my friend and i are going to paint his t/a within the next couple of weeks the body work and primer is nearly done and we are contemplating colors, we'll probably go with a shade of red and then do charcoal candy birds, a big one on the hood and then one on each sail panel, then depending on what we think maybe charcoal candy on the gfx too. has anyone used dupont's hot hues paint brand? and what do you think about the paint scheme we're thinking about?

 

sounds like a cool color scheme to me!

 

hah okay well i guess the hot hues are a little expensive for my friend's budget. we'll find something else though, the "dragon fire" red is about $500 a gallon and then the clear and activators and evertything else on top of that would bring the bill up to about $800. anyone have any suggestions as to an affordable basecoat clearcoat paint job?

 

Auto Color makes some good quality , affordable paints...it's what is on the '89 IROC i have

 

finally put some paint on the car...

 

before...
after mostly done...

 

Wow that paint looks NICE.

Wouldn't change a thing, except the wheels.

 

looking good! love the black accents.

 

it's my friend's car so i don't know exactly what he's going to do with the wheels but so far we've shaved the antenna, door handles, and the gas cap, not to mention the t-top conversion and going from an '82 T/A to a late 80's gta

 

... we had a small accident today which resulted in a scratch and a dent in the driver's rear quarter, i guess that's going to add a few more days so we can repair and repaint. i hope things like this don't become a common trend. it hasn't even been a full day since the clear was sprayed and the car's already had an accident!

 

Man, I did not even notice the t-top conversion when I scrolled through there. Looks like you guys have done a lot of work to that thing. