Project Generation Gap 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback Front End Body Prep - Painted Pony, Part 1

To get the seam between the fascia and the fenders right will take a little filler work. Danny begins by scuffing the separated edge with 36-grit sandpaper. This knocks down the high spots and gives the filler some "teeth" to stick to.

Once the fender and fascia edges are sanded, Danny makes up a small batch of filler that is applied to both the fascia and fender leading edges. These areas will take some time to get right, as a high spot will cause paint chipping and a low spot will show a gap in the seam.

More sanding of the freshly cured filler is accomplished next. It's a tedious exercise in sand, fill, sand, fill, and so forth until the surfaces match exactly-and this is just with 36-grit paper. We'll keep going higher and higher on the paper selection to get the surface closer to being "paint ready."

If you remember, the fascia's "eyebrows" over the headlight areas were extended slightly to match our hood's overall length back when we did the majority of our fiberglass work. The underside of this area was never cleaned up and Danny took his grinder to the area while we had the fascia removed and it was easy to access/see.

A little bit of filler and some hand sanding with 36-grit paper got the headlight surround and eyebrow area ready for its next coat of K38 high build primer.

The K38 goes on thick and can actually run on you (especially when sprayed in colder temperatures like we were doing). It's not anything to get too worried about, as you'll be sanding quite a bit of it away...

...With the first full coat of K38 in place, we'll next sand with 80-grit paper, then apply another layer of K38 which will be wet sanded with 220-grit paper.

Speaking of the K38, a gallon of the high-build primer was sourced from Auto Body Color & Supply in Tennessee, along with our reducers, hardeners, base colors, and clear for the project. The K38 is a high-build primer that is used to fill in sanding marks and other imperfections and helps even out the body surface. Brian Smith, owner of Auto Body Color & Supply, hooked us up with all we need to finish the fastback, including custom mixed colors for the base and stripes. Auto Body Color & Supply is a full service PPG shop and can mix and ship any of its products. You'll see more PPG product in upcoming issues as we lay out the color and stripes soon.

Notice our cowl isn't looking too hot right now. No worries, as we're not even keeping the cowl vents, thus the lack of concern on filler around the vent. We'll be cutting this out and hand forming a steel insert that'll match our hand-formed steel upper quarter vents. You'll see that in the next installment, along with more sanding followed by our primer sealer (DP50 in this case). Then we'll move into the home stretch of color, stripes, clearcoating, and finally wet sanding and buffing out the clear for that show-car finish.