As the title says class, today we are going to be learning how to fix your front end when you're stupid and crash it into a fence by hydroplaning. of course I am a broke college student so all this is kept on the "I need to spend very little money" idea.

First collect the parts you need for the repair, in my case it took some 7-8 Pick-N-ulls and Pick Pour Parts later to finally get these. As you can see the left fender will need to be banged out a bit and the right one just tweaked some from the fork lift. This is all from an '85 GS or GSL I didn't really look when I took them.

I don't really post many pics of my car so I don't expect you guys to know the color, but its a Gunmetal Gray. Obviously this Silver ain't going to cut it... of course as luck would have it is a partly cloudy day with 12mph winds to make my job even harder. Like I suck at painting enough, the wind doesn't help much.

Anyways to the paintshop where I will paint everything, of course how am I going to get all that silver off?


That's where this stuff comes in, I never really used it before. But I figure if it strips aircraft paint; 20 year old car paint shouldn't be a problem.

My wonderful masking job, don't kill me guys.

Holy ****! this stuff works great! It practically peeled off after 20 minutes! Though I need to re-mask it so its even closer to the plastic so that the stuff works well, oh by the way... don't get this stuff on the plastic bits, melts right through them... I lost the RX7 badges that way.

Anyways, while I let the spots I missed blister up, (speaking of blistering, this **** burns like a **** if you get it on your skin, so be careful!) lets coat the valence and vents? Ahhh... classic Black Primer, nothing else will do for a broke car enthusiast!

About 4 coats of primer for these beauties in my ghetto rigged paint shop.

After about 4 or 5 coats of the primer, the valence is looking nice.

Another run to Kragens to grab some more Tail-Strip and Primer...

Scuffed the crap out of the front bumper and then hit it up with like 8-9 coats (The plastic really didn't want to absorb the first three coats well...) and now it looks decent!

I guess the heavy coating on the second fender didn't work out well, the stuff dried up and its still hard to get the paint off. I am going to buy the 1 gallon jug of tail-strip next time for when I finish up my vented hood project. But for now, I cleaned up shop and decided to call it a day. Tomorrow I will go grab some heavy sandpaper and just do it the old fashion way, then bang the **** out of the fenders to straighten them up and hopefully install them!

Stay tuned!

 

Looks really good so far.

 

And if your color is the same as mine I'd like to know where you got the paint!!

 

I was thinking about hunting down a matching paint to just match the fenders and bumper... but I suck at the painting thing so I will just stick with the Black Primer...

But I would say Hit up Kragens, or a Paint Shop. They should be able to match your color.

 

I'd rather have it from Mazda. Do you think they could get me some??

 

I think you have to contact them directly or go to your nearest Mazda Dealership and ask if you are going that route... Though I think it'd be expensive.

 

The paint store can match your paint if you take a sample in.

Dealers use the Gas door cause it is easy to take off.