Just bought a Sprint restauration project

[Dutchjoe]

After collecting information about the sprint in the internet the last couple of months, take a look at some cars in "good" and scrap condition I decide to do it myself.
I also have a TR6 that I bought in restored condition, but after owning the car for a couple of years I'am not really satisfied with the restauration job, so I will try to do it at least as good as done at the highest priced cars.
FIrst I bought a Dutch LHD 1850 that I know for a long time.
A friend of mine was a Dolomite freak in the early '80's. He bought the 1850 with a light coalition damage at the left front, the damage is well repaired and he used the car daily till the end of 1987 then he decided to restore the car because the upper front valance was bad and some light rust at the usually places.
He stripped the car down replaced the front valance then he lost interst and the car was in a dry garage till a few weeks ago.
I bought the car and the parts from 2 others Dolomites he stripped down.
The shell is remarkable good, but it's no Sprint....................
So last week I bought a RHD Sprint near London, it's complete the engine is turning but it was of the road for many years, I think that I sell the shell to Fred Flintstone after it's stripped down (((-:
The cilinderhead is upgraded stage 2 as the seller told me (Hope it's true) and a Janspeed excaust manifold was in the trunk.
Today I spend some time to contact a few company's and ask for the price to get the paint and bodyprotection off the car.
First idea, paint removal in a caustic bath, rust removal in a acid bath after that put him in a bath to primer him in every hole of the body.
But the costs are too high for a Dolomite (about € 5500,00) second idea: soda or ice blasting and sand blasting on places with rust,after that I will primer it with epoxy primer with a spray gun. But I'am waiting for the prices they ask for this job.
If some of you has made experiences with one of these methods on a Dolomite this would be welcome.

[straylight]

welcome dutch joe,

if you have the time and need to strip the car back to metal then it is possible to strip the car back yourself. Have a search for one of Mad Mart's restorations in the forum. He (and his good wife) use paint stripper and scourers (and a knotted wire bush on an angle grinder) to strip the car back. Of the order of 100's of pounds, not 1000's. I also did this with my car and enjoyed the process, but it does come down to time.

The good news is that your car is a shell now, so you don't have to take anything off it.

stu

[Toledo Man]

You mentioned the acid dipping that SPL (and others) do. A couple of people on here (MikeyB and SprintMWU773V) have used SPL on their restorations. It is a lot of money but in the long run it would be worth it.

[SprintMWU773V]

SPL work across Europe so anything is possible. It's not cheap but I am pleased with the results. You'd need to coat the shell as well really otherwise all the box sections would be bare metal.

[Dutchjoe]

Yes, of couse I can remove the paint and bodyprotection by hand, but it will take a lot of time and there are places that are very hard to reach by hand.
Another problem, my wife will not help me
There is also the problem that sandblasting gives a lot of dirt in my garage what I don't want because I want to primer it myself with epoxy.

I'am pretty sure that paint and rust removal with chemicals would be the best way, but you must primer it in a bath otherwise you have bare metal on places you don't want it !!!
The prices I mentioned are real prices I got from a Dutch company.
To my opinion you can do this with a car that has a value of € 30.000 or more, but not with a € 10.000 Dolly (when you find someone who would pay 10000)
So I'am still waiting for prices for ice and soda-blasting in combination with sandblasting to remove rust.