mideastmafia

[quote]Originally posted by p0r2chby:
<strong>

DING... sorry, the rubberized undercoat stuff is for... get this, under the car. IE, the name undercoating

Pro paint shops add a flex agent to the paint when sparaying on any part that is not metal. So, if its plastic, fiberglass, carbon or whatever, you need a flex agent added to the paint. This lack of flex agent is the number one reason the low buck jobs look like crap after just a few months.</strong><hr></blockquote>


I stand corrected.. you are right.. im not sure of the name of the flex agent, but im sure you will be right once again when my paint is all F'ed up.. im gonna sand it all down tomorrow with 10 grit paper and send it to Earl Schieb..



if you dont allready know, me and por2chby here have an ongoing vendetta back since pelican.. its nice that ur back to ruin the fun porboy.. (we are secret lovers.. but SShhH dont tell!)

SHAUN (**** can man)

mideastmafia

por2chby,

i got my car repainted just for you.. i used the meguairs "MIRROR GLAZE" stuff.. really works well. my car is like a mirror..

get your thong on and come help me color sand baby!



SHAUN

Perry 951

If you wanted to do your own prep work, and have someone shoot it, it would run you about a grand. If you supply the materials, I am sure a couple hundo would get someone with a small paint shop to spray it after hours for you.

On the prep work. Using 220 grit is sick, and not at all the way it should be done. Ideally you want to strip the car to the zinc coating, prime, paint, and seal. Many of us do not have the resources to do that. Almost as good is to apply quality paint over the existing finish.

What you want to do for this is remove everything you can. Windows, mirrors, seals, lights, door handles, everything. Then you need to get some Prep Sol, Klix, or other good solvent specifically made to prep paint. Talk to a paint shop about this. Then, do 3 or 4 applications on the whole car. Get the cracks and such very well. This is an important step that is ususally skipped. This removes all the contaminants on the paint. Wax, silicone. bird crap, water spots can all cause fisheyes and lifing. If you just sand it, you grind the contaminants into the paint, and sooner or later, you will have blemishes.

After you have cleaned the car well, you want to block sand with 600 grit wet paper until everything is dull. Keeping the surface clean here is paramount to a good finish. Use lots of water and a soft squegee (sp?). If you hear a gritty sound, stop and clean the paper. 1 little grit of dirt will put deep scratches into the base coat, and you will see it in the final product. Be careful on edges and round surfaces. If you sand into the zinc or to bare metal, you will need to prep and prime that area, then sand flush. If not, it will rust, bubble, or peel.

Once the car is dull, put the lights on it, and drive it to your dudes shop. Do another good cleaning with the prep sol, and tape everything carefully, using the lines of door jambs and fender lips as tape surfaces. Paper off everything. Overspray makes a good job look like hell.

After paint, color sand with 1500 grit, polish with 3M Machiene glaze and driect drive buffer, sand with 1800, polish, sand with 2000 and polish.

There you go.

Dax951

I called the local Porsche dealer and asked them who their favorite paint/body shop was. Unfortunately, the guys they referred me to do not do complete repaints/restorations, but focus on mainly repair (insurance work.)

The guy at the shop instead suggested (and I've heard this before) to get some advice from local hot rodders on where to go. I might take this route, but I am starting to get a little weary of shopping around. I think I am going to go to the one last place (the third one I mentioned in my first post) next week and get a quote. If they look good, I'll go with them.

One quick question - how difficult do you think it is for someone with limited mechanical knowledge to do most of the prep work? A couple posts cited guides to check out, anything 944 specific? Does the Haynes manual give a lot of assistance on this stuff?

I'm not afraid to put in some effort if it means shaving a couple grand off of the price of a repaint, I just don't have the first clue about how to take apart the car.

p0r2chby

[quote]Originally posted by mideastmafia:
<strong>por2chby,

i got my car repainted just for you.. i used the meguairs "MIRROR GLAZE" stuff.. really works well. my car is like a mirror..

get your thong on and come help me color sand baby!



