Respray a car

[GermanwithaVdub]

ey guys, a couple of questions about respraying a car

what is the easiest way to strip the old paint, provided theres nothing in the engine bay and almost no interior? is paint stripper the best way?

aaaaaand... would someone like me with limited painting experience but a steady hand and some coordination be able to perform a complete respray with hired equipment and in an oven, and have it look good?

thanks, michael

[RedMk2Gti]

For home workshop, i think paint striper is the easiest way. I'll need to do similar, so please keep updating this thread
Are you respraying it by yourself ?

[GermanwithaVdub]

yep... well i'm sure my mate will help me... but he doesnt have any more experience than i do. i've painted a few things car related but never done the whole car and never stripped to bare metal. i think ill rent one of those low bake ovens for spray painting. i guess the worst that can happen is it will look like crap which is what it will look like before spraying it there must be some people on here who know a bit more about it...

[VW Convert]

yep... well i'm sure my mate will help me... but he doesnt have any more experience than i do. i've painted a few things car related but never done the whole car and never stripped to bare metal. i think ill rent one of those low bake ovens for spray painting. i guess the worst that can happen is it will look like crap which is what it will look like before spraying it there must be some people on here who know a bit more about it...

It's a brave (or foolish) man that spraypaints his own car!

Many years ago I did a restoration on my much loved Mini Cooper S (a real Mini not one of those pseudo ones that are on the market now) I was lucky that I had my now ex wife's cousin who was a spraypainter to do the actual respray. (Note, she is now my ex wife, the one that made me sell the "S")

A couple of things to consider:-

Automotive paint is expensive, if you stuff it up you've blown your dough.
Preparation is everything, no matter how good you can spraypaint, a poorly prepared surface will look a mess after it is painted. What looks OK to you or me a trained eye will not find satisfactory.
Spraypainters make the job look easy but that only comes with training, there is much more to it than just waving a spraygun around.
Going to bare metal requires priming etc prior to painting, before you start I'd be finding out step by step info as to what has to be done. By the way, if I were going to do a bare metal respray I'd be stripping it to a bodyshell and getting it sandblasted.
Automotive paints tend to be very toxic and require correct handling and appropriate attire whilst using them.

Hope that is of some assistance.

Cheers

George

[anarchycamp]

What looks OK to you or me a trained eye will not find satisfactory.

This is the mistake I made in my first effort a few years ago, my prep work looked good to me but when it came down to it, it really wasnt that good. The way I look at it is, if it was that easy to get a good finish, why would anyone take their car to a professional?

Ive got better since my first attempt, but I still would'nt take anything I really cared about on, get a pro to do it.

[GermanwithaVdub]

yeah they're good points you made... good reason says that i should give it to someone who knows what they're doing. but the car wont be worth anything much to me at that stage so i might give it a go myself, and it would be a completely stripped car i would be working on.

when i end up doing it, ill be sure to post a writeup of my experience here.

thanks for the advice guys

anarchy, how did you go about the prep work and what did you take off/ leave on the car when doing your respray project(s)? how much did it end up costing in materials?

regards, michael

[Golf Loon]

Hey GermanwithaVdub does that mean you have a Mk2 Shell?

My personal experience of painting a few cars is

1. I dont like driving cars I have painted.
2. Preparation is crucial, its about 95% prep and 5% painting.
3. I have realized life is too short to spend ages prepping a car that then looks crap when painted.

I`d strip the car down to a rolling shell and then take it to a professiona for a pre-arranged cheap price. I`d find a small / medium smash repairer thats no too busy and have a chat.

I have found that if you prep the car yourself, the painter has to do it again anyway. Lots of blokes would rather do the prep themselves if they are going to paint it, so it is done in the way they want. They probably have a better sander than you too

You save money because they don`t have to dismantle and reassemble the car.

Good luck

[anarchycamp]

I took it down to a rolling shell (I wont mention what kind of car it was but begins with Cor and and ends in olla...16v so not all bad! )...took it back to the metal, fixed a few minor dents but got a panel beater mate to fix the really nasty panels. I wouldnt do it again (especially on a Corolla), so much work and it didnt turn out that great, i had all the time in the world back then though, not anymore

Advantage of it being a Corolla was that as i was putting it back together it was a piece of cake to get new/used parts when i needed them, would have taken me a lot longer if i had to wait/search for the parts. Thats my experience, not all bad, but wouldnt do it again.

As for cost, i really dont remember, a lot of it was for cases of beer and things like that, real currency!

[GermanwithaVdub]

yeah loon i think ill do what you said... but i might go one step further and take the paint off depending on how much energy i have.

sadly no mk2 as yet, have missed a few good opportunities due to being too busy at the moment and also because i will have to borrow my mum's garage for a few months due to my place not having one and if its just sitting there id start getting nagged after not too long... mums are mums (well my place does out the back but its just about to fall over... literally)

so yep, project still definitely in the pipeline

thanks for the feedback guys

michael

[Jarred]

oh dash. I was hoping you would give it ago yourself. I was also looking at re spraying my car come summertime, but I was also nervous about making it look crap.

I've always been under the impression that getting a decent paint job would set you back around $2K - which I can't afford. I know a mate of mine got a $500 jobby on VL turbo but it was masked (quite well) but the finish was terrible.

Luckily I have some spare panels lying around (hello ebay booty) so I'm planning on giving these a lick first and seeing how I go; and if it turns out alrite, stripping and doing my car.

Practice makes perfect doesn't it?

[The_Hawk]

When one of my mates first got his license, he and his dad bought two 75 Carolla's and fashioned them into one running vehicle (total cost $500).

They then to get it all the same colour they sprayed it white in the backyard, with a compressor and a paintguy. Then end result was basically a matt white finish, so nothing crash hot. But at 17 he had a vehicle which run well and was all the one colour.

If your building a danger to run around in, by all means, paint it yourself. Otherwise (especially when it's stripped) taking a rolling shell to a painter it a much better option.

[Giles]

Prep is everything,unlucky for any1 who isnt trained to paint
it can be a night mare,like its been said its very easy to miss
something and all you will get is a whole lot of shrink back,
Any questions just ask,A home repsray is do-able alas mite
lack that quality that a dub should be finished in