Ok i've decided to try and finally do something about the appearance of the car but I need some advice on how to proceed here. As you can see from the photos it definetley needs work , the car was originally painted red but I guess it began to fade because the previous owner painted it Ford Blue (at least I think it's Ford Blue). Well that began to flake off and I guess he was preparing to paint it again (hence the primer) but never finished it and this is the result. I've had it like this now since 02 I haven't had the money to do anything about it and until recently hadn't done much work to it, I can't afford to take it to an Automotive Paint Place right now and it also needs some body work esp on the left rear quarter panel (theres a dent near the wheel well) didn't get a shot of that (my fault). I'm debating what to do here, at first I wanted to just restore the old Red Color until I noticed it fading, I had thought about Black but that would conflict with the Grabber Stripes (which need redoing). It does not have it's original hood and trunk lid, they were swapped before I bought it. I could go with White which the doors already are (somebody really did a number on this paint job). I know I'll need to re primer it first I thought about using a paint stripper and just starting over but I dunno if thats a good idea. I was going to wait on the body work until I finished restoring the car (that was the initial plan) but I have no idea when that will be and the car right now just looks terrible so it can't really wait any longer. I appologise for the quality of some of the images, I don't have a digital camera so I used one of my old 35 mm's, also the photos were taken in the evening so the lighting sucks, tried to fix them as best I can in Photoshop but could only do so much.. I have more photos so I might try finally posting a gallery one of these days.
get an orbital sander and smooth the heck out of the car! than do all body work. aftr that wipe doun the intier car mask all glass and trim and go by about ten cans of automotive primer and spray. do cross coats like on the hood do all lenth wise than with wise.just remember to be real clean and take your time.dont rush it and all the carfull prep work will pay off.sprayings the easy part its the prep work that needs the most attenchen to detail.all in all you can rattle can your car for under 70 bucks and make it look decent.just remember thow if your spraying outside,"if its in the air its on your car!" good luck
PLEASE, don't use rattle can primer I know it looks good when it's done but it won't hold up for more than a few months and primer is not designed to repel water. The rain and washing will eventually get under the primer and cause even more rusting problems. If you can do the prep yourself and just want a cheap paint job go to Maaco, yeah I know, I know. If you've got alot of time on your hands do a search for the roll on paint job on one of the Mopar websites. I read all 300 plus pages of the thread and was very skeptical about rolling paint on a car until someone on the board mentioned using single stage Brightside Topside (not in the water) polyurethane boat paint. I've used this stuff to paint my dad's boat 12 years ago. The boat still looks good to this day. The paint is very durable (the boat has spent it's life in salt water and in direct sun) and designed to be "rolled & tipped". I'm going to paint my Bronco II with the stuff (beater off raod toy) and see how it looks.
may i suggest if you have no other option than rattle can, go with the primer. i know it doesn't last long but it is a lot easier to remove in the future than the "protective enamel" wich is the other choice. it took me 3 weeks to strip my Mav that my dad painted with rattle cans. if you have access to a compressor and a paint gun, there are many options for doing a cheap paint job. single stage paints are easy to lay down and unless you care about show quality, little flaws are really no big deal. whatever you do, a case of krylon will cost as much as a gallon of white enamel. i don't know what your budget is but even if you start with no equipment or materials, a nice looking paint job could be yours for about $500.
i will agree that the primer isnt the best and it surtanly is not a rust inhibiter! but if you are restoring the car and keeping it out of the eliments its not a bad idea.
I agree with that. Any primer is better than bare metal. The problem I've had with rattle can primer is when it comes time to actually paint, anything you put over it will generally lift or peel off quickly. Most canned primers are/were (EPA regs.) laquer based and anything other then laquer put over it will react. Laquer is old technology for painting. Having rolled paint on a 26' boat, it's not a thing I would necessarily want to do again even on a car, but with access to a compressor and okay spray gun I'd use the Brightside polyurethane boat paint (at $10 a quart online) to paint it. The biggest problem with this paint as opposed to an auto based system is waiting and sanding between each coat. Rolling it on puts down a much heavier coat but every 1 to 2 coats has to be sanded. It's time consuming but the result are pretty damn good.
In all likely hood I would do this outside mainly because of the ventilation. If I do it in my garage i'd have to use my shop fan which is pretty powerful to keep the fumes from the paint or primer from building up the downside to that is the fan would blow some of the spray away from the car. Doing it outside however like you said if it's in the air, it's on the car. With all the particulate matter from all the fires still floating around i'll end up having to wait until they're out or at least the smoke is cleared out completley because I don't need that sticking to the paint. I've already had to wash off the car several times during all this. You're absolutley right about primer not being a rust inhibitor and you'll notice the rust spots showing through some areas, there are more that the photos don't cover, mother nature has certainly had a field day with this car over the years. As for my budget it is pretty limited right now I was looking at that Rust Proof Primer (so they say it is) that Auto Krafters sells, I believe Eastwood carries it too I need to order another catalog from them. I dunno if thats the rattle can stuff you guys are talking about. I certaintly didn't think one can would do the job, 10 though? yikes I'm gonna have to save up for that. I just figured I would do something during the summer months while I have a the chance since we see little if any rain during the summer here just intense heat, once fall and winter set in though it's a different story. As for the sander I don't have an orbital but I do have a power hand sander (square bottom) that I mainly use for house work would that work? Also I probably don't want to do this when it's really hot outside, you guys will have to bare with me i've never done any kind of body and paint work before.
