Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

I am doing the metal work and plan on having someone else do the final body and paint work. I want to minimize the amount of filler and make sure there is no more rust on the car.

Regarding paint, as long as you know all the body panels fit well together, I would pull the glass, hood, doors and deck lid and paint all panels separately. As long as they are sitting in their final orientation when you spray them (doors vertical, hood horizontal etc), the metal flake should settle out properly. Obviously the spray technique needs to be consistent. The guy that shot my last car said he 'hears the color coat speak to him to tell him when to shoot the first clear coat'. I'm not sure what the hell that meant (too much solvent to the brain?) but he feels timing is important between those two coats so that there is good adhesion and so that the metal flake "stands up properly" so that the color looks deeper.

TCP Global has low prices but I like to buy locally because I dont know everything about paint and the advice and suggestions are invaluable.
Have you priced Nason? I ve had good luck and it's a mid grade compared to Ditzle
Danr

Bob, here is how I did it after a lot of checking around: After all of the body work was done, and final primer was sanded, I took the doors, trunk, hood, and front fenders and hung them from stands that I made from wood. Watch Eastwoods videos to see this process. During this same shoot I painted inside the engine bay, the cockpit and the trunk, getting the jams of each one last. Kind of start at the inner most point and back your way out while spraying. When doing the jams you go around the edges to the outer surface as well so that you have a good continuous paint surface from inner to outer. Once you have it all base-coated it is ready to clear-coat. The time window is plenty wide. Once all the parts are dry you sand the exterior surfaces of eah piece nice and smooth and then mount in their places. Now you need to carefully tape and cover anyplace where you don't want paint to get to. There is special adhesive backed foam striping for application around the mating surfaces between the body and panels that leaves you with "soft" edges. Now you are ready to spray the whole exterior. Get it up high on stands. and use lots of lights. Again, watch the Eastwood videos.

Hey guys, have a paint removal question. I am focusing more on getting the car running and driving for now, and will focus more on looks next year or over the winter. Car has been off the road for a while and needs some TLC, to put it mildly, haha. That said, on days when I am waiting for parts, or needing a break from that stuff, I want to attack some of the paint removal. Just wanting to get some surface rust issues brought under control before it sits too much longer, as well as assessing what might be lurking under the paint. The easiest way for me to do this at home I'm thinking is an air DA sander. I was thinking 100-120 grit, but have also seen some write-ups about using 80. 80 seems like it would be a little rough to me, but maybe I am being a bodywork sissy? Any advice?

Well, looks like I'm going to need a 3rd recommendation, Todd and C.Costine are 1 each. I think I'm leaning towards Mr. Costine's approach.

V8_Ranch, my car was pretty rough when I got it. I used 80 grit minimum with a DA sander, 36 grit it some places, air craft remover and a torch to melt out the old bondo and at least 3 or 4 layers of paint. Time consuming and messy. If I had to do it again, I would consider media blast, or buy a car already done. (but where's the fun in that?)

bossbob, looks like we are starting from similar places, haha... and yes, where would the fun be if not?

I think that is a good plan to just sand etc a bit in between other projects. You could knock down the rust, even use some rattle can primer for now then sand it off later when you want to primer the whole car in the booth.
Mixing up the resto helps to keep you from getting too bogged down, perhaps.
Linda

V8, for stripping paint you might want to try a strip disk, or "rapid strip". You can get them at Harbor Freight and they fit into an angle grinder. They take paint and filler off really quickly but are not as aggressive on the metal as sandpaper. Also, for bondo (and I had a ton of it on my car) there were some areas where I used a heat gun and scraper. The bondo comes off in a dry powder like consistency.

Bob the first car I ever painted was my son's 71 Nova. I did it in metallic silver from the coating store. It came out really nice. It was done about 7 years ago and he still gets lots of comments on his car. I never even buffed it out. Was afraid to mess it up. My second car was my roadster and it was done in a viper red from the coating store. That was 3 years ago. Still looks new. I have been pretty happy with it.

I took some body shop classes in the early 80’s to prepare my car for a repaint. I wanted to go to bare metal. The instructor had me use 36 grit on a 9” pneumatic DA followed by 40 grit then hand sand with finer paper thereafter. IT WAS A LOT OF WORK. If you are going to use a DA, it will probably be a 6”. Much cheaper as are the discs. It takes a lot of discs to do a whole car. Be advised however, it will be frustratingly slow unless you have a 5hp or larger compressor with a 60 or 80 gallon tank.
Another name for what Todd Lorber is describing is a flap wheel. They are much quicker than a grinding disc. Definitely check into media blasting and consider the overall cost vs buying a decent DA sander along with a hundred dollars or so in discs!

Here's my painting saga so far.

Around March I put the roadster on jack stands and removed everything on the left side - lights, trim door handle etc.
Finally fixed the front fender where I paid a guy to screw up a patch panel.
Decided I needed a bigger compressor.
Had a bigger electrical service added to barn to power new compressor.
Needed a 3' x 3' slab to mount compressor outside.
Had a 10' x 16' lean to added to barn.
Wired and finished inside of lean to.
Really started missing driving my roadster.
Bought a new Miata.
Very soon now I'm going to take some more stuff off the roadster.

Squirrel!
That is a completely tangential “While I’m at it” distraction. Problem is I completely get it! I can always be distracted to get new bigger better tools. OK, now focus - back to the Roadster.

I got a DA and coarse paper, but it was still painfully slow and I believe that it is because the material being removed stays under the disc too long. It seemed to work a little better on vertcal than flat surfaces. I see the DA as more of a finish tool. I really like flap wheels. I use them a lot on heavy steel and cast iron. HOWEVER, I found them to be too stiff on the 20 gauge sheet metal and they put little gouges in it. My go to is a cup style twisted wire wheel in a 4.5 inch grinder. They are a lot stiffer than conventional wire wheels yet not so aggressive as to hurt the metal. You want to have a standard flat twisted wire wheel as well for places that the cup won't get into.

Back when I was a kid I sanded 6 coats of paint off my car with an orbital palm sander and 60-80 grit... yes, a 3"×3" palm sander. It took days and days of dedicated, mindless work but it was all I had. I also use to be able to lay in the trunk and crawl under the dash and the car no problem. Now, 35 years later, I'm doing a bunch of under the dash/car wiring and fuel line for the EFI computer and stand alone fuse box and discovering my back is just not the same. I move like a sloth and groan like an old door hinge. That fact would play a big role in my decisions about methodology for similar projects, such as body work. Have fun!

I too took mine down to bare metal but I did it differently. I used the old paint that was left on the car as a guide coat. With a 16" block and 60 grit paper I blocked to find highs and lows, fixed them as I went and then used a DA with 100 grit to take each panel down to bare metal. Then sprayed with 2 or 3 coats of high fill primer and blocked again with with 320 grit. Then before paint I blocked again with 400, sealed, one more light block and then paint. This seemed to work well for me.