Shelby stocker

[Tommy-T]

Car is finally ready for paint but I can't find anyone at a reasonable price. Maybe because I'm older I still think it can be painted for less than 10K.
Most shops I went to only want collision repair insurance work and the ones that do full car paint all acted like they produce show cars. I feel a car I'm going to race should be daily driver quality,
a show paint job is for trailer queens. Wish I had the time or knowledge to try it, Jay's sure looks nice. This is about as far as I can get it with the ill fitting fiberglass reproductions.

I hear you, Mike!
My Comet is in bodyshop hell right now.
I told them I wanted what amounted to a stock paint job, single stage white. There is not a lot of bodywork and I also need some fiberglass parts repaired and fitted. They said they could do it for 5K.
It's been a couple of months and the excuses are mounting. Everything from covi-flu to it's too hot outside. May have to go get it at some point. It has given me time to restore some interior and exterior trim pieces and such.
I personally love trailer queens and think our collective hobby needs them. I'm too cheap to spend that kind of money on paint, especially white. I don't now, nor have I ever owned a trailer. If you have seen my junk at a race or show it was driven there.
How 'bout you, Mike? Own a trailer?
H

[mike7570]

I've seen your T-bird a couple of times, nice car. 5K paint job? No wonder no one is working on it    I sure can't find anything in that range.
Most of the starting prices of places I have gone to are 20K!  most of those no one would recognize the shop by name. I stopped in at Santini's in Westminster and they might be able to do it for 20K also.
I would feel more comfortable giving them that kind of money since they have experience painting some Shelby's and Eleanor's and are currently working on a '69 fastback for SEMA.
regarding a trailer, yep I have an enclosed trailer but it's a necessity for going to the track and makes an excellent 2nd garage for storing the overflow.

[machoneman]

Maybe try a high school shop where young folks try their hand at painting. That or brush up on what you need to learn in order to paint it yourself. It's not that hard with a one stage, one color paint job. Not ideal but better than how it looks now.
 

[Heo]

I've seen your T-bird a couple of times, nice car. 5K paint job? No wonder no one is working on it    I sure can't find anything in that range.
Most of the starting prices of places I have gone to are 20K!  most of those no one would recognize the shop by name. I stopped in at Santini's in Westminster and they might be able to do it for 20K also.
I would feel more comfortable giving them that kind of money since they have experience painting some Shelby's and Eleanor's and are currently working on a '69 fastback for SEMA.
regarding a trailer, yep I have an enclosed trailer but it's a necessity for going to the track and makes an excellent 2nd garage for storing the overflow.

This Thuesday, i liberarted our Packard rearfenders that was taken hostage by one bodyshop couple of years ago.  I took them to another bodyshop  were an old friend is the manager.  Today  before closing they painted them. So early tomorrow i go get them ... I must bring the guys a cake to go with the morning coffe for work well done......lets se the price tag

[Thumperbird]

Not as hard as you think, convert the garage to a paint booth, do your prep work, and have at it like a robot, practice on a fender or something.  Two stage not that bad and self satisfaction worth it, equipment and materail will run you ~$2k if you already have a decent compressor.  I did mine and while not a show job not bad in the end, used HOK products.
One full day of 3 paint coats plus 3 coats of clear, then of course there is several days of wet sanding and buffing it out.
After some 1500 and 2000 grit the 3M 3 stage products worked well.

[Blueoval77]

A little late on this one but this is the ridetech setup on my 70 . It being an R code I didnt want to alter the shock towers in it and the ridetech stuff changes the geometry so the wheels dont turn into wings on launch. I like the setup a ton better than the stock setup

[Rory428]

Although that Ridetech stuff looks pretty, none of it would be legal on a NHRA Stock Eliminator car.

[Blueoval77]

Well pretty is one thing . Getting rid of 9/10s of the junk that is at each corner of one of these is a big win.... I get it with the classes and have never really dove into the ins and outs of that one . I would think that as a "safety" upgrade (Yes I rolled my eyes a little) you could get some of that through....

[mike7570]

Update - Learned another lesson (well I knew about it before but..) when going for a nice paint job take into consideration the starting point of the car. While my car in the photo above doesn't look too bad if I paid more for a nicer car to start with I would probably have saved money. The shop has taken the body down to bare metal mostly by sanding and some by blasting.  This is where discovery of unseen problems not covered in the estimate come into play. They are finding bondo in all sorts of places poor workmanship and prep and how did my roof end up with enough pin holes that from the inside it looks like stars at night!  There wasn't much rust and the metal seems okay it's just full of little pin holes that were hiding under the paint. Welding and metal work is starting to add up and the prep going to exceed the painting cost by 3-1, ouch!

[Keith Stevens]

Mike: The cost of PPG paint and clear was about 2500.00. The color sanding and buffing was 40 hours. A decent job is 15-20K if it's painted in components and reassembled. I just went through this four years ago with no rust repair or sheet metal work. 
I think many doing actual restoration and not just a spray job are shocked at the cost involved.
Best of luck with your vehicle!

[cjshaker]

Not saying for sure this is what happened, but the damage you described to the roof sounds like the car may have burned at some point, or been in a building that burned. Extreme heat will change the metal and leave it very susceptible to rust pinholes, especially if it sees any moisture after the heating. It could also explain the other hidden body damage AND the lack of proper "prep". Metal that's been heated to that degree forms something that resembles parkerizing, and it's very difficult to work with. Hopefully everything works out okay.

[mbrunson427]

I'm sorry about your auto body surprises! This happened to us on the Starliner project, went to pick it up from the blaster and we had about 4 massive unexpected locations on the car that needed to be completely cut out and replaced. The guy at the blasting place told us he had become pretty immune to peoples poor reactions after 30 years of running that business.

It will be a nice car when it's all done!

[mike7570]

Car is still in paint jail, maybe another month or two. So I was getting bored and decide to mock up the engine to check the fit and decide if I should paint it. 
I think I'm going to leave it as is with just a black block. There is some mismatch at the valve cover rail I need to deal with but it looks like things will go together fine.
The short block is done but I'm waiting on a few things before I can button it up.

 

[Rory428]

Mike, nice looking engine, I see that you have the NHRA Edelbrock heads, but that Performer RPM intake and carb spacer sure don`t look that they would get thru Tech as a Stocker. Also, seems to be a side oiler block, is it sleeved down to 428 bore size? And do you plan to use those studs for the headers? I would think that they would hit the shock towers pretty badly.

[mike7570]

428 iron block, Shelby intake,  factory spacer and thick gaskets. The studs are probably too big, they’re from my old super gas car.