i am having the most difficult time getting my car ready to run. the main thing holding me back is the painting. i am stripping the body to bare metal, the org. paint is not good enough to use as a base. so thats where im at idk what to do painting is expensive. I DONT WANT TO BE CHEAP but i dont want to blow all my $ on paint and have nothing left for other parts. so what should i do to get a good paint job? i do have a friend that owns a collision company and would help me out alittle on price? like maybe charge me 800 for a 2 stage. but idk what to do i need the engine bay painted and the undercoating done before i put on the new susp. and if i paint car first then no overspray!

next need to know what color 2 pick, was thinking about the blue mica (dark blue)
but any other suggestions? black silver idk what 2 do. but i would feel better with more advice.

 

Painting is not cheap and the better the job and longer you want the paint to last, the more expensive it gets. 800 is cheap, I usually spend 400 in paint/primer alone. for a low/mid grade paint when I paint. Hel, there are some custom paints that the paint alone is 6k/qt.

It's best to do the undercoating and engine bay 1st, especially if you need to do any sandblasting, then mask them off for the body paint. A little overspray on the underbody is common, even from the factory.

Color is up to you, but don't forget to take the interior color and any wheel color into consideration when picking the body color. The darker the color, the more perfect the body work needs to be.

While the base/clearcoat may be bad, unless there is a lot of pitting or rust specs, the oem primer is a good base to work off of. If you do have a lot of rock chips with rust starting, then taking it down to bare metal is often the only option.

 

**** I am in the same situation. The paint on my car is crap needs to be sanded to bare metal as well, so I am shopping around $2000. is the average price I even went to Maaco get this 1500. $800. is a steal you better jump on it

 

Paint shops base there price on how much prep work they have to do to the can (Standard filler coat, metel prep with etching, and surfice prep.) If you do all this yourself and all the shop has to do is spray you can get a paint job around 400.00 Dollars.
The average price of 2,000.00 if for all the work that i just listed.
Read some books on preping and painting and save yourself about 1500 bucks.

 

If you go to bare metal you will have removed the paint that is securely bonded to metal and has passed the test of time, then you will have to hope that your primer will stick just as well.

You can sand out most checking, even if you have to use a random sander, like a 1/3 sheet $30 Black/decker, and what remains can be dealt with individually. Use SEM self-etching primer. Don't use the crap primer from HD or Ace hardware. Sometimes I use different primer colors for successive coats which can make seeing peaks and valleys easier.

 

thanks guys, i cant wait to get the engine bay and undercoating done then i can put the engine in and start to put the car together...