jlee916

I'm new to sanding and looking to sand my 1990 rx7 down to the original stock s5 red paint. The previous owner spray painted the car black, and well it looks like crap and starting to peel.

I took one of my steel wool sand thing that i bought from walmart for removing paints and started scrubbing little bits of the front bumper. It came out pretty nice with the red paint showing fine.

my question is how should I approach this? I'm thinking of using an electric sander, but I don't know what size sand papers i should use. I also read wet sanding sucks, but never tried it. Any inputs will be appreciated.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Wet sanding doesn't "suck", it is in fact the preferred method.

Not sure exactly what you are trying to do...sand off the black and leave the red intact?
Good luck with that.

Wohnson89

iTrader: (3)

If it's starting to peel and you are trying to go back to the original paint, your best bet would be to take tour car to the car wash with a s#!t ton of quarters and blast as much as you can off. After that go to a paint supply store and get some good razor blades. Before you put it on your car, you need to temper one side by rubbing one of the sides in a circular motion on some tempered glass(door glass will work). Then just slowly and methodically go around the car scraping the paint off. Don't sand with anything heavier than 800 grit( that includes steel wool)

After you get most of it off you will most likely have to wet sand and buff the whole car. PIA!

Since the red is most likely a single stage, you might get away without paint, but Chances are it will look good from about a football field away when you are done. Good luck.

jlee916

yeah i just wanna sand the black away and leave the red paint there. the red still looks good beneath it, at least from what i can see around the whole car.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

This will be difficult because your factory paint has no clearcoat...as soon as you see red, you're into the basecoat.

I don't know.
If the red you've already exposed looks good, they must not have done much prep before laying on the black and it might almost peel off.

noch

If you are on a budget then you should verify the red is the factory coat (sand off the black, go through the red, and see if you get to the substrate/factory primer) and if so take off all the black. Use 400 grit paper wet or dry and take the car to Maaco to get it resprayed. That will get you back to where the previous owner was when they went black and the issue will repeat itself later (all sorts of testimonials ranging as little as 6 months to 5 years to more and anywhere between) depending on many factors.

The best "right" way I have found is to find a regular body shop local to you and let them look at it. They will most likely tell you what prep to do and charge you 1500 or so to spray a prepped car with a good base coat and clear that will last. I have done three vehicles this way and have been very happy.

As far as getting the black paint off and having an intact red paint job... I don't see it happening unless the black is latex house paint.