29 years of sun..

[8v-of-fury]

.. has faded the paint quite a bit.. plus it is gold.. I was thinking of painting it.. but would polishing it return a lot of the shine? there are some spots where the clear seem to have come off?

Ok well there is bodywork needed.. What color should i go? I have a spray gun and access to a compressor.. I want to do it well this time. Rolled on my last car.. didn't look bad, but i want this one mint.
















I will be putting in these seats.. with or without new covers (pinkish red shag does it for me, but people might get the wrong idea )


So what color would you paint it? I'm leaning towards a brown, or dark red like this; but darker...


What advice can you give me about spraying? any at all? 

She smoked a little when i got it, retarded timing and air leak. Fixed the leak and timed it to 1.02mm, perfect.


Thanks for looking.

Also who has some good prep tips? sand with 200 to get the clear off and then a 400, then 800-1000 wetsand to get it glass smooth!?

thanks so much guys. How do you like my Dope Whip? lolol

[Smokey Eddy]

oooooooo i love the black beauty

[catlin_cava]

Purple? Pink?

[Wayland]

That's so bizzarre! I just picked up the IDENTICAL car!! Same year, same colour, and in about the same condition, even has the same  repair over the antenna spot!!

[maxfax]

I'm no body man by any means..   But definitly you got some sanding ahead..   You'll want all that old clear coat gone, and you'll want to get down to a good solid base..  My personal preference is to sand down, get it fairly smooth, put a couple good thick coats of sandable primer filler, then alot of fine grit wet sanding..   When I restored my Mustang many moons ago we did the primer filler thing, then coated it with a thin coat of cheapo red primer..  Wet sanded with very fine grit till the red was gone and it was smooth...

[8v-of-fury]

so essentially, get it down to base, couple coats of a primer filler to fix any indentations, then sanding with fine grit. how fine? like 800-1000? finer?

did you then at that point lay down paint? or more primer?

how many coats of clear did you end up using?

[maxfax]

I had an old timer help me out with the Mustang..  There may be more modern/better methods now  but IIRC:

  After stripping the old paint down pretty thin (there was no clear as it had lead paint yet), all body repairs were done..  I wet sanded with 600 a time or two.. Left everything dry REALLY well..  Then the filler primer, I think we did 2 coats, but one would have been enough.. One thin coat of red primer (just to cover), then wet sanded with probably about 1000 till the red was gone.. Then a quick wet sand with 2000 and left it dry really well again..   There was also a primer sealer we used, but I can't remeber if that was before or after the filler primer... I'm pretty sure it was after as I remember spraying it on, letting is cure about 20 mins then sprayed the base coat followed by 6 coats of clear..  That thing was SHINEY!!!  Personally if it had looked half as good as it did it would have been 3x better than a high end factory paint.. I also remeber that it was rather costly even with me doing alot of the work... It wasn't real fireproof either... 

Out of all of that, I thought the filler primer was pretty slick stuff.. It really did help with working out imperfections..  And the trick of spraying another color primer over it to aid in cleaning up nicks, scratches and low spots was great...

[maxfax]

I also wanted to add that you may even want to look into some of the Acrylic Urethane paints out there on the market..  Granted they probably aren;t as pretty as a base coat clear coat job, but they are much easier to spray and a little easier on the wallet..  Most of these are pre mixed generic colors versus factory matches but that would allow for easier touch ups if need be.. There is still quite a variety of colors to choose from too..

 I think the Urethane varieties even allow the option of spraying with a clear whenever for some extra gloss..  You do have to be careful in mixing certain clears with certain paints as some don't play well together..  The clear will actually lift the paint similar to a paint stripper... Typical base/clear you have to spray the clear within a certain amount of time before the previous coat dries, whereas once again with the urethane stuff you can throw the clear on whenever..  I *think*..   

Hopefully someone more experienced and up to date on this stuff will chime in...

[theman53]

Yeah Maxfax pretty well has it from my experience. Just stay away from Acrylic Enamel...it is cheap, but it takes way too long to dry and will get sun faded. Acrylic Urethane is better in both dry time and fading. I haven't sprayed base clear yet, but from what I heard it is easy to do just don't let it sit too long between the base and clear. Basically you are supposed to have it all ready spray the base and then the clear as soon as the base is done. Most paint places have charts with the paint they sell to help you mix, spray, and know what time to spray and how long to dry. I can get an acrylic urethane for well under 100.00 a gallon, I think when I priced some this fall I could get the exact blue match for my car for around 65.00 with catalyst. I have had good luck with PPG, Dupont, and their bottom shelf brands. PPG's is called Omni and works.
The filler primer is basically liquid bondo and has a very high fill rate. Living in salty conditions you definately want to finish it with an epoxy primer as it locks all the bad stuff out better than regular primers.
Lastly GO ARMY GREEN with the white star on the hood.

[maxfax]

The other issue I have found with acrylic enamel is that it chips extremely easy..  The urethane seems more flexible/durable..


Army green = Very cool....   Get some military surplus paint, that stuff is TOUGH!!

[8v-of-fury]

Dear Lucas and Brett. I didn't listen to you on painting the last one army green, I am not painting this one army green either however this one with a diesel would be more tank like... lol

People advise at respraying gold as it will match everywhere else (trunk, inside, engine bay). So i was thinking of just doing all the bodywork and laying down some good primer, roughing up the old stuff and laying down some new color with a few coats of clear.. Also while trying to stay as cheap.. cheap isnt the right word.. inexpensive! as possible

I might hide a white star on it somewhere just for you Lucas

[Syncroincity]

Have you considered satin black? Gives a nice Mad Max appearance, easy maintenance & touch-up. Spray or roll-on...

[catlin_cava]

Hot Candy Pink   

[8v-of-fury]

Already gotsa black one Tremclad Glossy. It turned out alright, hood is crap from a previous painting, and being too lazy to take it down far enough with sanding.



I kinda think the gold is growing on me. touch up all the bodywork, and respray i think is my plan of attack.

I have seen a truck spray gunned, with some sort of cheap paint ( i think tremclad to be honest) and then it had a clear applied.. it turned out very well. Could i spray on rust paint? or will that screw up the gun i have?

[maxfax]

Keeping the same color would be easier, as masking door jambs is a PITA..   And mis matched colors sure does look like crap..  That gold doesn't look like too bad of a color.. Unlike a darker color, body inperfections and dirt should be less likely to show up.. At least plan on stripping all the clear coat off..  If it's already peeling in some places, it's gonna start peeling in others... If you can get the clear off, and everything fairly smoothed up, a single coat of primer sealer should do the job...

I know there are different guns for different paint.. Sometimes it's just a change of the nozzle too..  ALot of it has to do with the viscosity (?) of the paint I guess.. I'm not real versed on what gun for what paint..  Typically the paint vendor should be able to help you out on that...

 I use and old gun that was for lead based paint to spray modern oil based implement enamel..  Works dandy..  But put the same paint in a modern paint gun and it spatters and plugs.  Like wise modern urethane enamel and such in my ancient paint gun always seems to  come out too heavy and run like a mother or look splotchy...