1960 Ford Falcon: 6 Days to Go – Paint Time
Homebuilt Ford Falcon by Greasegirl #6
Today the color finally went on… isn’t it purty! And goooooood thing I learned my lesson in mixing the primer, because this can was very gobbed up at the bottom. I didn’t mind mixing too much though, because the swirls were so nice to look at!
I’m using Kustom Shop ‘Hot Rod Flatz’ paint in Diamond Blue Metallic. I’d ordered these from TCP Global, and was happy with their prices and service. Before mixing with hardener and reducer, I made my mix can dummy-proof by marking it’s 4:1:1/2 mix ratio with a sharpie. I found the paint to lay really nicely when I sprayed it – and with 16 oz. of paint I was able to cover the entire engine bay and underside of hood. I found the engine bay to be quite a challenge to spray – with it’s many tight spots and corners.
So not a surprise that this beginning painter ended up with a couple of boo-boos. One spot got small fisheyes (which happened to be in a very visible place) and a couple other spots of mild runs. As much as we both wanted to finish the paint job so we could unmask the car and continue moving forward – we knew we wanted to do the job right. Which meant letting the first coat dry overnight and sanding out the bad spots before laying our final second coat.
While we did take a break and go see a movie, we also had a couple of other steps to cover today. I’d mentioned in the intro post here we would be partially rebuilding the suspension. The 1960 Ford Falcon has a wimpier set-up then later years – it’s ball joints are smaller (and much more expensive to replace). Ethan had been looking at a set of ’66 Mustang drum brakes/spindles we had laying around. They appeared to be a close match – and after researching prices and everything a few days ago, we’d decided to try and use the ’66 Mustang set-up.
The lower control arm/ball joint and upper ball joint arrived today, so we picked them up and checked their fitment. Although I think they could be made to work, it’s not a bolt-in fix that we were hoping it to be. So first thing in the morning we’ll be calling PST – Performance Suspension Technology to see how long they take to ship their ’60 Falcon suspension kit… if it’s longer then we can wait, we’ll make do and just order the upper ball joints locally (the part that absolutely needs replaced).
We also did some more cleaning of other parts,like prepping the steering column for paint. Setting down a schedule for the rest of the week… it’s gonna be tight! I can’t wait until this masking comes off, Falcon is going to look so good!
In the Garage Until: 11:24pm
Want to catch up? Here’s where everything started: 12 Day 1960 Falcon Build #1
For more Falcon fun, check out Pikesan’s project: 1963 Ford Falcon Wagon Build
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Oh yes, I remember painting my first car. I was attending CAL 1986, and took metal welding/fabricating as my “art” credit. That summer my then bo and I got permission to use the steel shops outdoor compressor and decided to repaint my 1960 Dodge Phoenix from yellow to Samoan Coral. Ditzler paint off of a 1968 Merc. Yes, orange peel all over and a bee landed on the fender while still wet, poor bee. those were the days, enjoy the learning experience, you can tell your kids about them later : )
Yes, the famous first paint-job outdoors. Oh how the insects loved the paint fumes and committed suicide while ruining the beautiful Grabber Blue paint on my ’68 Mustang coupe. After sanding off their exto-skeletons, I chose red primer and entered the world of Rat-Rodding.