DeTomaso Mailing List: October 2000, Message #123

I finally got all the undercoating removed from the entire car last week and
took 4905 to our local media blaster to have the remaining undercoating,
paint and any rust discovered removed with plastic media. I don't know if
the media being used is old or what but it is like fine charcoal with that
familiar polyethylene smell. The dust is simply suffocating with out a full
mask The guy doing the work is having a really hard time removing the old
layers of paint and bondo or what ever it is on the passenger side. He
commented it by far the hardest paint he has removed in a long time, "Its
like trying to remove Formica ". I cant believe how much filler was used on
the passenger side for a car that was supposedly only painted once back in
the late 70s in Europe before it was purchased and imported to LA. Some
areas are layered as thick as 3/16 of an inch but here is the really weird
thing, after all the paint and filler on the entire passenger's side from
top to bottom front to rear was removed the panels looked almost perfectly
strait and true. All the leading edges line up and  there are few if any
detectable dings or irregularities in the sheet metal  Even the remaining
leaded areas were almost perfectly contoured and strait. I don't understand
why so much mud and paint were used unless the original driver made a habit
of hitting something and repainting it every month or so. So far we have not
found any rust damage except for a small hole in the windshield channel and
a couple of pea sized holes that were made by the blasting material in the
lower rear corner panel. Additionally the front hood and rear deck didn't
have a speck of bondo on them and the paint just melted off them.


Paul