Got the caddy on the road last week, its a good runner . Im sanding the rust and old paint , this is a test area i did took ten mins but it clogged up my soft pad grinder bad . whats with this stock paint its some thick stuff ? Is there a better why to get it off ? What kind of paint did they use on these cars in the 1950s ? This is the sbc i put in it . I used a hurst motor mount tubo 350 and drive shaft out of an elcomeno . Floor shifter hurst pro matic and a new wireing harness its been a long 7 days to put this together. It drives and it didnt get junked.I alsow used the stock rad by moving the inlet on the bottom to the other side . these are 86 jag front and rear seats they fit to dame good . The stock front seat was moldy and the back was missing so i throw these in. I love this car it drives really nice and the drum breaks work good to . I plain to just sand it down , prime it and mybe a make shift intera .ALSOW LOOKING FOR PARTS FOR THIS CAR, pm me if you have a parts car or parts
Auto body supply.Wear gloves and word in a very well ventilated area.Nasty shit and I have only used it to strip Hotwheels.
i purchased some aircraft stripper at autozone and it worked decent enough , but yeah work in a well ventilated area unless you want a buzz with a bad ass headache or worse..
Wow, you did all that pretty quick. Wouldn't a wire wheel take of the paint pretty quick? Can wait to get the motor and tranny!!!
thanks , im going to get some stripper and try a wire wheel. wire wheels work good but it takes a lot of time .alsow im going to take the trim off the doors and fenders and fill the holes. THe grill is rusty as hell so im going to make a custom one anyone ever seen 52 caddy with a home made grill
Wire wheel? Do you want to spend your time removing paint, or messing around removing old paint slowly and using a bunch of wire wheels in the process? Wire wheels are great for cleaning up welds or removing gunk from greasy parts, but not for paint on the body of a car, from what I have learned. If you aren't going to take the body to have it blasted, good quality 40 grit discs on a 6" D.A. work well. Plenty quick. Make sure you have a good D.A. and a compressor that can keep up. If not, I suppose one of those "industrial" style grinders with a 4" knotted wire wheel could work, but that always seemed out of place to me from how I normally did things at the shop. Aircraft stripper is great...for smaller areas...when used correctly. To much $$$ for a whole car. My .02
ill give it a shot . Im no body guy i just got a d.a. and i have a nice shop compresser but this paint it is clogging soft pads wont it clog the paper ? ill try that to , The rust is pretty bad ill hit the rust with the grinder ans just slight sanding on the paint and go over it with primer insted of taking the paint off
40 grit will last a while. These old cars were painted with lacquer. Let us know how it goes. Rust is better blasted with some sort of blasting media, then the areas that aren't totally rust free need to be cut out and replaced so it doesn't return. OR, the areas that aren't removed completely free of rust need to be chemically converted. You can sand the rust down flush with the surrounding metal, but if any "pits" of rust remain, they will be like a spreading cancer and infect the surrounding sheet metal. Eventually. Even under primer/filler/paint/etc...
o man your telling me the rust will come back , the car is coved with rust not rot , you cant tell it was there when i grind it off but im going in to the metal .
Do you have a pic besides the ones you posted? Reason I ask, is that 40 grit paper + a rust modifier should take care of it. I was under the impression you were talking about rusted out areas, not just surface rust. Surface rust treatment is entirely different from rusted out areas. I was talking more about rotted out stuff, with holes-- rather than a general 'film' of all over rust. Up here in Michigan, the cars look great with shiny paint (for the most part) but the lower half is rusted to all you-know-what. Surface rust up here on a car is called "patina" and a lot of folks just leave it.
Its just heavy rust not rot but its deep . If you sand it leaves a stan but if you go a little deeper it goes away .The roof and trunk is red in color from the rust , Theres not much paint on the roof and trunk
Personally, I would strip everything off the body, and send it out to be media blasted. You've got rusted areas (albiet surface rust) in hard to reach areas...its a big car, yadda, yadda... You're going to have a hard time grinding it all down manually, and preventing the rust from coming back. You're looking at grinding it all down with paper, manually, and then treating it with one of the popular "rust stabilizers" prior to sealing it, which come before sealer, primer and paint. It's all about how long you want it to last. If I am wrong here, I hope one of my fellow bodymen chime in with alternatives for this build... But I think you need to make absolutely sure that any trace amount of rust is gone first, before you spend your hard earned money (and not cheap money, either) on refinishing the whole car. If you're looking to just have some fun with the car, grind it down with 40, seal it, primer it, block it, paint it, block it again, wheel it out, and have fun. The paint job will probably last a few years if pampered.
o , i didnt mean to make you think this things getting painted just going to put some primer on it . I d like it to look ok . This car is just a car to run around in till i finish my model t rod . But i may someday sell it and hope somone will finish it. So if im going to take the time to get it looking ok i mit as well do it the right people think im crazy because it looks so crappy, its rusty.A guy in a vicky called it a rat rod today i was pissed.I said how is a 52 caddy a rat rod he just looked at me funny. thanks for your help
Your car is certainly worth saving, and I would resent the term "rat" being thrown at it. To the people who know, it's just a cool old car that's been returned to driving status, which, to me...and many other folks on here...thinks that is cool as hell. If your ultimate goal is to get it just in primer, grind it all down, hit the bad areas with a rust converter, and re-shoot the thing. Just make sure you pass this info along to the new owner. I wish you lived closer...we could try to "buff" out some of that "patina". You might be surprised...
The thing is a great car ive been running around all over the place in it . most people love the thing but every person says the same thing when are you going to paint it . I wasent going to but after i did the tast panel im hooked it came out nice .
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