Saved from the Demo Derby: 1990 Country Squire

[Tiggie]

Making progress. Taking it slow at this point but life is busy, and to be honest I enjoy having a project to mess with in the garage when time allows.

For the first time in my ownership, the tailgate is working a a functional "magic three way" thing they advertised. My wife asked what the three ways were. A door, a tailgate, and a ....? I don't know. Maybe a window?

Finished refinishing the woodgrain trim. It's not perfect but it's a lot better than it was.



Vinyl arrived yesterday. Excited to experiment with that over the weekend. I like the pattern and I think I like the color. Going to start with the tailgate.

Old vs new (VVIVID Red Oak) in the sunlight

Refinished with the new vinyl. I think this combo will compliment each other.

[87gtVIC]

I am very intrigued by your pursuing the wood grain redo. It is a very nice touch.

[Tiggie]

Big steps today. Dad came over and assisted on the tailgate, hood, and fenders. Went smoothly.



Woodgrain process isn't done but it's coming along. Original on top and refinished on the bottom. I'll share more details once I get it finalized.

[Tiggie]

Definitely wish this was a CP at this point.

Stripping today went okay with fire. Still a pain but workable. Got the whole left side done and in self etch primer. Got the back side and some edges in the tan color. Experimented some more with some different color gel stains for the woodgrain effect. Stuff is latex. Going to trade it for oil I think and then clear. I don't think the latex will stick to the gloss tan.

[gadget73]

The trim is one thing i think the CP definitely got better than the CS.

[Tiggie]

Playing around with trim to see what works and doesn't.

Plan is to strip the old stuff, paint it with a self etching primer and put a tan color on it. Hopefully use some type of technique to get some woodgrain pattern on it - very experimental at this point. Suggestions welcome. Dry brushing in the background above gave decent results on flat paper. Tougher on conplex shapes.

Stripping was interesting today. The laminate comes off fine since it's old - it just peels. Below that is a tan vinyl, most of which is still stuck pretty well on my car. Tried paint stripper - no surprise, nothing. Tried media blasting - that ate up the aluminum pretty bad. Finally burnt it off. That worked well. More burning to commence (in a well ventilated area). Plan to chase that with 400 grit and the primer.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Curious to see how well the VVIVID product works for you. I'd only ever looked at Di-Noc and laughed at the price, considering getting enough to cover a wagon puts you on the path to a decent paint job as it goes. Would be nice to see a product that works good and one could get enough material for sub-$1000.

[Tiggie]

Finally got everything painted! Again, it's not perfect but I don't think paint ever is and that's why they invented buffing? It's good enough for me without buffing.

Ordered vinyl yesterday from VVIVID. It is red oak patterned. I can return it if I don't like it - which is pretty important to me. Was supposed to arrive July 30. Got a notice today that it would be August 6. Not happy. At least the paint will have some extra time to gas out and maybe I can work on some other projects in the meantime.

As a side note, 3M Di-Noc is available but the exterior grade is not recommended for complex contours, such as a car. They have interior grades available but I'll be darned if I pay $1000+ for interior grade vinyl.

[87gtVIC]

I actually purchased separate hoses just to use only for primer, base and clear. I keep them separate from the other hoses. Eastwood was having some closeouts on 25 and 50' hoses so I said why not. A little money here can save a lot of money/labor and time on the back end.

Hope you can get your fisheyes out after another coat of primer.

[Tiggie]

I definitely caused the problem. I've had two moisture traps, a desiccant dryer, and a filter. The desiccant apparatus got restricted, and due to how it's assembled, I removed that and the filter.

Oil made it through the moisture traps and into the hose. Tried flushing it today but could never get it completely clean. Put the filter back and ordered a new hose. Oh well. Just glad it wasn't during base/clear.

[87gtVIC]

Ugha. That’s annoying.

[Tiggie]

Been working on the front clip and tailgate this week. Put all that in epoxy yesterday and had a paint issue - about a 1000 tiny fish eyes.

It's not a huge deal but annoying. I think I can block out the epoxy a little, followed with the 2K primer and blocking again and get rid of those suckers without starting from scratch. Still annoying and disappointing.

Given the uniform distribution of them, I think the oil came out of the air line. I beat on the air compressor pretty hard this week getting it prepped and I guess some got by the moisture traps.

Going to flush out the air lines with acetone and start blocking.

[Tiggie]

Very nice!

Thanks! It's taking forever.

Painted the cowl area with a brush. No one really sees it unless they look hard. Polished the windshield today with cerium oxide. I guess where this car sat for a long time with who knows what on it, it made some kind of acid and etched into the glass. Luckily most of it came out. Also present on the big side wagon windows. I'll tackle those when it's not a humid 102 outside.

This car needs a windshield to be honest. Not getting it right now but the edges are delaminating and fogging/bubbling. Did one of you say new windshields aren't available any longer? Or am I making that up. It's the regular one, not heated.






only 99 when I took this picture.

[87gtVIC]

Very nice!

[Tiggie]

I'm digging what I see. That paint looks like it went down smooth. Gloss in the roof and side looks great!

Thanks! It's shiny for sure. Not perfect. A couple mistakes but most of that is going to get covered by woodgrain... so that's a plus for that stuff. Roof was a pain. Such a long run.

Looks nice. What brand of paint did you use ? Maybe I missed something but why is the front clip off ?

Easier to remove the fenders to get the woodgrain trim off. I really despise that stuff in terms of refinishing a car. It's easily made this process thread times more hours. And it's not done yet... got to refinish the trim yet.

Paint was from Southern Polyurethanes. I like their stuff.