I just bought a 10th AE a few days ago and wanted to get a another opinion about painting it. From past experience with cars that had paint flaking from the body I would completely strip it then paint it. Has anyone painted one of these cars w/o having to do that, and if so how well did it last? Im planning on making this a driver so im not concerned with show quality but I dont want it to fall off in about a month.

 

paint it pearl white or else you will cut the resale value by half. You could sell a non running one and the rarity and exclusiveness would bring you the money of a working N/A. I think a stripped, primered, and completely redone clearcoat pearl would look good, be akin to the car's roots, and add value and body life significantly. I say go all the way or no painting, nohalf a$$ing it. So if you are going to paint it, stripping and sanding. These are all my opinions. And I'm not too sure on acuracy about value of selling a non working one for price of N/A so I'm warning you I'm no price guide to not disobey the post rules, but I am sure keeping it as original or resto as possible will get you a large payoff in the end.

 

it all depends on the condition of the paint now.....

if its decent, just dents here and there and faded, spot repair, spot prime and shoot the whole car again.

stripping, or bare metaling, an entire car is a HUGE and delicate procedure that MUST be done correctly. If you are thinking of doing this and get any quotes less than $7,500 to do the job, don't bother.

and REALLy, unless the you are saving an extremely valuable and rare body that has had tonnes and tonnes of material put on it - your wasting your money, and a body shops time.

 

10th AEs were not pearl white, why would he paint the car pearl white?

 

10th anni's were painted crystal white if i'm not mistaken

 

my mistake. not in pearl white. I'm sorry I'm not an expert.I would assume he would go into further research of the color name if he's about to put down the money to paint it. Crystal white then. The popint was to keep it origional, that is what the post is mainly about.

 

It all depends on the quality of paint you use and your prep work! There is no reson to strip it down to the metal. What needs to be done is sand and scuff realy well. What goes to metal goes to metal. Then etch prime it and then prime it. Follow with some paint and clear.

 

if your paint is anything like mine, you could strip the paint with a power washer.

 

yup, you can strip alot of the paint off these with a power washer and it leaves the grey primer perfectly intact. then scuff, etch, prime, paint, clear, clear, clear. then if you want it to look good, sand light like 2000 grit, then polishing compound, then clay for final.

TR

 

Ill try the pressure washer, I want to get the car as close to original as possible. But, it has 165,000 and a dent in the left rear quarter. So Im not expecting to ever get top dollar for the car if I sell.

 

I stripped my 10th AE down to metal. The last owners really butcherd the car, by sanding down the pealing sections to metal and then just rattle can primered it (well they rattle can primered the whole car).

Then they let it sit for a while, just long enough to start rusting through the cheap *** primer.

So I sanded it down to metal, etched primered the car. sealered primed the car, next I have to paint and reassemble the whole car.

 

I'm with classicauto on this one. Having done a bare metal strip and respray, it's a dirty, filthy, toxic mess, and not necessary on 90% of cars (mine had 5, yes 5 previous paint jobs, including rattle can primer in between some).

Remove all the flaking paint, and several inches away from it until the remaining paint is solid, a DA sander would work well for that. If you powerwash and the paint comes off, do NOT use that as an edge, wherever the paint STOPS peeling from the powerwasher, sand the 5-7" beyond that point, to level the paint and make sure the remaining paint it still biting into the original primer.

classicauto can probably give better advice on the need to prime and where. I'd likely just prime the entire car with a good 2K urethane that will get a good bite on the existing paint, then respray on top of that, as Crystal white is a pretty translucent paint, and I'd worry about ghosting if you don't have a uniform finish underneath. I'm not a body man though, so don't take me as 100%.

 

From personal experience, I would strip the entire car if it's flaking.

Generally, when these cars start losing their paint, it doesn't stop, and it shouldn't be too hard to strip the entire paint job off the car down to the grey primer