Primer backend

After an immense amount of sanding the body of the ambulance/camper area has made it into a corat of primer. 

I made a decision to not remove the gas cabinet and trim because I did not want to break the seal on areas that are not leaking 

The rear step has been taken away for some welding.. and the ladder has been removed I will see if I can find a smaller one whilst we have this opportunity

It's a bit of a pity that there are so many vent holes from old fridges, but they are there and they will stay because I don't want to risk any leaks taking them off

Repainting Part 2 ... New colour on the roof

First view of the new colour on the roof. This is just the first coat and there is a lot more to go.

The preparation has been to sand with 40 and then 80 grit, then a thorough wash, wipe with panel wipe degreaser and a wipe with a tack cloth.

Then first coat of primer which shows up the imperfections so another round of sanding and cleaning.

Repeated the primer and another clean, and then this went on...

It's finally raining here so it's going to be paused for now

Repainting Part 1.. the stripping

Its time to deal with the old paintwork on Katy. it's had at least 4 different colour schemes when in service because I have photo's of it in NATO green and in UN white and there is definitely camouflage on it as well and then the cream current top coat. I've made a start on the work by removing the roof rack (with help from the boss) and am starting on the roof because less people will see that if I am not so good during practice

That can go on the patio.. who's going to need that for a party for a while …

Now you can see remnants of the original red cross, sadly not in good enough shape to be worth saving

Much of the paint is so badly attached it comes in sheets with a scraper. this is not usual for automotive paint so I suspect that the final cream coat is more of a house paint than what is normally on a vehicle which is typically harder

In places it just peels off to the original undercoat

Then it's my three new best friends

and I am getting something like this ... I'm considering stopping here where its well attached because it's been 2 full days work to get to this point and I think trying to get to bare metal all over will be beyond me given I will have to work ourside and in bouts of good weather..

8 Tins of Paint and a Numberplate

The evenings of the last 2 weeks have been warm and still

Perfect weather for respraying work so I've cracked on with it and now Katy has been sanded, primed, sanded primed and top coated with 3 tins of primer and 5 tins of Ford Ivory topcoat

It's by no means a professional job. All I've done are the bad bit's, but the difference it makes to her appearance even up close is quite dramatic. She no-longer looks like something that's on the verge of total breakdown and should attract quite a lot less attention from people thinking that she's too scruffy to be on the road (e did get some looks of disapproval)


We're off to see my family next week and we're looking forwards to some admiring looks along the way from all the Land Rover fans out there


Also with all those trips to Halfords for paint I picked up a replacement rear number plate to replace the one she had an advisory on  in her MOT test. So Mr Plod will be happy when he sees her on the road as well

Limestone Paint

I am repainting some of Katy

She needs a complete respray, but I can't afford the time and effort for all the prep as I want to use her through the summer

All I knew was it was "cream" because that's what it said on the VIN. I did some minor painting last year and had trouble finding a good match, but I rememberd seeing (but can't find it now) either on Land Rover Scene or Land Rover Addict that Ford ivory was a close match ...

It's a much better match and therefore probably confirms that is indeed the colour that Katy has been (VERY BADLY) resprayed with.
So now I think I can truly agree with the comment that Mandy (one of the regulars in those places) made when she said, back when I first joined, that "Limestone is the most photogenic and bestest colour a Landrover can be"

Paint Like Confettii and Fridge fitting

Whoever painted Katy did a really awful job of it. some strange pink undercoat put on in places over the several coats of army camouflage paint.

The paint is peeling and flaking all over the place and she really needs a complete respray, but for now she's going to have to put up with me doing some scraping, sanding and painting where it's really bad

I've got about 75% of the worst bits scraped and sanded now and a coat of acid etch primer sprayed on just to cover it up. she looks like a Dalmatian at present

As it started to rain I had to stop doing that, but it did mean that I completed most of the wiring for the fridge we bought recently as well. Just need to complete the earth connection and it will be ready for fitting and then cold beers galore

The fitting instructions for this fridge include a pair of large vents, but I've decided not to do that

What I've decided to do is to fit a powerful 12v PC cooling fan over the existing small vent hole. This is rated at only 20 dB which is good because the fridge is completely silent when running. I've fitted a switch to allow this to be turned on and off so we can turn it off in the extremely unlikely event that this quiet sound is disturbing our sleep. in that case we may also need to turn off the fridge so if that happens I'll probably end up fitting the larger vents

A New Coat of Eyeshadow

Katy like all ladies like to look her best, but to be honest it's been a long time since she's looked perfect

Non the less as today's planned electrical work has  been postponed because I needed to find out some more information and get some advice on the best way to do things I though that we'd at least tackle some of the most obvious and worst looking areas

Katy does need a proper respray as the people who've painted her before have just put it on top of the old Nato Green and don't even seem to have sanded it down for a good keyed surface before they did so. They didn't even remove the light surrounds before doing it which is why you can see this large green area where they go

It was also really bad under the bull bar/front bumper area as you can see

So off came the plastic and that's had a rub down and a few coats of satin black - here they are in progress. by the time they were finished I got them quite a bit better

 
Next the old spotlights that don't work came off and we masked up - I was assisted by Steve (discogenic) from the Land Rover Scene forum who's missing not having a Landy at present and offered to pop round and help - THANKS Steve

And then on with loads of rubbing down. Acid etch primer and then a few layers of Halfords Leyland Arum White which isn't a perfect colour match, but was the best I could find for now and looks a lot better than all the peeling bits

This was just a temporary job so it was just the worst bits with the rest masked off, but at least we've stopped some water getting in to cause problems in peeling off more paint and I can take her out in public without feeling quite so embarrassed

There is an awful lot more to do yet. !

No picture of the completed job as it came on to rain just as I was finishing and I had to rush putting things away and pull her forwards onto the drive to get other cars put away