I took a day off from work yesterday for one of my boys field trip, and other errands, and had a few minutes to spare so I ran over to Palmetto Paint Specialties Inc. in North Charleston and Morris set me up with some epoxy primer. It’s been a LOONGGG time since I’ve done any auto painting, so things have changed quite a bit.
Told him I needed a primer that I could work on the bus a section at a time, do any glazing I needed to, and then could leave it until I get ready to spray it with paint. It stays in the garage and is not really exposed to the elements but still wanted a good quality. Told him it’s not a show vehicle, but still want to do it right. He hooked me up with PPG’s EPX-900 Epoxy Primer in beige and EPX-901 hardener. Still not totally convinced I’m going with the original Pastel White for the final paint, as we may go for a two tone job with vw orange below the beltline and then white above. But if we go with all Pastel White, the beige primer should be fine. I’ve seen several vehicles with the beige primer and it really looks nice. A good color to worth with doing the body work.
Really looking forward to sanding down the paint chips, getting rid of the surface rust and getting it one color.
Also, started looking into what to do to solve my sliding door track problem. It’s not THAT bad really, but would be nice to have it where it works nice and smooth. The problem is the bottom of the track has a three inch rust through on it, thus the door roller hits the dent and sinks.
All of the surrounding metal including the outer sill, inner rocker and everything looks good. Really hate that I will have to remove the good outer rocker sill to get the track replaced, but that’s the breaks.
I did find out today that a friend of mine has purchased the late model bus outer sill from Gerson at Klassic Fab. So I was glad to hear that, as it has been very challenging to find VW Bus repair panels that are of good quality. Most I have found to be much thinner than the original and do not always fit correctly. Also, e-mailed Gerson to find out if I can purchase only the track from him instead of the entire inner rocker with the track. Hopefully, we’ll hear something soon.
You can check out my sliding door pictures:
