1970 El Camino 350 Daily Driver Project - Lots of modern Modz

After getting the car back from the paint shop, I realized that a blend of black and chrome trim did not look as good I hoped. The black trim did come up great and is a wonderful compliment to the Cement body. The lines are sexy and there are no distracting logos, pinstripes, body moldings or emblems.



I decided to go all black for the trim. I also wanted to touch up a few areas that were missed. The cowl section where the wipers are located was left blue. The side of the headlight bezels that is under the hood is also blue. I wanted all the exterior parts that were previously blue to be Cement.



The jambs were painted Cement, but I did decide to leave the interior blue. So, anything seen inside the car when the doors were closed was to remain blue. This includes the small strip of metal in front of the dash, the A pillars, and the rear metal deck. This did not turn out as good as I hoped. Even the wife commented that it looked funny when you were looking inside the car while standing outside of it. So, all this will be painted Cement as well. It will take some time, but I am going to work in sections.



Here is a photo journey of a few tasks I have taken on this weekend.





Hood Alignment-1 The first step was to realign the hood. The shop did not remove it, it has just been pushed to close to the windshield and the body lines do not align properly. You can see the lines are pretty even, but the gap is too big at the headlight bezels, plus the hood pin catches when trying to open the hood so moving the hood forward will help. I will show the AFTER photos once I get all the trim pieces painted and back on the car.





Hood Alignment-2 Here is the other side. Straight, but gap in front is too big.





Hood Alignment-3 I spent a lot of time trying to get the hood aligned and it was sitting high, even when I had it properly adjusted. The hood alignment can be tricky, because it is counter-intuitive on how you move the hood on the hinges. Nonetheless, I was struggling then I realized the boneheads at the auto shop installed the rubber stoppers upside down, so the hood would stick up high even when properly adju sted.





Hood Alignment-4 This is the correct way to install these. You can see that it sits lower and lets the h ood lines ride evenly with the fender.





Door Alignment BEFORE-1 More sloppy work on the doors. The shop did not remove the fenders so the doors were removed from the hinges and the hinges were left in place without moving them. This made the job a little easier since I only had one adjustment area to deal with. However, the passenger door does sit low and the adjustment for the door height is located on the hinge mount under the fender.





Door Alignment BEFORE-2 Not too bad on the driver door, except the front fender gap as seen above.





Door Alignment BEFORE-3 Here you can see the door is too low and it scraped the new paint already.





Door Alignment BEFORE-4 The door is too low and the lines do not match up.





Door Alignment BEFORE-5 Line is off.





Door Alignment BEFORE-6 A little more sag at the other end of the door. You can also see another paint chip from the door being too low. Got to fix this later.

Door Alignment AFTER-1 Lines are much better now, but not perfect. I was able to lift the door up about 1mm, but the height adjustment is under on the other hinge under the fender.





Door Alignment AFTER-2 The gap above the window was sitting too low and the weather stripping did not contact the door. It was better after the adjustments, but I added a littl more stripping to improve the seal. The car was super loud from wind noise while driving on the freeway.I hated that road noise!





Door Alignment AFTER-3 Much better





Door Alignment AFTER-4 Not perfect, but better than BEFORE.





Door Alignment AFTER-5 Better, but still sags low.





Trim Painting-1 These paints are awesome! One of the major reasons why I did not take the car back for the adjustments because I could buy the Toyota Cement color and clear coat from Express Paints. They also have a clear coat and the case color in a paint pen and bottle with brush for touchups, like the door scrape. I also bought some tape with built in plastic. I love this stuff! The plastic extends to 24”. It is easy to apply and has great lines. It is way better than having tape and paper separate.

Hey Tony, if your new car color is a factory color with a code, you should be able to buy the paint from these folks to paint your nasty yellow tailgate jambs.





Trim Painting-2 Clear coat seen here. I also bought the paint pen and bottle, but did not have a photo. Reasonable price and super easy for small paint jobs in the non-critical areas, like the cowl and interior panels.





Trim Painting-3 The fist paint project was to touch up the backside of the headlight bezels. The front looks good.





Trim Painting-4 The backside should have been sprayed gray. Basically I told the shop that anything on the exterior that is blue needs to be Cement gray. The missed this. The blue above the high beam light is seen when the hood is open. The section around the Low beam is hidden. I painted it all on the backside.





Trim Painting-6 The other really big miss is the cowl. Looks fine when the hood is closed, but open it up and the old body color is seen.

Trim Painting-7 I removed the chrome cowl section and that will be blackened.





Trim Painting-8 Next, I removed the wipers and hoses and got things taped up, then lightly sanded and prepped.





Trim Painting-9 I removed the windshield side moldings, but the top molding was too difficult. So, I taped around it and prepped. This will be blackened.





Trim Painting-10 Cement was sprayed in 3 coats, then 3 coats of URA150 clear coat from Express Paints. The black is sprayed with 2 coats of etching primer then 3 coats of Satin black followed by 3 coats of satin clear.





Trim Painting-11 Again, I found the rear window trim to be difficult to remove. I am pretty fast at taping with this 3M product, so I just prepped and painted it in place.





Trim Painting-12 I also prepped the door locks.





Trim Painting-13 Blackened the door locks. For the black paint I used Rustoleum Canyon Black Satin and the Clear is a Rustoleum Satin clear.





Trim Painting-14 Blackened the rear window trim.





This is all for now. I will let the paint sit overnight and check on the work tomorrow.

Okay, after letting the paint dry overnight, I painted a few more pieces and then pulled the tape and reassembled the front grille section and cowl sections.



Here is the photo journey.



Trim Painting-15 After letting the paint dry, I pulled off the tape covering the small strip under the windshield. This was sprayed with black bedliner material but it did not look right to me. This piece should be body color, Cement. I thought about peeling the liner off, but it sounded like it could become a colossal nightmare. So, I decided to just paint over it with Cement color.





Trim Painting-16 I taped the window trim so only the black strip is exposed. Ready for paint. 3 coats Cement and 3 coats of urethane clear.





Trim Painting-17 Now gray. The liner took the paint with no trouble at all.





Trim Painting-18 All the tape and plastic was removed. You can see a little section on the left that is still black. This was easy to fix.





Trim Painting-19 I used the paint pen for this fix. I let it dry for a few hours then applied the clear from the other side of the paint pen too.





Trim Painting-20 Here is a finished look at the small repair.





Trim Painting-21 After seeing it painted in Cement, it was clearly the right choice. This looks much better to me.





Trim Painting-22 Last night I painted the cowl trim piece and the windshield side sections. These got 3 coats of Canyon Black Satin and Satin Gloss from Rustoleum.





Trim Painting-23 All the tape and plastic has been removed. The color is a perfect match. This came out very nice and now looks right!



Trim Painting-24 The cowl and windshield trim is back in place. The black really pops and looks much better than the chrome trim.

Trim Painting-25 I reconnected the washer hoses and the black grates. All reassembled.





Trim Painting-26 Now a view with the hood closed.





Trim Painting-27 Now that the cowl is painted I thought the blue interior trim looked better. The wife disagrees. She wants the inside to be Cement gray as well. She also prefers the interior to be black. That may likely come later, but not anytime soon. I will paint the a pillars, dash and rear deck Cement gray most likely this weekend.





Trim Painting-28 Full body look from the font. Note that the grille is all black, but that is because the chrome trim was removed. This too was painted black and will be placed back on the grille. I think it will give that OEM look even though it is black. I think the grille looks better without the chrome too.





Trim Painting-29 Front grille view.





That is all for now. Lots of snow last night with a better forecast for this weekend. I hope to get the car out for some photos and to finish the exterior blackening.

Ok, back home for the weekend. Weather is looking nice, so I really want to take the car out to the gym and for a little joy riding tomorrow.

I have the car back together after the last series of trim painting. So, no big projects tonight, but I did start the blackening of the wipers and I tinted all the lamp covers. Here is a photo tutorial.


Light Lens Blackening-1 Here is one side of the car. Front blinker, Front side marker, Rear taillight, reverse light and rear reflector. I use VHT night shades and spray two light coats. I use alcohol to clean everything after regular washing then tape off areas to prevent overspray.


Light Lens Blackening-2 This tint takes a good 4 hours or more to dry so I will let it sit overnight before reassembly. Don't rush the dry time.


Light Lens Blackening-3 Here the flash is on and you can see the reflector shines bright despite the tint. I have all LEDs so there is plenty of brightness. If I was using conventional bulbs, the tint woudl be too dark for these lights to be bright enough for safety.


Light Lens Blackening-4 The reflector strip is part of the housing assmbly. So, it stays in place and I will tape it off. Tomorrow I will pull the housings and paint them.


Light Lens Blackening-5 Flash is on. You can see the reflector workign nicely before tint.


Light Lens Blackening-6 Taped an dready for 2 coats of tint after cleaning.


Light Lens Blackening-7 Done. Look good.


Light Lens Blackening-8 Flash is on and the reflector is not as bright with teh tint, but still effective.



Wipers are prepped for paint. I use a q-tip to prop open the blade so I can paitn underneath. After a coat is applied I will move the q-tip to the other side adn spray that section too, so it is all black.



I applied two coats of ethcing primer then 3 coats of satin canyon black. I will let this dry then paitn the other half. Satin clearcoat will top it off and provide protection.