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We aren't happy until you aren't happy
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I have a friend that has 50+ years in the auto refinishing industry. He has owned his own body shop and teaches at a couple local junior colleges. He has been telling me for 18+months that he will paint my track car, he just has to schedule the time at the facility on a weekend (retired people). Well yesterday it finally happened.
I have never done any “real” paint and body work on a car so in all it was a cool learning experience and a 20 hour day.
I knew we only had a day to do the job, so last year I had a professional shop tackle a few larger problems the car had. I used Simon Auto Body in OC.
The shop repaired and smoothed out the aluminum hood, it was a bit of a mess. They also fixed the one rust spot on the car, filled in a couple emblem holes and filled in some trim holes on the fiberglass fenders. They just left their work in primer as I was going to take care of the paint.
This is where we started:
So in prep for the actual paint work I stripped the car of all the parts and trim I could. I pulled all the lights, door handles, side mirrors, body moulding and sunroof delete from the car. I did all of that stuff last week.
Yesterday morning before loading the car on the trailer.
So we get there and meet my friend at the facility. We talked and he expected to be home by dinner. We had agreed that since the larger issues with the body were taken care of, we would clean the car, scuff it up and shoot the paint. We’d all be home by dinner time...
We started disassembling the car a bit to make it easier to prep.
“Well since we are here why don’t we just take care of all the small dents...” there were small dents on the doors, quarters, and roof.
We began pounding out what dents we could get to from the inside to use the smallest amount of body filler possible. Then filing down the high spots, sanding and prepping for the thin coat of filler.
Body filler applied on doors, roof and quarter panels.
Filler sanded, car prepped for spraying localized primer over repairs
Car masked and primer applied to localized repairs.
Primer sanded, all parts and car being prepped to go into the booth for sealer and paint. At this point every part getting paint was scuffed up with a scuff pad, or DA with 400 grit sand paper.
Finally into the booth for masking and final cleaning!
Then the sealer can go on every thing to get paint. We put a couple drops of red in it as a joke and sent people pictures. The sealer takes about 15-20 mins to flash. The car actually looked OK in matte pink! We got back in the paint booth one final time to look for any imperfections and address them before the color got laid down. We didn’t find anything at all. The sealer went down great. Time for color!
The paint I used is a single stage acrylic urethane. That means there is no clear coat, the color provides the shine. I used Summit Racing’s line of paints in you guessed it Hugger Orange. Single stage paint is a great option for this car, as it is easy to touch up, and this is by no means a show car.
Color getting laid down. It is about 11 PM at this time.
Then in order to accelerate the paint drying so the car could be reassembled to go home, we turned the temp in the paint booth up to 140 degrees for about 45 mins. The heater on the booth was 1 million BTU!
After a cool down we got back into the booth to unmask the car, reassemble it for transport, and get the heck out of there!
We did a pretty good just masking, just a couple of light spots of overspray that were easily fixed.
Got the car assembled and loaded on the trailer. It was a little passed 2AM when I got in the house. A marathon day for sure.
And pulled the car out today to let us dry a bit more in the sun. I still need to put all the lights and painted trim back on it, refit the fenders and doors, and repaint a few pieces in black that need a little restoration.
All in all it was worth spending the several extra hours making the body near perfect and the results really exceeded my expectations. I would have been happy with the car just one color again, but it looks great! I have even more appreciation for the work that goes into a quality OE repair job or custom bodywork now.
In a month or 2 when the paint really hardens up I will probably color sand a buff it out for an even better result.
I’ll post more pictures as I get the car reassembled.
I have never done any “real” paint and body work on a car so in all it was a cool learning experience and a 20 hour day.
I knew we only had a day to do the job, so last year I had a professional shop tackle a few larger problems the car had. I used Simon Auto Body in OC.
The shop repaired and smoothed out the aluminum hood, it was a bit of a mess. They also fixed the one rust spot on the car, filled in a couple emblem holes and filled in some trim holes on the fiberglass fenders. They just left their work in primer as I was going to take care of the paint.
This is where we started:
So in prep for the actual paint work I stripped the car of all the parts and trim I could. I pulled all the lights, door handles, side mirrors, body moulding and sunroof delete from the car. I did all of that stuff last week.
Yesterday morning before loading the car on the trailer.
So we get there and meet my friend at the facility. We talked and he expected to be home by dinner. We had agreed that since the larger issues with the body were taken care of, we would clean the car, scuff it up and shoot the paint. We’d all be home by dinner time...
We started disassembling the car a bit to make it easier to prep.
“Well since we are here why don’t we just take care of all the small dents...” there were small dents on the doors, quarters, and roof.
We began pounding out what dents we could get to from the inside to use the smallest amount of body filler possible. Then filing down the high spots, sanding and prepping for the thin coat of filler.
Body filler applied on doors, roof and quarter panels.
Filler sanded, car prepped for spraying localized primer over repairs
Car masked and primer applied to localized repairs.
Primer sanded, all parts and car being prepped to go into the booth for sealer and paint. At this point every part getting paint was scuffed up with a scuff pad, or DA with 400 grit sand paper.
Finally into the booth for masking and final cleaning!
Then the sealer can go on every thing to get paint. We put a couple drops of red in it as a joke and sent people pictures. The sealer takes about 15-20 mins to flash. The car actually looked OK in matte pink! We got back in the paint booth one final time to look for any imperfections and address them before the color got laid down. We didn’t find anything at all. The sealer went down great. Time for color!
The paint I used is a single stage acrylic urethane. That means there is no clear coat, the color provides the shine. I used Summit Racing’s line of paints in you guessed it Hugger Orange. Single stage paint is a great option for this car, as it is easy to touch up, and this is by no means a show car.
Color getting laid down. It is about 11 PM at this time.
Then in order to accelerate the paint drying so the car could be reassembled to go home, we turned the temp in the paint booth up to 140 degrees for about 45 mins. The heater on the booth was 1 million BTU!
After a cool down we got back into the booth to unmask the car, reassemble it for transport, and get the heck out of there!
We did a pretty good just masking, just a couple of light spots of overspray that were easily fixed.
Got the car assembled and loaded on the trailer. It was a little passed 2AM when I got in the house. A marathon day for sure.
And pulled the car out today to let us dry a bit more in the sun. I still need to put all the lights and painted trim back on it, refit the fenders and doors, and repaint a few pieces in black that need a little restoration.
All in all it was worth spending the several extra hours making the body near perfect and the results really exceeded my expectations. I would have been happy with the car just one color again, but it looks great! I have even more appreciation for the work that goes into a quality OE repair job or custom bodywork now.
In a month or 2 when the paint really hardens up I will probably color sand a buff it out for an even better result.
I’ll post more pictures as I get the car reassembled.
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