well finally, it's almost done!!!

rescued and restored, it's now ready to travel the roads. It took awhile, but all the sanding really payed off.



here it is with mostly assembled



rear with racing beat exhaust



and a semi- closeup




thanks to hades12 for alerting me to the fact that there were 79 le wheels for sale and 1985_rx7 for selling them to me.



now I want to DRIVE IT!!!!!!

 

nice SA man!!!!!.....White on 1st gens is the only way to go if you ask me...


hehe!

edit*: sorry for the big pic this is the only thing i had availbale right now...

 

nice guys good luck with the build

 

so you painted the car yourself? What compressor and gun and stuff did you use? How did you sand it? What type of bondo did you use?

I have so many questions, im a body work newb and my car looks like a half prepped peice of crap right now and I am seriously considering doing the job myself.. Any advice is appreciated (your car looks awesome)

 

Glad I could Help.

Nice Paint.

 

thanks!

well, i can't take all the credit for it. My grandfather was the one who physically paninted the car. I learned a lot during the whole build and I can't thank him enough. He used a ampro hvlp paintgun and a craftsman compressor (i think around 35 gallons) We used bondo body filler and fiberglass to repair all the rust. (there was TONS)

To paint the car, we sanded the whole thing with 150- 220 grit sandpaper to rough up the surface-


and then used plastic primer to even out all the scratches and imperfections. (the primer is like spraying a thin layer of bondo on the whole car) Then we sanded that with 220 and then 400 grit sandpaper.


A final coat of primer followed (different kind) that was sanded with 220 and 400 as well. Finnaly the paint- acryllic enamel. It's tough to spray, but it has a really high gloss. Now's the interesting part- we colorsanded the whole car. The final paint didn't come out all that great, (orange peel, runs, sags) so we sanded those out with 600 and 1200 grit sandpaper. (it helps if you put a lot of paint on) after everything was pretty smooth, we went over it with 2000 grit, which gave it some shine. (not as much as original though). Next was buffing. With our $30 dollar buffer from harbor freight, we used a bunch of different sratch removers, waxes, etc. (available from eastwood) to give it that high gloss finish.

we sprayed the whole thing in the grage, so it wasn't as good as something you would do in a paintbooth, (although i here you can rent them out), but it looks fantastic in person. We had to wait for the right weather and everything before we painted. The grage floor was wet down to reduce dust in the air (it actually worked great)

If you don't have one already, get an eastwood catalog. They have a whole bunch of good body work stuff.

The car looks so good, i'm afraid to drive it. Some idiot at school will probably smash it up or somthing.

 

Very Nice paint! I will be posting pics of ,my newly painted black FB as soon as I get it back fromt he guy who is doing it. White SA's are hot!

 

dude that looks great! good work man

 

I noticed that you removed the hood/fenders.. I also feel this is the best way to paint and not have issues with overspray... Looks great.!

 

damn strait

 

NICCEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!

 

Nice on the paint!!!A+++!!!!!

 

Looks good. Preping and painting the car yourself is the best way to go. In the end its just more satisfying (not to mention cheaper). Good job!

 

what about **** brown? and in some parts dry **** color.....

 

thanks for writing some details down for me. I think this may be the route im going to go with my car. Your car turned out looking awesome, I think what I will end up doing is renting a paint booth/shop for a few days and just go wild.

I guess I should probally do what you did as well with removing the front fenders and the hood. I'm kinda surprised you guys only used a 30 gal. air compressor, I thought to feed a paint gun you needed like a higher capacity compressor then that (maybe im just thinking of air sanders lol).

And my advice to you is to try and drive it to school as little as possible and if you do park in a corner or something because people are *** holes. Looks awesome, keep it that way!

Oh and before I forget where did you end up buying your paint and primer from?

 

great job on the paint, hard to beleive you did it your self, so what brand of paint did you use, and did you have to sand it to metal or just rough up the old stuff, and did you have to put on a clear coat. thanks for the info i plan on doing mine my self before i take it some where, if i can make it look anywhere near that good ill be happy thanks again

 

Great paint man, you inspired me to do my own, please let us know the brand you used. Thanks and again kudos on the job

 

Give an overall estimate on cost too... I'm debating myself.

 

well like i said before, i can't take all the credit. It was my grandfather that physically sprayed the car. (the sanding was the hard part though)

Doing the whole thing was extremely hard work, but i must say it REALLY payed off in the end. It was so rewarding to just say, "damn, that looks good, and i did myself!" The funnest part was bolting on the fenders, hood, lights, and all the other junk after the hard stuff was done.

For the paint- i'm pretty sure that we used Valspar acrylic enamal paint. A clear coat isn't necessary, because the buffer/ buffing componds really bring back the shine.

i don't know the exact amount, but i think it totaled around $400- 500 for all the paint, primer, sandpaper, etc.. Word of advice though- i'd recommed renting a paint booth. It's a clean, controlled environment where you don't have to worry about the weather or bugs in your paint.

Anywhoo, do it yourself and save money!

 

sounds good enough to me **collecting supplies**

 

You can rent paint booths???? What company???

 

Dan_s_young

I'm kinda surprised you guys only used a 30 gal. air compressor, I thought to feed a paint gun you needed like a higher capacity compressor then that (maybe im just thinking of air sanders lol).

Dan, 30 Gal will do it but you have to wiat a lot for the compressor to build up, but I think he said he used a HVLP gun which would use the air differently High Volume, Low Pressure,

 

i have no idea where, but i know that they're out there.

 

got some new pics of my car-








good luck to anyone who i've inspired to do their own paintjob! lol

 

If you like pure and simple white is the way to go. It is easy to care for, makes for easier repairs and does well at hiding flaws, what else could you ask for.