Guide Coat and Some Seam Sealer

Last Wednesday night I applied the guide coat. Now in the past I have always just “peppered” the surface with a black aerosol paint to create a guide coat… actually works pretty darn well. But Dave had me try a product from 3M that is specifically a guide coat. I’m not sure what the composition of it is, but it’s basically a powder that you apply with a round wax applicator pad. Just wipe it on with a little pressure over the areas you want to block down and you get the results below:

Now you will be able to tell how this stuff works. First picture is after a couple passes with 500 grit:

The next picture you can see where there is an area where it’s just white… that area does not need to be sanded anymore. If you can see guide coat, then it’s not perfectly sanded yet… even if it’s just a speck:

After some more sanding and now I’m starting to make a little progress:

So this is why the guide coat is so great. Shows you where you need to sand and keeps you from sanding too much where you might create a minute low spot.

After 9-10 hours of straight sanding with 500 grit and a grey 3M scuff pad, the bay is blocked:

Next up is the seam sealer to replace the OEM sealer I removed:

I have never used a seam sealer before, so I taped off the upper fire wall to give it a shot:

Applicator gun, which is same gun I use for the other 3M product I use for my custom interior work:

I applied a small bead then smoothed/forced it in with my finger… wearing a latex glove of course:

Now this is when I should of removed the tape, but I didn’t know that. I’m use to removing tape once paint, resin, glue etc. is dry. But this stuff you need to remove it before it dries…. it has about a 10 minute working time. So apply then remove the tape within a few minutes.

The rest of the bay masked off:

Seam sealer finished. Like I said, this tape should of been removed, but I let it dry until the next morning before I removed it. You live and learn I guess… it just made it more difficult to remove:

Dave let me borrow some bad-ass dollies from his shop. They have several mounting options… I chose to clamp them to the pinch welds for this application:

It’s time!