Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Cleaning up the Clunker

Cleaning up the Clunker

There is another course of action on a fixer-upper. This is to take a car you just finished paying off and extending its service life for another five or ten years. If you have driven it sensibly and done the scheduled maintenance that goal is certainly obtainable. I keep beating on this drum because I hate car payments and an extra $600 a month can do wonders for the quality of my life.

You don’t have to be a guy to work on a car. Women manage it quite well. If you can make a quilt you can work on a car. A woman working on a car is also a guy magnet. A kid magnet too…Even the neighbors will forgive you if you say your work is a touch up to improve the appearance of your older ride. People will wander by to comment and your drive way will become the social center of the cul-de-sac.

Now this might sound harsh and a bit extreme but think about it. Can you really afford a new car if you have to buy it on credit? For the less affulent the answer is no. Make that a new principle in your life. “If I can’t pay cash I won’t buy a new car!” There is also being much written about getting out of debt….I second that with an AMEN!

If you think the way you get worked by the bank on a car loan is obscene take a look at a house loan. Look at the difference between a 15 year loan and a 30 year. The difference in the payment is actually not that much but you pay if off in half the time. House loans require you to pay mostly interest up front…yeah I know you pay a few cents on principle to begin with but it is mostly all interest…Credit card companies do essentially the same thing…if your credit is good paying the interest is just fine with them.
It’s a legal scam is what it is and it preys on those who think they have to buy things they really don’t need. It’s another one of those addictions like gambling, or shopping for jewelry on QVC. OK! OK I’ll shut up…nobody’s listening anyway…so back to fixing up the car.

Many people when they go to do a fix up get too carried away. There are two general principles that the novice needs to keep in mind. First do a little each day. Do a little work, clean up and go relax. Don’t go trying to do the whole job at one session…it took ten years for the car to get looking like it does and one evening is not going to change that. Second keep the car drivable. While you are working on it don’t go so far you can’t get it back to where it was mechanically when you started. The whole idea is to make your ride respectable while still having it as your means of transportation.

I mention this because I see two schools of thought on fixing up. School one tears the car completely apart…this takes awhile and if the restorer is not experienced they soon forget what went where, plus it becomes a derelict in the garage. For the novice this is a definite no no. One task at a time taking little steps that can be completed in an evening. Doing body work one panel at a time is definitely the way to go.

The first stage of making a car respectable is doing something about the finish. This is where I start. Start with the roof.…divied it into four quadrants and do one at a session. At this point let me interject the importance of safety. If you slop some stripper in your eye that will be a bad experience. Wear safety glasses when you apply stripper chemical or solvents as well as disposable latex gloves. Also having a pail of clean fresh water hand is good idea to neturalize any that gets on your skin. When you sand always wear a dust mask...same goes for using a spray can. Once you have the safety gear in place you can begin stripping off the paint. I do this with stripper and mineral spirits and steel wool and a scraper and some old rags. Follow the instructions on the can and let the chemicals do the work. At the end of the session, clean up the drive way, and put the rags into a plastic bag. Once the work piece is down to bare metal I take some of that black sandpaper a dry waller uses to smooth down the “mud.“ This is cheap and plentiful. Once the panel is shiny I take a rattle can of primer and spray it on. Make sure the surface is wiped clean with some dish paper. Strip, sand, clean and spray. Cover up the premiered area over night to keep moisture from setting in…a premiered surface soaks up moisture which is not a good thing. Once the panel is complete the next step is to paint it….yep paint it…you heard me…I’ll get to that tomorrow