Good lord, what have done?

[bossbob]

Well I started working on the body somewhat, might have gone too deep, but better to start with a clean slate I guess.

Here, you can see some of the layers I have had to go through, original color is silver, looks like it's been covered in yellow, blue, and white, also found some hints of Sora Blue on it too.

15412905018010.jpg

Here, she's getting kinda naked. Going to have to find a good auto body forum. Any recommendations?

15412905211271.jpg

This has been done with air craft stripper and good ole fashion sand paper so far.

I'm open to any advice and suggestions. Too late to turn back!

Thanks again,

[ACote]

I just did the same earlier this year. If I was to do it again I'd strip a fender then primer it before surface rust pops up. I didn't get much but it was a pain going back over what already took so long to strip. It all depends on your schedule but this allows you to take your time and make it look nice.

this is one of the first videos I learned from, they skim coated the door since they had a lot of waves(and color sanding isn't necessary seems to be a mix of opinions). But usually you just need to use a guide coat to find small dents to hammer and fill. Plenty of videos on youtube to learn from and it does get easier the more you do it.

[jrusso07]

I striped a 2000 that had 4 coats of paint including factory paint. It was so thick abd brittle that I removed most of it with a razor blade - no chemicals. This basically left the car in fatory brown primer. Not sure how far you are along but you might give it a try.

Also, the channels to mount the side trim on rear quarter panls looked to be filled in with body filler? Are you goinb to grind hat out or leave as is and not have side trim?

[bossbob]

Thanks for the reply's, nice Video Alex,

Joe, the goal is to have a nice looking and running roadster. The plan as of now is to strip the body, block it out, and get some paint on it. Will most likely go without the original side trim due to cost, but may add the protecto trim I saw in the wiki. Don't really know yet.

But, like I've said in the past, I'm open to suggestions and advice. I'm sure the car will be more valuable with the correct trim.

[greydog]

Just painted the hood of my 2000 this summer.
The car has at one time shorted the battery so the hood had 6 layers of burned paint, clear coat, rattle can paint, etc.
Here's what I learned....
I bought a Harbor Freight 8" sander/grinder and discs from 36 to 120 grit....the 36 grit worked well to cut thru the messed up surface and some older enamel that just seemed to gum up on finer discs. Then I moved to 120 grit and finally to 220 with my air powered da.
I did not remove every bit of paint, if it would feather with the 120 grit, I stopped in that area and moved to the next. Once a couple ripples were filled and blocked and the old paint feathered, I shot on two coats of dark grey expoxy primer (this stuff is sticky and will adhear to anything that mostly clean and dry. It will not sand well.
Then I used 2 coats of hi build urethane primer, I blocked it, found a few low spots, especially at the center hood rib so I sprayed a couple more. This stuff is great, it dry sands easily and I think you could probably bury a quarter under it.....
Once I was satisfied with it, I shot a sealer coat of reduced epoxy and followed it up with three coats of single stage urethane enamel top coat.

This whole deal is much different than the old days of lacquer or enamels. It doesn't spray the same and flows much better to leave a nice surface.

I think overall, I probably used twice as much paint as I needed....
I used a cheap paint gun set from Amazon and it worked fine. My 2 hp single stage compressor had no trouble keeping up but I was only painting the hood. Had I been spraying the whole car I might have run low on air.
If you use a single stage top coat and have flaws (I had a few dirt nibs and a sag near the leading edge of the hood) sand that the next day because the urethane paint will get HARD and it'll be much less work. Then if you have some orange peel, you can sand and buff after a couple of days and you're done.
Now the hood looks so good, I've gotta find time to paint the rest of the car. Once that's done, I have the '69 to tackle.
One other thing.....use a good mask. My mask filtered out all the fumes so I never smelled the primers or urethane until I was done and removed the mask. I'm sure breathing any of it would be good so don't cheap out on the mask. Good ones aren't that expensive.
Dan

[redroadster]

I will not spray another car ...have it done ...or you will wish you had later

[greydog]

Yeah, it's a lot of work.
I like doing it and, unlike a lot of mechanical things, you can see the fruit (or lemons) of your labor so there's a degree of visual satisfaction that comes from the work.
I agree tho, paying to have the car painted is much easier and not a lot more expensive considering all the equipment you'll buy.
Dan

[pebbles]

If you used paint stripper ALL of the filler must come off.
A roadster without side trim is like a mustang with a 3 sp.

[greydog]

Dave is right...if you use any sort of stripper, you've gotta take it to metal and remove any filler.
The filler will absorb some stripper which will surprise you with a nice bleed thru. Sealer won't seal that stuff in.
Dan

[bossbob]

Thanks for the update, I have about 90% of the filler out, working on the rear half of the car right now. Figure I would get it stripped and rough blocked and apply some epoxy primer for protection before starting the front half of the car.

David, I got a laugh out of your reply. If anyone wants to donate a set of side trim, I'm open..........

[dads311]

I used an 18" board with 80 grit to sand the car down, I knew it was going to go all the way down to bare metal because the PO used a grinder to remove the paint from the upper 1/3 of the car. I found the highs and lows using the old paint as a guide coat and I did most of the repairs before before even finishing the sanding. As mentioned above I did a fender and then primed it to keep the rust at bay. Oh and something else I learned was to not use any kind of a chemical rust or metal primer on the bare metal. It gets into the metal and if not washed and neutralized completely it will ruin what looks to be a good coat of epoxy and removing gummy epoxy is a PITA.... just saying.
Looking at your list of cars you have probably done this before so just take your time and have fun, mine only took 2 1/2 years.

[C.Costine]

Don't start to think about refinishing until you have the paint removed from the areas that tend to rust, like the rear wheel arches, the bottom of the front fenders, the rocker panels.

[bossbob]

Mike, what kind of primer did you use going from panel to panel. Was it spray can, or spray gun. I'm thinking I want to use my spray gun but wondering if I should just spray each panel with a coat of rattle can for protection as you mention until it's all done, then a solid coat out of the gun.

[greydog]

My understanding is the best substrate you can apply is epoxy primer. It cannot be sprayed over etching primer so I'd think you'd want to shoot epoxy primer from your gun directly to the bare metal.
Problem is that it's wasteful and a hassle to do that way for a fender at a time.
Even tho I live in the Pacific Northwest my intention is to get the car all to primeable condition, wipe it down with purple scotchbrite to remove any surface oxidation, clean it very well and spray the primer.
Dan

[dads311]

I just used a 2k primer out of my gun. I had some left from another car I did. Most of that came off later when I was getting ready to shoot the entire car with epoxy. On the front fenders I cleaned all the old undercoating off and then made sure there was no rust and then shot new undercoating, no primer there. If I had been doing this during the summer when we have about 10% humidity I probably wouldn't have worried about priming as I went but in winter it is pretty humid.