Ready for paint
Nigel strips down the GT6 for a trip to the bodyshop
When I bought my GT6 some 15 years ago, it was fresh from a body-off resto and looked near immaculate. In my ownership, it’s clocked up over 40,000 miles. While the body has been cleaned, polished, Waxoyled and subjected to minor touch ups, constant use has taken its toll. As a result, I’ve seen my once beautiful Triumph become a ten yard car, still looking good from a distance but with rust all too apparent on closer inspection. Signs of decay were appearing in most of the places GT6 owners would expect: front valance corners, windscreen frame, the leading edge of the coupé roof and rear wheel arches. Flexing of the one-piece bonnet has also caused stress cracks to start from the headlight apertures. I faced a dilemma whether to simply carry on using the car and allow the rot to progress until the MOT man said enough was enough, or take action to arrest the decline before it got too serious. I love my little GT and have owned her longer than any other car in my chequered automotive history. Watching her fade away to Condition 3 status simply isn’t an option I can live with. I know my limitations; carrying out welded repairs then a paint job to a satisfactory standard is beyond my skillset, so I set about finding local bodyshops with interest and experience of classics and got a couple of quotes for the work.
Money-saving expert
Now body repairers and paint sprayers are highly skilled people, who quite reasonably expect to be paid a decent wage for their time. Simply driving in for a respray and driving the finished car back out a few months later would be prohibitively expensive. A sizeable sum could be saved if I removed all the exterior trim, lights and interior then presented the car ready for expert attention at the bodyshop.
The next big question was whether to strip the old paint back to bare metal, which would enable any hidden corrosion to be found and dealt with, reducing the risk of rot unexpectedly bubbling through the new paint later. But this is a labourintensive process and so comes with another hefty price tag. We soon agreed that I would strip
‘40,000 miles of constant use had taken their toll’
the car to bare metal at home before delivering the shell ready for repairs and new paint. In effect, I’m doing the donkey work, costing only my own time, and paying for the skilled work I can’t do. It’s better for the bodyshop too, as stripping a whole car exterior by hand is a long and mindnumbingly tedious job.
Decisions made and bodyshop booked, I retired to the garage last month with a large flask of coffee, put my favourite music shuffle on the stereo and got down to work. Most of the car’s interior is currently stored in the spare bedroom and yes, I did get permission first! Slopping paint stripper onto the bonnet felt like an act of vandalism but I know it’s for the best. The paint removal has progressed slowly; I had some idea of the challenge ahead as I stripped my TR6 to bare metal nearly five years ago. At the time the words ‘never again’ were uttered, quite possibly by me.
Baring all
Getting the paint off the GT6 has been revealing. Small blisters concealed pock marks of corrosion, clear vindication for choosing to go bare metal. Old welded repairs were revealed, plus an unseen split in the rear deck. These had been well hidden with a thin application of filler, so I had been blissfully unaware. The previous body restoration had been finished with two-pack paint; my aching shoulders testify to its toughness and the amount of scraping needed to remove it. Under the two-pack was the original factory Pimento red finish, a layer of grey primer-filler, a layer of red oxide primer and finally, gleaming steel which last saw daylight in 1972. To my mind, wandering aimlessly after many hours spent scraping, finding the many layers of old paint became a work of automotive archaeology.
The GT is now nearly ready to be trailered to the bodyshop with just a few more panels left to strip, so watch this space for regular progress reports. I’m not rushing and expect the car to be away for about three months. After that, the reassembly will simply take as long as it needs to. Getting back on the road during the summer would be nice and today, that feels eminently achievable. Time will tell.