Well, the stripe eraser was a bust. It worked alright, but it smeared the glue in spots and just created a bunch of eraser dust for the most part. It was also less than fun. I can see where it'd work well for small areas like stripes, but for large swatches of mostly-dried-up glue, nay. I don't know if it's because the paint was covered by vinyl for 55 years, but that paint didn't withstand the eraser very well. I decided to move on to the next method.
Since the glue was rock hard for the most part, I decided to take off the little bit of still-soft glue with adhesive remover and a scraper. That worked well, but the remover would've had to soak for a long time to work on the dried stuff. Just to see how it'd work, I grabbed the palm orbital sander and started doin' the jitterbug. That was the best method by a long shot, especially considering I started with the same 40-grit disc I'd been using on the LH fender. I got a hell of a lot further than one might expect with a well-used disc. I then grabbed a new 36-grit disc, and with that and what I'd accomplished earlier, I did a bit over half the entire roof.
There's no white paint left on the driver's side a'tall. Anything that appears white on that side of the "skunk stripe" is actually bare metal except at the bottom of the C-pillar. There were three layers under the vinyl: the factory white paint over gray primer, which was atop a red-oxide primer, which looks like rust in the pictures. Only red oxide and bare metal remain other than a few small spots of the gray, mostly low on the C-pillar and along the upper edge of the windshield. The skunk stripe is where I stopped; beyond it is gray primer and legit surface rust.
I found that the most-effective method for the large unsupported section of the roof was to not hold the sander, but just literally use my palm to put just enough pressure on it to run it and move it around. That kept the roof from "oil-canning" under the sandpaper and is probably why I got so much out of one disc. In fact, that paper was still doing so well that after I'd given up on any further orbital use on the roof, I did this to the '71 Challenger fender:
I cleaned up the entire area below the body line (well, above in the photo) and about 1/3 of the wheel opening. I also got more off around the bumper recess, but caught the rust a couple of times. That beat the edge of the disc pretty badly, but I can
still use it.
Next I attacked the drip-rail rust on the passenger's side using a 36-grit disc in the die grinder. No need to screw around trying to finesse anything over there; it's seriously pitted anyhow. In fact, in one area the drip rail is rusted through to the actual roof rail below it (the bottom of the drip rail is part of the roof panel, the vertical part where the moulding fits is the support to which the roof is welded). As you can imagine, this part went much more quickly since die grinders are evil and, in the case of the one I was using, not given to finessing the trigger.
The location of the seam in the vinyl is quite evident in the above photo, and there's virtually no glue beyond it except what little remains at the skunk stripe. There's a large area of bare metal there which, based on the rest of the roof, was likely at least primed when the car was built, but baked off after the vinyl was gone.
I expected this to get a lot worse, but it didn't. Yes, it'll get bigger but not significantly so:
The metal around the edge is actually still rather stiff. I'll hog it out a bit more to get to a clean edge, but I'm not going bonkers on it.
I also expected much worse to happen here:
Again, it'll get worse before it gets better. This is a troublesome spot because although the angle belies it, the drip rail is right in the way of repairing it. Also, welding may be out of the question because there's literally headliner behind it, and there's no way I'm pulling that out. No, I didn't address the lead yet. Still working on a game plan that doesn't involve melting it or creating a ton of lead dust by grinding.
A quart of single layer white, lay down two or three coats after sprinkling some salt on the roof. When the paint is dry, brush off the painted-salt to give a weathered look, scuff the remainder with a grey scotch-brite and let the airborne contaminants dirty up the finish.
Instant patina.
Would that not leave a whole bunch of tiny little salt holes everywhere? It just brushes off, or does it come off with the Scotch-Brite? How would one accomplish such a feat on the C-pillars, where it's possibly the most important in terms of, uh, blending?
