well, got my estimate today from my accident a while back, asked the guy how much extra it would take to paint the whole car if i do the prep (cause my car has 5 shades of white and doesnt need another on the bumper) and he says $600...so, long story short, im paintin my car!!! but...i need some help on the prep work. i figure im going to sand it all the way down, and my dad is gonna help me, but he doesnt remember much from when he preped our bronco years back...ill worry later about priming, but for now i just need some tips on sanding, what grit i should use, etc...thanx

 

if you plan to paint the whole car then you should just wet sand the whole car to get the clear off. Wet sand w/400 grit just to get the clear. Also, i recommend taking off window trims to sand underneath the trims.
But if you plan on having a shop painting it...dont they prep it first themselves. I know they do a sh1tty job prepping but are you prepping yourself just to get a better paint job?

bj

 

do a search on google for body prep. if you don't even know what grit of paper to use, you've got a LOT of reading to do.

btw.. you don't need to take it down to bare metal. only in the places you have to do actual work on the metal (door dings, any place you have to add bondo, etc). otherwise, just scuff the paint to provide a good surface for the new paint to adhere to.

 

Right. The important thing is rough-sanding for good adhesion. Also make sure you get all the shavings off. I personally wouldn't prep a car to have it painted elsewhere, but hey that's your call. I'm not sure how you're going to keep it clean until it's painted, but good luck to you. You also don't need to wet sand, it's not necessary and will take you longer than needed. Just give it a good sanding over like Matt said so the paint will adhere and don't worry about primer where there's already paint. $600 from a shop is a pretty cheap paint job, though, and you get what you pay for...

 

what paint are they using for $600? or is this $600 added to the rest of the repairs? how much work are they going to have to do for the accident?
saving money now may hurt you in the long run

 

im not sure what kind of paint the guy will use, the extra $ i got from my accident for paint repairs is going to cover the extra money i need to paint the car...they alotted 5.5 hrs painting time (he said thats all he needs to paint the car) and about $100 for paint, all i am paying for is the paint basically, just a plain white, im not going for anything fancy, just a nice white paint job...i plan on doing all of the prep myself, i already talked to him about it, b/c my car might need a lot of prep based on all the accidents it has been in...if i let him do everything it will run me over $2k easy...i know this is not going to be fun and whatnot, but i will be able to do it, im just looking for pointers...my dad prepped a car b/f, but he lives a bit away and so cant help me that much...the shop guy also said he would help me if i get stuck or nething...

 

ok, so after lookin around a bit, i saw that sum people use 80 grit to get off paint...will that work? im all for less work and not going all the way down, but my paint is in pretty bad shape...does that matter? i can just go down until its nice and smooth right?

 

no just take the clear coat off and scuff the paint a bit to get a good surface for the new paint to stick to

 

Yeah, it won't matter what your paint looks like now because it will be covered. If you have a lot of deep, large chips you may want to sand those smooth and primer any bare spots, but that's about it.

 

"You really don't need primer over the existing paint unless the new paint will react negatively with it or you're trying to correct some surface imperfections. If you're applying primer over body work you can use a 2K filler primer then guide coat and sand as shown on the video.

The usual method of painting over existing (aged) enamel is to just scuff it with a 400 to 600 grit sandpaper and apply your new paint."

well, i got that off a body work forum, and it goes pretty much w/ what u guys said...now off a sanding i go....man my car is gon look like a$$ for a while lol

 

That's okay, I've got a ton of pics of mine looking like a ghetto cruiser before I painted it...

 

thats awesome...did u do any of the prep yourself? my dad mentioned i might have 2 add bondo if i get depressions from sanding out some of the deep cracks i have...i hope i dont have 2 go there, but we'll see

 

I did all of the prep work and painting myself. I did most of the prep work in my parking lot and painted it in a buddy's garage that we set up for it. Looks great, and I saved almost $2K with the hook up I got from a buddy of mine who is a rep for DuPont.