hey guys...I am seriously considering repainting my car but I want to do some research and find out the involvement in the whole deal. I want to do a lot of the prep work by myself. My car is probably going to be parked for a few months, so stripping off the parts and prepping it myself seems possible. A professional will still be painting it, but I figured this way i would be saving thousands on a paint job by doing the work myself.

How would I go about actually prepping the surface of my car? do you strike off the paint? primer? fill? like what are the steps and what tools do you need? Could somebody run me through the steps? Somebody who has done this kinda work before like Upgraded Si or somebody?


thanks guys...

 

Painting a car is 95% prep and 5% painting. You pay a lot for professional paint jobs b/c of the preparation and paint costs. Usually it is just the preparation.


What you need to do is pull out all the dents/dings. Fill in all the holes, and bondo any damage. Sand until smooth and make sure everything is even. You dont want low spots or high spots. You dont want uneveness. Primer, sand, wetsand. If this is all done right the paint job will be rewarding.

 

thats what my dads autobody guy said...he was like "Painting is cheap, its all in the prep time"

do I dull down the old paint before I primer? what kinda tools do you need to do this?

 

prepping is a must...you must spend all your time on the prepping...bondoing and shiit is easy. the hard part is making it smooth. like doood said you dont want any unevenness, it looks horrible and wavy. the more time and effort you put into bodywork, your paintjob will look 100000 times worse or 100000 time better. just take your time...after i primered my car, i wet sanded it about 3 more times b4 i put her in the booth...im glad i did so, looks 1000000 times better

 

One thing you can do, I know I'm doing it to save money. Is bring the car to the shop stripped down of everything (engine, interior, lights, etc....EVERYTHING) and that will normally bring the price down a lot.

But preping is a lot of work, if it's not smooth it'll look like ass when the car is painted. You have to spend a lot of time preping the car.

 

like everyone knows prepping is the most important thing

you can pick up the proper tools from any autobody shop.
they have big and small sanders the have all the grit sand paper you'll need and even specialty tools.

there are books you can purchase that'll give you even more detail.

the best tip i've got is see with your fingers and not your eyes when you do bodywork. always feel to see if you notice any uneven ness.

 

:werd:

body work isn't hard if you are willing to take your time and make sure it is all good before time to spray it. If in doubt, always prime and block 1 more time!

 

i just repainted my car. like everyone else said, PREP IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF A GOOD PAINT JOB!!!!!!! the more time you spend prepping it, the better it will look. i tried to do everything when painting my car, including spraying it. i could not get a propper paint booth set up though, too much dust. so i had to have it sprayed by a professional. now, i took it to maaco, but before everyone starts laughin at my ass, let me finish. i did all the prep work myslef. i sanded it, i masked it, i took all the crap off and everything. the only thing they did, was bondo one part i couldnt get perfect, and spray it. thats it. BUT HERE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE PAINT JOB! THE PAINT!!! do not, repeat, DO NOT, get your car sprayed with enamel. the price may look really good, but the job does not. i went to a professional paint store, and got all the supplies needed to seal it, base it, and clear coat it. this is the best way to do it. all the paint supplies for those 3 coats, cost approximately $400-$500. after spending a lot of time sanding it and masking it, they didnt have to do anything except spray. my bill there came out to be like $400 as well. so the whole job was about $1000 for everything including various supplies. looks like a professional job. id post some pics, but its dirty as hell right now, so it wouldnt do it justice. its been over 2 months, and everything is still perfect (except for some minor rock chips on the hood, damn those piss the hell out of me). also bud, this was my first time doing anthing like this. there were some very, very minor dents here and there, that i didnt think would be a big deal. you couldnt even notice em on the old paint job. but after the new paint job, they showed up like crazy. so be sure to bondo/pull out/hammer out even the most minor dents. and as everyone else has said, it needs to be smooth. as smooth as you can possibly make it. i believe we used 400 grit paper, and then went over a lot of parts with 1200 grit. you'll save a lot of money doin the work yourself, but you'll spend a lot of time doin it. one last thing here. if you can take it off, then TAKE IT OFF. all moldings, lights, plastic, rubber, etc. i think the only thing left on my car when it was painted were the door handles, cuz i didnt want to take the inside panels off of each door. i should of, but i didnt. and the last thing you need to know, is make absolute certain, that the paint gets UNDER anything left on. what im mostly refering to here is the molding around the back window. you cant take that off, unless you take the glass itslef out, which is a real pain in the ass. so when you mask that, lie the tape underneath the molding (fold the molding up and put the tape underneath), and then fold the tape over it so the rubber is somewhat elevated. thats about it man. any more questions, let me know, ill do my best to answer. good luck!

p.s. if you got the money, do a pearl on it. those look phat as hell. i went with ford svt blue pearl, and it looks great (fords suck, but they have awesome colors). but no matter what. you should go with PPG paint, thats really the best there is.

one more thing i just thought of as well. you need to seal your car before you base and clear coat it. thats really important. that helps to fill in any microscopic scratches that you cant see. just remember though, that a sealer is very thin, so it wont fill in anything big, just very, very small things. but it will also give a much better, smoother, and cleaner surface for the base coat to stick to, so it will look a lot better.