Here’s a new series of articles to give you some ideas and tips for building your car. These tips will come in handy whether your restoring your car back to original or building a hot rod or a muscle car. This post is courtesy of Hot Rods

Just before paint you will need to caulk the seams on your projects body. Any visible seams should be done to give a smoother appearance and keep water and rust stains from appearing especially if you tend to drive in the rain. Apply 3/4 masking tape on the lap side or higher edge about 1/16th from the drop off edge. On the over lapped portion or lower side move the tape back 1/8th to3/16th of an inch. Using 3M 8300 sealer cut the tip to allow a 1/8th bead. This product flows smoothly and can be finger stroked with lacquer thinner to make it extra slick, peel the tape away after 1 foot at a time is finished. After one hour you can prime/paint over it.

As seen the seams are all sealed providing a very smooth transition from each panel. Once all is sprayed and assembled it will look great.

When installing dynamat to sound deaden your ride place aluminum tape on all the overlaps ” available from any hardware store ” This will keep the sticky black butyl from getting on your clothing/skin while working inside the vehicle especially if it will be several weeks before the carpet is installed.

During paint stripping use aluminum foil tape to seal off the inner panel from the outer. This will keep the old paint and stripper from entering in to the inner structure and becoming trapped causing a big problem later on during refinishing. In addition place it over any holes. Simply take a scotch brite disc on an angle grinder to clean all the paint off the edges down to the bare metal where the tape covered it to finish the process.