Finishing Up the Putty Patches

Sunday was a really beautiful day in Honolulu and I got a lot done on my E9. The volcano on the Big Island is erupting and for several weeks the winds have been coming from the south, blowing clouds of sulpher ladden gas over Oahu that make Honolulu look like Beijing in August. On Sunday the wind, what little there was, came from the East. The sky was blue. No rain. Spectacular.

Next Sunday is the annual All British Car meet. I'll be there with my '74 Lotus Europa, and because the weather was so nice I drove the Lotus to the shop. The problem with that is that people keep coming over to ask about it. I love showing off my Lotus, but I love working on my E9, too.



The first order of business was to grind down the putty I applied last time. My trusty CP 854 4"grinder cuts through the POR-15 Epoxy Putty with ease, but the contours around the tail light are too complex for a grinder, so I switched to a hand sanding block loaded with 40-grit paper. A lot slower than the grinder, but accurate.



Like I said before, I don't want to grind down to the surrounding metal surface for fear the patch will fall out the back. In this case this works well because for unknown reasons there is a thick layer of primer in this area and my putty patches should not be thicker than the surrounding finish. I guess the proper technique in thinner spots will be to dimple in the edges of the holes.

As the hand sanding progressed I could see where I was starting to sand through some of the surrounding POR-15 paint I had appled previously. I decided it was more important to level and feather the putty spots, which meant I would have to repaint the exposed areas. When I was done feathering I roughed up all of the surrounding POR-15 coat with 400-grit and painted everything. Next time I'll apply another coat and start building thickness with some kind of aerosol primer, using the black layer as a check layer.



I spent the rest of the time tweaking the patch for below the rear window. I continued what I started last week, using a pair of vice grip pliers to restore the bends, then carefully shrinking, stretching, and twisting to align the piece with the cut out slot where it will go I got to where the patch fits inside the slot, but it needs more tweaking.

One thing I need to buy is some aerosol sanding primer compatible with my base coat paint system.

I finished the day with a drive out to Hawaii-Kai where I sat outside Starbucks watching Japanese tourists gawking at the Lotus.