Painting your car el cheapo style.

Nice job! Well done!

But I'm shocked at how bad the paint got. Has it spent much in the sun? My car is 23 years old and most of the paint is pretty good, especially on the roof and the back of the car. Until it got a new hood, front bumper and left wing (courtesy of my 'friends' driving), it was only a bit faded on one medium-sized spot on the hood. And from what I remember, it's spent a lot of it's life outside.
 
I've done a lot of this sort of repair and it usually looks pretty good. At least 10ft-15ft good anyway. My car has quite a few places resprayed with the color matched paint. If I ever get around to wet sanding them and clearing you probably could barely tell.

At worst, I still consider this a much better idea then just having messed up paint or primer and running around forever. Far better then the ricers with half primered civics running around, claiming they are waiting to get it all repainted custom. That's really no excuse not to at least get some Duplicolor and color match the parts. Sure they would still be riced out crap and would look bad up close, but they wouldn't be such an eye sore at least.
 
Adunaphel said:
Nicely done, although i have a tip that would avoid those nasty tape-lines on the boot for a next time: before you apply the tape, fold 1/3 over and stick it to itself, leaving you with a piece of tape of which 50% sticks and 50% doesn't. Apply the tape with the non-sticking part facing towards where you're going to paint, so that it would look as follows: _/ (low budget ASCII art effects FTW!). This allows for a bit of paint to get under the non-sticking part of the tape allowing for a more gradual fade-out as opposed to a hard edge.
And one other question, did you (wet) sand the exposed areas of the paint you were going to treat? Because it looks like you didn't, and sanding would have given you better results, with much less visible bad spots.
But as you said, you just wanted to prevent it from rusting and that you did.
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Yes I did wet sand some areas before, but I was scared shitless of going through to the primer in the spots where the clear coat was totally gone. So I didn't want to press my luck.

avanti said:
The fuel filler area looks ok, but the rest is far from satisfactory. Why didn't you get a spray gun for a air compressor, they don't cost much.
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Because I don't have the money for that setup? The whole point behind this was to get some protection the cheapest way possible.
 
BlaRo said:
I'm doing the same thing to my CB550F. After reading about the $50 Corvair Paint Job I was on the fence, but then I came across that same article and the next day ran out and bought a can of Rustoleum High-Performance Enamel (Regal Red) and some primer. It's pretty inspiring.

Some say...that the paintjob won't hold up over time, but the Corvair job held up after 18 months with minor buffing, and repairs easily as well. On this Mustang forum some guy had a good job with it too (scroll down halfway to Mustang Chuck's post, about his red flood-damaged car).

There's a huge amount of controversy about this sort of thing, but I've already sunk enough money into my own project. I didn't want to spend another $400 taking it to a shop.
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Holy crap. This has massively opened my eyes... I had thought about this idea before but knowing that it can turn out so well is really encouraging.

I notice that he now recommends using a 1-part polyurethane enamel like Interlux Brightside (which is a boat paint). That is a brilliant idea and one I had thought of myself -- I used to work in a marine store and we received nothing but great reviews about that brand. Said that it flows on beatifully, self-levels, and looks like you sprayed it. Also, they now have a 2-part system that is supposed to be even better. I think I would probably go this route.

+Rep for you!
 
Punisher Bass said:
If/when I do get a real paint job done, I want it done in black, or maybe two tone black and silver. I never liked the maroon color.

Also, thanks for the words of encoragment. It tells me I didn't make a horrible mistake by doing this.
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:cool: Oh, yeah!

2669418_1_full.jpg
 
Bad choice of colors. An orange/red with black and a green pinstripe, bleh. I'd like to see mine with silver uptop and black below the beltline.
 
Blame GM for saving costs on the paint of the car. Looks much better now, considering that you didn't have professional tools to work with.
 
Nice job! It reminds me of one of those Wheeler Dealer episodes where Ed China does the painting himself.
 
Did you lightly sand the areas before spraying? I think you could have gotten past the cloudy, oxidized clear coat if you had. Looks ok, now wet sand those weird edges down!
 
:d how the heck did they paint that car :D This doesn't happen to any car newer than 20-30 years from my experience.
 
un-dee said:
:d how the heck did they paint that car :D This doesn't happen to any car newer than 20-30 years from my experience.
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I've no idea. All the other cars we've had had no trouble with the paint, even the taurus that was 1 year older than my car and was left outside exclusivly for over 3 years.
 
un-dee said:
:d how the heck did they paint that car :D This doesn't happen to any car newer than 20-30 years from my experience.
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You have clearly never seen a red Citroen BX turn white :p
 
Punisher Bass said:
I've no idea. All the other cars we've had had no trouble with the paint, even the taurus that was 1 year older than my car and was left outside exclusivly for over 3 years.
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Left outside for over 3 years!!! :blink:

Oh wait, aren't most cars left outside for, you know, their entire lives?
 
If you don't have a covered garage, then yeah.

I also saw a car with the exact same paint problems today but it was a early 90's camry believe it or not.
 
Vector said:
Left outside for over 3 years!!! :blink:

Oh wait, aren't most cars left outside for, you know, their entire lives?
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Well the car didn't run for that whole time, and there was lack of space in our garage. I brought that car back to life last summer and it was promptly wrecked by an old fuck in a Lexus driving 45mph.
 
Just for future reference; you should never wax a car less than 3 months after a paint job, the paint hasn't "set", for want of a better word. Or to quote someone else, it "trap solvents in the paint, and impedes the ?cross-linking? of modern paint polymers".

After a factory respray is fine, since their ovens are much hotter, but after a spray you or a body shop done, you should wait.
 
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