"Jim Stewart" wrote

I had a Ford Taurus that did the exact
same thing. Along with the garbage auto
transmission, I haven't forgiven Ford
either.

I have a feeling that all of the big three transmissions are little more than
junk.

I grew up with automatic transmissions, and never remember them breaking, even
with high mileage vehicles.

It seems like they design them to go 90 to 110 thousand miles, then they are
prone to require rebuilding, at any time.

IMHO, they ought to go at least 200 thousand without a glitch. They could build
them that way, for a few dollars more, but that does not seem to be the
priority.

I was told that the reason it happened is
that Ford purposely omitted the primer and
put the color coat directly on the sheetmetal.

That was not the case with my GM van. There was definitely gray primer under
the light blue paint. I know, because I sanded it down, to bare metal. I was
afraid that the primer was part of the problem, and if any was left, it would
cause the problem, again. Let me tell you, there is a lot of surface area on a
full sized van!

I primed it, and painted it with a NAPA one step white fleet color paint (no
clear coat) and it has not had a problem since.

I learned a lot with that job. One, I hate body work, and sanding. g Spray
technique learned in painting and clear coating cabinetry carries through, to an
extent, but there are big differences that would likely carry through to
painting an airplane.

The biggest problem, I thought, was dealing with keeping that big of a wet line.
By the time you get all around the vehicle, how do you deal with the point where
you have already painted, and the overspray? I did it by putting on a quick
masking at the seam of the hood, so it did not get overspray from the last paint
getting on the first paint. I don't know if that is right, but it worked for
me.

It seems to me that an airplane would be harder, since there are less seams, and
it has to be painted on the bottom, also. How do people deal with blending the
top to the bottom, or do they rotate them, and paint from the front to the back,
all the way around, rotating as they go?
--
Jim in NC