Paint job pt. 3

After attacking the botched paint on the roof with 40- and 80-grit on a DA, I block sanded the entire the car with 150- and 220-grit paper on sanding boards. Yes, this is a lot of effort, but it serves two purposes: you’re using the old paint as if it were a build-up primer-surfacer, and by doing so, you quickly locate any high or low spots in the car’s sheetmetal. Small dings and waves can be sanded out, not-so small ones either need body work or a light coat of filler. Your efforts will be rewarded with arrow-straight panels.

IMG_5991

There were a few of dings in the decklid and one bigger one in the right rear quarter panel. I was wondering if any of those were caused by a perp’s face in the process of being “cuffed and stuffed”! You can read about how I hammered out the bigger dent in our Febuary ’09 issue. The dings in the decklid were really small, so I just filled them with a thin coat of metal glaze (also called finishing putty).

TECH TIP: Once you’ve finished sanding your body filler, spray it with a coat of primer-filler from an aerosol can. I didn’t do this and it caused me some extra work later on. Be sure to get a can of good stuff from a body shop supply store, and make sure it says on the label that it won’t react with urethane paint. Body filler is porous- it absorbs whatever you put on over it, leaving behind a slightly wrinkly-looking low spot. You can prevent this by spraying over it with primer filler. And the stuff in a can is much easier and quicker to use- no paint gun to clean and you usually won’t have to mask the car. You do have to sand the primer smooth before proceeding, though.

I also had to sand off all traces of the rattle-can paint on the front doors. That stuff is usually lacquer and does not react well with the chemicals in most modern paints. Otherwise, the rest of the car still had its original paint. It was in good condition (other than being really scratched-up and faded), so there was no need to strip the car.

I lied in my last blog—no tinted primer in this entry.  You’ll have to wait ‘till the next one!