SHAUN</strong><hr></blockquote>

sure hope you are not presenting this photo as the results of your repaint. This photo is old. Looks like it was from your Pelican days. A little sharpening, a touch up in a few places and then mirror the image. Looks like you are back to your old bag of BS tricks. I'm sure Pelican gang remembers your 160 speed crap post. Put up a real image of the new paint job or shut up about it...

K27

You could drive it up to vancouver BC and save a ton of cash, my shop repaired my fender after a doggie bumped in to it and quoted me $4000 Cdn pesos for a complete 4weeks in the shop job, they do nice work too, my car is black and the part they resprayed was deep and smooth, excellent paint and prep guys.
there are other very good shops around here and with the exchange being so good for you it would be worth the 5 hr drive, you could always catch a greyhound back.

Dax951

[quote]Originally posted by K27:
<strong>You could drive it up to vancouver BC and save a ton of cash, my shop repaired my fender after a doggie bumped in to it and quoted me $4000 Cdn pesos for a complete 4weeks in the shop job, they do nice work too, my car is black and the part they resprayed was deep and smooth, excellent paint and prep guys.
there are other very good shops around here and with the exchange being so good for you it would be worth the 5 hr drive, you could always catch a greyhound back.</strong><hr></blockquote>

That's not a bad idea actually... though the 5 hour drive doesn't sound like a lot of fun. What was the name of the shop you used? Do they do full repaints?

Thanks man...

Tremelune

Buff that sucker!!!

I just got done polishing and waxing my entire car. It was a total pain in the ***, but oh man--what a difference. It looks brand new. I'm not sure of the condition of your car, but even if it's really dull/orange/pink, you can bring it back. My car has never looked better. The only thing about it are the nicks. Polishing won't help spots that have no paint on them (but I have a can of red paint which is a better match than the Porsche touch-up paint, it seems...I can find out the exact brand, if you want). This car was dull. Road grime, weird spots that appeared to be fused to the surface...Elbow grease, elbow grease, elbow grease. If you have kids, they'll earn their allowance.

Even the door that was orange compared to the newly-painted rear quarter panel matches pretty damn well. It took me two full days (morning until night) of rigorous, pain-in-the-***, I-don't-think-I-care-anymore, do-I-really-have-to-get-this-weird-nook-nobody-will-see-it buffing by hand, but the car looks really good. Worth the effort. I'm happy. I look back when I park. I check my hair in the hood (kidding). Now all I have to do is completely refinish the wheels...

For the first polishing coat, to bring back the color and get rid of the fused road grime stuff, I used Body Magic Medium Compound. It takes work, but it'll bring back the red. After that I used 3M Imperial Hand Glaze. Excellent stuff. Makes rags slide off the hood. After that I used Meguire's Professional Paste Wax (I think--it's in a shiny blue can) to seal it all in. This stuff also worked great. Kept everything smooth. I used about 6 old 100% cotton shirts (cut up--easier to hold) and just rubbed rubbed rubbed, did another section while the other one dried, then buffed the stuff off, then did the next coat, etc...All by hand.

Make sure your compounds aren't separated (happens if they freeze, with time, etc.) Total cost was about $50 and a weekend. If you're smart (not like me), you'll set aside 3-4 days with the thing in the garage, work until you get annoyed, eat lunch, do a few hours in the afternoon, then start again the next morning. Make sure you actually get it done, though...Do sections, all three steps, then move on.

And if it does really need to be painted, hey, maybe someone else will use this advice. If you're skeptical, buy the stuff, do the hood really well, all three coats, then gauge if it can help the rest of the car. If there's any paint anywhere, it can. It's a hard to justify a $1000+ paint job on these cars keeping any kind of investment money in mind, but TLC seems to go a long way...and at least with a Porsche, there's a solid return.

Good luck.

eclou

I just spent the last week on and off repainting my front end, side bump strips and sunroof. The rest of the car is in decent enough shapeto compound and wax.

