying to wax the flat black paint when I got the car and I never did really get the wax out of the flat black paint. It looked pretty bad. Dan experimented with the paint and came up with a satin black finish that will accept wax very well so I can't screw it up like I did 40 years ago.

The hood came out fantastic.

Hood taped off and sanded with 600 grit

 

I'll be going over to work on the car Monday night. I'll take some pictures for ya.

 

That hood looks super. I'd like to know more about the satin black paint. Did you use the same paint for the rear panel?

 

Yes. I'll talk to my brother and find out what additives he put in the paint so I could wax it. I'll see him on Monday and get the skinny for you.

 

Time for me to join this thread.

Hi, I'm Mick's brother Dan. I'm the guy restoring the car with my brother's help.
I have an answer for the black paint on the hood.
To get a satin or flat black surface you can wax I used PPG Shopline solid Urethane Black (JAU9300) I added Shopline J81 Flattening agent to it along with the normal JR506 reducer and JH301 hardener. All PPG Shopline products. Getting the mix ratio right is where it gets tricky. The more J81 you add, the flatter the shine becomes.
If you go with to flat a finish, the wax may not come of. I haven't tried a Real flat finish. The more shine the finish has like satin, the easier it is wax. Wax will shine up a flat finish to a degree, but will still be flat if that makes sense. I added half as much J81 as I had Black paint. My mixture by volume was like 4:2:1.35:1 . Which means 4 oz paint, 2 oz J81, 1.35 oz JR506, 1 oz JH301 per batch. So to paint the hood and tail panel, I would figure about how much RTS paint (ready to spray) I would need for 2 coats. Say it was about a quart (have to guesstimate here). Since one mix ratio makes 8.35 oz RTS I would need to multiple the ratio by 4. I used 16 oz paint, 8 oz J81, 5.4 oz JH506 and 4 oz JR301. I have a crude chart that shows how much J81 to add to get finishes like Semi Gloss, Satin, Eggshell and Flat. If I recall correctly, My mix is between Flat and Eggshell according to the chart.

I hope this helps.
Cheers.
Danford1