Hi guy's. The friends in my life are killing me. What I've got to do in 6 weeks is paint a 68 camaro. The car is race only, tube chassis, narrowed rear with a set-up I can't describe, wheelie bars, 1 piece fiberglass front clip, the works. The doors are glass and also the quarters. The roof of the car is still metal. I'm not exactly sure where the metal & glass meet on the quarter. What I do see is a crack about 6 inchs long on the sail panel between roof & top of quarter. If I find this is were the 2 meet, what would be the best material to fix this crack. Would kitty hair be O.K.? OR, would plastic filler be sufficient. I know this body is going to flex, this car is going to run high 7's or low 8's.
Next question, I have a el cheapo HVLP paint gun. (CP central pnuematic). Not saying they have bad products, I just bought the cheap one. Problem is with this gun, they say to set air at 10 lbs. to shoot. I havn't been able to lay any paint with this gun under 25-30 lbs. of air. I painted the 57 210 with this gun, it came out a little orange peely but nothing that won't cut out. (it was acrylic enamel PPG) Am I doing something wrong with my gun adjustments to not be able to shoot at 10 lbs?, or are some HVLP's just not capable of blowing that low? I'll be using a DuPont product, base coat clear on this car. I want to do a REALLY good job on this one as you guy's just might see this one in the fastest streetcar shootout series. When I finish this car it will be going to Mesa, AZ. I've only got about 6 weeks. HHHHELP! http://www.camaros.net/forum/smile.gif

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Steve
67 SS 396,4-sp
67 RS 327,4-sp
72 RS 350/350
69 4X4 suburban 350,4-sp
73 3/4 ton 454/400
http://www.geocities.com/stevocamaro

If indeed where the glass and steel meet are cracking I think it will always do that due to the fact that you have 2 very different substrates joined together in a high stress area. Its different to use kitty hair or its like products over steel for what it was designed for but for butting together....hummmm. whats the 1st complaint from somebody that has put a hood scoop on and just used glass or dough to finish it up in, cracks. To answer your question, I think I would stick with a polyester glazing putty or even try a SMC bonding adhesive. And as far as the HVLP goes, I hate them, Im used to spraying with 40 lbs of air. The one thing that I have learned is give it all 10 lbs of air and turn the amount of material your pushing thru down and make slower passes. It might take all day to do a complete but....I hope this helps you out, hopefully there will be some other ideas and maybe we all can learn from what other people have done or experienced.

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67 Camaro SS Conv.
70 Challenger R/T Conv.

Stevo...Try opening up the material feed on
your gun. Also you might see if larger fluid
tips are available. A 1.3-1.5 for base.
For Dupont clear the 1.5 should work fine.
Try experimenting on a test panel until you
get the results you're after.

Steve -

I've noticed that stock steel bodied Camaros crack at the roof joint - as well as the corners of the windshield posts and back at the edge of the driprail and the side window sill. I know mine cracked a bit in all those places and I have new steel quarters fully welded into the roof seam.

With a car pieced together from fiberglass and steel and under a lot of stress you may be out of luck. However, here are a couple of thoughts:

First - would it be possible (or practical) to attach the roll cage to the steel portion of the roof to provide some stability? I'm not a structural guy so maybe this is a bad idea but it makes sense to me.

Second - years ago my brother and I ran flared fiberglass fenders on cars we raced in slalom and time trial events. The shop attached them with some metallic based structural epoxy (don't remember the name)and then ground a serious wide taper at the overlap point. They ran a single piece of fiberglass cloth over this onto the metal - also buried in similar goo - and then covered it with a thin layer of kitty hair type bondo followed by regular bondo. It never cracked and even stuck great when the area got crunched. I realize the stress on the sail panel is much greater than on a fender but the same approach or part of it may help in at least minimizing the cracks.

Sounds like you've gotten good advice on the spray gun - I'm still a dinosaur and stick by my conventional high pressure guns.

Good luck!



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Scott
'69 400SB, Richmond 5-speed; '99 HD Road King Classic
www.geocities.com/sdenning1 (http://www.geocities.com/sdenning1)

I think you might be confused on the HVLP gun. I just bought one, and I too was confused at first. The 10 p.s.i. is the pressure of the air coming out of the gun. The INLET pressure is around 40-50 p.s.i. Can anyone back me up, or am doing it wrong?

I can't answer the HVLP gun questions, but here is a good forum for asking those types of ??? http://www.autobodystore.com/cgi-bin/config.pl?index

the name HVLP,high volume low pressure is a bit decieving.you have to have a lot of pressure.i had this problem with my cheap gun.to much orange peel.so i bought a Sata for $450.same problem.the Sata rep came out and showed me how to set it up.you need about 55 60psi at the regulater,with about a 15 foot hose that is.10 psi is measured at the tip. i don't know why they tell you that because the only way to measure psi at the tip is witha tool only Sata reps can afford!You need the high pressure to atomize the paint.not enough atomization=orange peel.you only want your fluid control open 1/2-3/4 of the way open.after setting my cheap gun up this way,not that much difference between the to guns.Save your money and experiment.
http://members.spree.com/entertainment/ochrisl/



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68 camaro,hugger orange ,white stripes.327 4 speed.

Thanks for the responses. I'll go down to the shop now and saw on that panel to see whats there. The crack is vertical, which I thought odd. If it's where the different panels meet you'd think it be horizontal. That's interesting about the gun pressures. I've got 120 lbs. going to the regulater, then I adjust it down to 25-30 PSI to the gun. I just assumed thats what would be blowing out the gun. I'll let you guy's know what I see under the primer, could get scary. http://www.camaros.net/forum/smile.gif

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Steve
67 SS 396,4-sp
67 RS 327,4-sp
72 RS 350/350
69 4X4 suburban 350,4-sp
73 3/4 ton 454/400
http://www.geocities.com/stevocamaro

ochrisl, you don't like the SATA's? I love mine (I have 4 of them plus a mini-jet) all NR 95 (green) gravity feeds. I run mine about 46 psi at the gun (w/SATA regulater).
Austin

don't get me wrong,i think the sata is the best gun i ever used,i have the sata 2000.but for the money the cheaper knockoffs are not bad once you learn how to set them up.i should have made it clear that when i said 55-60psi i meant at the wall regulater.i don't use one on the gun.also the hvlp air fittings help too.

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68 camaro,hugger orange ,white stripes.327 4 speed.

all the paint advice you got is boggus, no offence guys. you should have 25 - 30 pounds at the regulator and that measures 8 - 10 pounds at the air cap, you should never go over 30 pounds. you should hold the gun about 6 - 8 inches away not 10 - 12 like the conventional guns. hope this helps.

Since this is almost a year old Maybe stevo will share how the bogus info worked!!!