My Torana Rebuild

[383 hatch]

OK, so more progress today. I stripped the drivers door back to bare metal. I thought i'd take some pics along the way and show a sort of step by step guide to how i strip the paint off a large panel.

So, here it is.

The first thing i do when stripping paint off is to give the whole panel a quick run over with a 36 grit disc on the sander. I do this to key the paint and give the paint stripper something to bite in to. If you don't do this the paint stripper tends to sit on top and just take the clearcoat off first (especially with 2 pack paint as the clear is very hard and durable). It just speeds up the paint stripper process.

Then just pour paint stripper on the panel and spread it out with a large paint brush. Don't be stingy with the paint stripper, put a nice, generous coat over the entire panel. If i was doing a doors closed respray i would normally tape off the edges to prevent paint stripper from getting in the door jambs, but given this is getting an in and out respray it doesn't really matter.

Paint stripper on.

Then just leave the stripper on for a while and let it do it's thing.

Once the paint has stopped bubbling up, scrape the paint off with a scraper. Be careful here not to gouge the panel with the scraper, just let the scraper do the work.

After the paint is scraped off. As you can see there is still paint on the panel that hasn't come off, so it'll need another go.

So, same again. Stripper on.

Then scrape it off again. This time all the paint came off. All in bare metal. Now the only thing paint stripper won't take off is body filler, so just leave that there for the time being.

Then wipe it over with gun wash on a rag to get all the paint stripper residue off.

Now, get one of these things on an angle grinder and run over the whole panel with it to make sure all the paint is off. Also, if there is some places you didn't paint strip (such as window frames, around the door handle etc.) this will make light work of it.
These stripper discs are the ****, if you've never used one i highly recommend them.

All done.

Then i stripped all the paint off the inside with a combination of stripper disc, various wire wheels on the drill and sand paper.

All finished. Ready for (epoxy) primer. New bare metal looks so nice doesn't it?

So, with that done, i flipped up a few dents and epoxy primed the door. I also put some epoxy on the L/H guard that i finished during the week, the hatch shut and the window frame that i repaired last weekend.

All in epoxy.

That's it for now.

 

[Drawnnite]

looking good.
loving the step by step guide. definately in the memory bank for future.

so keep up the good work.
this will look amazing when it is finished

 

[yZoH]

Amazing....

 

[juiceie vh sle]

hey mate that corner piece of the door you just repaired is that one piece or is it made of like 3 pieces weled together

 

[383 hatch]

looking good.
loving the step by step guide. definately in the memory bank for future.

so keep up the good work.
this will look amazing when it is finished

Thanks mate. There is heaps of different ways of stripping paint, but i find that the best. It also doesn't damage the metal which is important.

hey mate that corner piece of the door you just repaired is that one piece or is it made of like 3 pieces weled together

Yeh, that's made out of 3 sections all welded together. I don't posses the tools to make that out of 1 section, i do posses a welder, grinder and hammers and dollies though. Although it's made out of 3 sections the end result is fine.

 

[ari666]

step by steps pics are awesome and useful for reference. keep it up man.

just curious though, i did try those flap discs, but found they made the panel really hot, and may have actually cause a couple of stretches on my boot. do you take extra special care with it? or was i just doing it wrong?

 

[50LTRv8]

Thanks for the paint stripper guide, one more question though, how do you dispose of this stuff (are there any regs or anything?)

Nice work by the way

 

[383 hatch]

step by steps pics are awesome and useful for reference. keep it up man.

just curious though, i did try those flap discs, but found they made the panel really hot, and may have actually cause a couple of stretches on my boot. do you take extra special care with it? or was i just doing it wrong?

If you are a bit careful and take your time, you can strip an entire panel with a strip it disc. I stripped both quarters on my car with a strip it disc, but i did it a bit at a time to make sure the panel didn't get too much heat in it. The trick is not to put too much pressure on the panel, let the disc do the work. I only did it because i didn't want paint stripper all over the place.

I do prefer to paint strip a large panel then just give it a quick run over with the disc just to get rid of the little bits of paint left over and give the panel a nice surface for primer.

For inside door jambs and stuff like that, strip it discs are awesome.

 

[383 hatch]

Thanks for the paint stripper guide, one more question though, how do you dispose of this stuff with (are there any regs or anything?)

Nice work by the way

No worries, hope it helps somebody out at some point. Well, i'm sure you're not supposed to do it, but i just roll up the plastic i put on the floor and throw it in my garage bins, then dispose of it at the tip. Once the paint stripper has dried up, it's actually not that flammable anymore, so it's really just paint being disposed of.

Thanks for the comment.

 

[juiceie vh sle]

yeah i was just askin because it looked like one piece and i thought you must of had some rollers and stuff... good job mate you are a master craftsman.. .has to be my fav thread there is so much info on here