First I removed the parts to be painted - nose valence, bumper, sunroof, sidde strips. Cleaned the parts with Joy to strip off all wax. Then used the "Mouse" sander by B&D - awesome and chea- to strip off some of the surface paint. Then went by hand to 600 grit. Used "Bulldog" adhesion spray on the urethane bumper - flex was only added to Laquer paint which is no longer used b/c enamel and urethane are more durable and flexible. Then primed with gray primer. Sanded then with 1000 grit by hand, then shot color enamel (with hardener).

The trick to shooting the enamel color is to spray on a few very very light tack coats where you are just dusting the surface to promote later adhesion. Wait 15 min then shoot 2 medium wet coats for color. If shooting metallic make sure you make all your strokes the same direction (l to r or r to l) and same heaviness or you will end up with a banded-look of your metallic grain. You only have to wait 1 day prior to final wet sand and compounding.

If you guys are not entering the car in a concours event, spending 5k is sick. You could buy a great compressor (5 hp all you need $300), paint gun (professional quality $100), paint materials (color, reducer, primer, hardener $100 for enamel 1 step, $400 for urethane base/clear), mouse sander $40, misc $50. Try to shoot a couple of things like the front end and bumper. If you suck at it or do not like it you will eat a couple of hundred in material costs and still have an air compressor. Better yet rent a compressor and gun and try it for just material costs! Remember now that acrylic laquer is no longer used, the other paints are much easier to shoot yourself. With laquer you needed a very clean location and long drying times. Also laquer would easily crack on bumpers b/c it si brittle. Flex agent would dull the finish, and it chipped like hell anyway. Believe me I shot 15 coats of color and clear on my old 78 T/A street rod andfor 4 years the finish was so deep it looked like you could swim in it. Then in cracked everwhere and looked like sh*t.

Eugene

K27

No1 Collision. Richmond BC 604.231.9614
they specialize in MB, BMW etc

Perry 951

[quote] Sanded then with 1000 grit by hand, then shot color enamel (with hardener).
<hr></blockquote>

That is too fine. You should have stuck with 600. There is not enough adhesion unless you used a self etching primer, and in that case, it would not be sanded.

1000 grit might work on the doors and quarters, but anywhere bird crap and rock chips get, you have a good possibility of lift and chipping.

I hope not in your case. Just giving you a heads up for the future.

ThE sPaCeCoWbOy

you all need to come where i live....

i got a estimate of 1000 bucks to paint my whole 944...plus a extra 300 to fix small dents.....

now i know the question is quality.....yes he is very good painter...got recommended by another painter....after I get my engine finished, i may go with a body kit and get it painted.....

space

951and944S

Perry,

[quote] That is too fine. You should have stuck with 600. There is not enough adhesion unless you used a self etching primer, and in that case, it would not be sanded. <hr></blockquote>

Good point, I hope for their own sake, some personal research is done by posters who ask for advice.

I saw a post recently on the same subject, where someone suggested that body filler be finished with 1500 grit paper before painting over the primer.

Modern high fill primers are regularly sprayed over scratches as rough as #80 grit, primer coat can be finished in #400 grit for sealing and #600 grit for painting over.

Porsche used a color keyed sealer in shades of white-dark grey as a background to achieve brilliance, especially with GR.
In other words, a great job on a GR 944 will not have the correct shade if it was sprayed over grey/red oxide, or any other color primer/sealer than white.
This is why the difference in the GR shade causes confusion, and the prices between a correct job and a paint job vary so greatly.

If anyone paints a panel or a whole car with repair areas in different colors of primers/sealers, the correct procedure is to cover this area with the appropriate sealer shade to insure color consistancy...

Cheers........

aka 951

Thanks to all for the advice. Hope you get that car up and running soon Perry.

Dax951

Thanks guys... Polishing would be a good idea if it wasn't for the needed body work and REALLY bad chipped areas. Check this out:



As you can see the bottom panel is really thrashed. It's time for paint!