Hello All,

I am a new member on the forum. I wanted to share my 86 Corvette restoration with the members. My wife named him Frankenstein. Frankie for short. Its not a factory restoration. The car is originally black and the interior was graphite. The only change was that I made the interior black. I purchased this Corvette on Ebay in Dec. 06 for 3500.00. It had a rebuilt engine with a cam. The interior was worn and the paint was faded thru in some areas. I buffed it out and drove it and fixed it up for a year. I started the restoration on 2-2-08.I built my own portable paint booth and painted it myself.It came out very good. This is the first time I ever painted a Corvette. It was something I always wanted to do in my life and I did it.I am almost done with the new interior. Here are some photos of the car.

Joe - Flash man

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  frankie resto- 3-16-08 0088.jpg (86.01 KB)


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  Frankie in primer 5-23-08 025.jpg (373.24 KB)


  Frankie painted 6-7-08 011.jpg (453.12 KB)


  Frankie all painted 6-20-08 007.jpg (533.15 KB)


  Frankie all painted 6-20-08 019.jpg (513.55 KB)


  Frankie new interior 001.jpg (511.69 KB)

Thats hot!!! :D I LOVE IT...When I saw the last pic, my mouth dropped.

Inspiring work!

I'm interested in your paint booth.

How do you control all the dried paint dust floating around? How many fans do you have setup?

Congrats on a great job!

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the compliments. But, I have not buffed it out with silicone products yet. I need to wait about 6 weeks for the solvents to evaporate from the clear coat.Then that car will shine like black glass.

I used 3/4" pvc pipe and 1.5 mil plastic sheeting. I had two intake fans with ac filters from home depot and two exhaust fans. I removed one exhaust fan because it was too much exhaust and was sucking in my paint booth. It worked great with cheap 20" box fans, Target, twelve bucks each.
I had a few problems though with fish eyes and shut the intake fans down, and just used the exhaust fan towards the end of my painting. You dont have to worry about overspray, dust or dirt too much. Its the dam fish eyes that will drive you crazy. Everything else will all wet sand out.I used PPG au MBC9300 black, and PPG Concept 2021 high solids clear.I also had a few cracks to repair and some dings. It was alot of work. I have about 200 hours into the paint. Its alot of sanding and sanding.But I saved myself about 4000.00 I have learned so much about the C4 Corvettes. You could say that I now know every inch of them. Here are some pictures on the paint booth.


Joe - Flash man

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You da man!

the fisheyes are caused by silicone contaminates. Good luck getting rid of them!

The job looks AWESOME!! I love it!

And welcome to the Guru!

Hi Bogus,

Yes. fish eyes are caused by silicone contaminates. I painted the car in my warehouse where I manufacture Auto Detailing products.I had to remove 55 gal drums of concentrated silicone and clean the whole area before I started painting. But, I only had minor contamination at the end of painting and I beleive it was from the open warehouse door. I am in an industrial area and have welding shops, trucks driving in and out etc. Although, I painted at 5am on a Sundays, when the humidity was down and everything was calm. But, some painting took place during the day and thats when the fish eyes would come. Thanks for the kind words.


Joe - Flash man

Looks great and welcome to the forum!

Matthew

Nice Looking car!
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v101/nejo0301/Vette/DSCN1020.jpg[/IMG]

Hey, that black vette looks like Frankie. Thats a nice car you have there. I think the C4's look so cool with C6 wheels. What year is your vette?


Joe-Flash man

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Yeah, but they look *extra* cool with black c6 rims....

Matthew

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Mine is also an 86.

Wow !! looks awsome any suggestion were i could get my 1987 vette repainted in HOUSTON TX

Hi All,

This is an old post, but I came across a few of the interior restoration pics. Frankie's got new ac system, heater core, insulated interior,seats recovered and all new weather stripping. Also, the previous owners put a floor jack under the fiberglass/aluminum floor. I had to repair cracks and dents.


Joe Flash

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  Frankie new interior 035.jpg (759.06 KB)

awesome!!!!! That car will be better than OEM when done!

Great job! I love it that someone is taking the time to rescue a C4!

Nice shots of the interior work. You did a great job on this resto.

Matthew