After a year of languishing in the garage again, I finally managed to find somewhere to paint it!
The story so far is
here,
here, and
here.
Now, my friend Matt is building a drag racing car, and a while back I volunteered to do the electrical bits for him. I was happy to help. The car is insane. It's a Vauxhall Chevette, fitted with a 7.5 litre Chevrolet Big block motor !!!!
Rather you than me Matt!
Anyway, Matt very kindly offered the use of his painting skills and garage to paint the Mini.
So, I set to preparing the car in my garage...
First thing was to sort the awful bulkhead ...
... wet flatting the panels...
Julian lends a hand sorting out the repaired rear quarter...
Outside to blow all the dust off...
... and on the trailer to Matt's!
In double-quick time, Matt has painted the car in etch-primer...
and then 2 coats of a white primer base coat, which is rubbed down with scotchbrite...
Matt prepares the Jade green paint. It's the car's original colour....
Matt expertly applies the first coat....
It was about this point that I started to feel a bit emotional... I blame it on the paint fumes ;)
After two coats, Matt is feeling rather proud of his great work, and justifiably so.
After allowing the paint to harden overnight, it's back on the trailer....
.... and home again...
Now the paint must be wet flatted with very fine wet and dry paper, and polished up. I'm going to let the paint harden off for a few weeks....
Huge thanks go to my great friends, Matt and Julian, without whom I'd never be able to realise this dream....
