03-24-2019 – Firewall Paint

So if you recall last year I messed up and painted the bottom half of the firewall satin black when I should have used gloss black.  The weather was warm enough yesterday I sprayed 3 coats of gloss black after scuffing\cleaning…

Before:


After:

It is better, but still not as good as I would like.  Not entirely happy and may spray a few more coats this summer of strip and re-do. Not sure that it will even be visible with the 427 BigBlock and A/C in the engine compartment.

Need to tackle the block sanding and undercoat the bottom this summer – if I can fit this in or time this fall, I will re-visit it then as I decide what I will do with it.

I have two NOS trim pieces coming in the mail.  I’ll post pics when they arrive – they will complete my NOS trim search and I will have a complete set of NOS trim to put on the Camaro.

03-05-2019 – Spring supplies and decoding Raptor bedliner age

So after learning how to decode the age of the Raptor bedliner, I realized what I had was expired, so I ordered another kit to be safe.  I already had a couple of bottles to use on my test section.  The kit and guns arrived today – the guns were cheap enough that I will use them and move on to the next without cleaning between bottles.  The price was right and cheaper than the recommended cleaner.  Tomorrow my paint should arrive to touch-up the firewall from last year and to use on the hidden windshield wiper components.  I am sure I will need to order more, but at least I can get started as soon as the conditions are right to paint again…

So here is what I learned for decoding the raptor bedliner age:  First, the hardener deteriorates faster than the base.  As a sense check for any hardener already opened see if the contents of the hardener are really liquid (reducer like consistency) if it “sounds” thicker- i.e. syrupy then it has gone passed its useful life.

Typically the batch numbers for the Raptor base is on a paper ticket on the cardboard box. The hardener is batch labelled with a paper ticket on the base. The batch labels use the same 5 digit format where the first digit represents the year so for 2018 this will be 8, 2019 will be 9 and so forth. The next two digits represent the week number when they were produced. The final two digits represent the run sequence through the factory.