docmirror

Well, it runs and is titled now so might as well finish. The body is sanded into the color coat, not going to take all the old paint off, just get it down under the clear so good adhesion. Rear bumper off, trim off, mirrors off. Don't know yet about the door handles, but I've heard some horror stories.

I'm fitting the trailer hitch now, and gonna have that ready when the bumper goes back on. One trick I've learned over the years with painting is to find the fresh air vent entry for the car and tape them up good. I also have a gap in the top of the left door that I taped well, so I should keep most of the dust out of the int.

I got my materials today, came to $464 with primer, catalyst, 2 quarts of cobalt blue met, reducer, flex agent for the bumpers, gal of clear and catalyst for that. Using PPG top line stuff, forgot the name of it.

I'll put some pics in later.

mbardeen

I assume you know this, but if you've got cracking/cracked paint, you should probably take it down to the metal.

I've got a bit of a nightmare with my car -- previous owners (sorry, didn't mean to swear) had it repainted. But rather than fix the cracked paint on the fenders correctly, they slathered some filler over top and then painted on that.

Result? Corrosion (not rust, but the beginnings) pushed up the filler and new paint and now I've got to repaint it again.

docmirror

No cracks in paint. The clear just oxidized off and left dull color underneath. Sides and bumpers are actually in decent shape with some door rash but I'm going to paint the whole car. In early Dec it should be all done.

pontifex4

Interesting hitch. Where does it come from?

Are you going to strip the bumpers? I think I'm going to need to on mine, at least at the front.

Also, if you haven't tried, you can pull off the metal trim around the door window rubber without a lot of difficulty -- as long as you have somewhere to store it that it won't get bent. It will make a lot more room for a clean mask. Similarly, the roof rails are pretty straight forward to remove, as I recall.

dougs968

That is yet another project in my future. My car would look soooo much better with new paint. Mine's got the same problem with the clear coat peeling off. That and the front bumper cover being the wrong color.

Doc, on the door handles, in my experience, they come off ok. It's just getting the ball end of the linkage snapped into the plastic socket that gave me fits. My solution was to put a few wraps of Teflon tape onto the threaded shaft that the plastic socket end screws into. That keeps it tighter and less likely to rotate out of position while pressing back together. You still almost need three or four hands. Probably a special tool body shops use, who knows. I think I eventually used two or three different size flat bladed screwdrivers to improvise the parts back together.

Doug

odurandina

inspect the bumpers.... i was like about 12 hours getting down to 500.... and still, very fine cracks.

that's what 20 years does. i basically needed a new bumper cover.

in any case, it's holding up ok. but, you know.

docmirror

It's strange, but the bumpers actually had the best paint on the whole car. No cracks, min fading, very little deformation, and they shined up well. I'm considering leaving the front bumper as is. The rear is off now as it was scuffed on the bottom.

If someone knows how to get the narrow strips on the A pillar off, that would be good.

mbardeen

I'm an expert on that ball joint now, I've had my handles off and on so much trying to get everything working properly. If you take out the grill for the door vent, it allows you to get a hand in behind the ball. Then you take the fat end of the screwdriver and get it situated on the the plastic socket and push. With a bit of force it will snap in. Also helps removing the door lock actuators -- it will give you a bit more room to get the screw driver in there.

You might need to adjust the lever (forward or backward) that holds the ball afterwards to get the feel of the door handle just right.




Doc: Do you have a place to paint this or are you going to improvise a paint booth? Is it urethane paint that you'll spray and if so, what are you going to use for a breather? What gun/compressor setup will you use?

I'm contemplating doing the repaint on my car myself. I read through the thread of Dean's repaint of his 928, and that got me interested. Now I'm trying to gauge feasibility. I don't have a compressor/gun yet, nor a dedicated place to spray... so I'd have to build a paint booth out of my carport, buy a compressor and figure out a dryer/cooler setup. I'm still not sure if it will be cost effective with all the setup costs, but it's something I think I'd enjoy doing.

jeff968

It is not that easy, especially on metallic cars because you need to get the metallic dispersed properly so it doen't look "striped". You'll need a clean environment to paint if you want it to look good. I worked in a body shop in college and learned how to do bodywork. Back in those days we were able to use lacquer which dried very quickly and was easy to work with. With today's urethanes you need to really know what to do. IMHO.
Jeff

mbardeen

That's definitely a consideration. As a way to alleviate some of those difficulties, another possibility would be that I do all the prep/primer work then turn the car over to a pro for the color/clear coats.

I could just turn the car over to a pro and let them do the whole thing, but where's the fun in that?

docmirror

It's at my painters hanger. He has a booth, air flow, lights just like a real paint shop. We're using PPG products, featherfill primer, with some catalyst, DBC paint, and some kind of clear coat. I used to paint cars, but now I just sand and fill and let the pro use the gun. Prep is about 85% of the job, so I'm getting a lot of the work done in advance.

I made a booth out of visquene stuff, and shot two cars before. It was so much of a hassle, and then I had to do touch up several times, so I'm just going to get it to the booth and let him shoot stuff. My second car was a three stage deal and it took me forever to get the paint right.

I'm going out of town for turkey day, so I won't have an update until near Dec.

Lord_Galva

I didn't sand my car down but I did rip everything off the body.
I'm guessing by narrow strips you mean the painted ones?
I stuck a flat tip in there and pulled. There are 6 hangers on the inside of the strips that hold it to the car. These little hangers can break but they are cheap from Sunset. 999 591 732 02 (x12 total)
I pulled mine off and replaced the rubber strip too, 944 559 707 00 also cheap.
If you have the parts diagram its on page 810-00

I have various reference pictures from all over but mostly focused on the bumpers and doors.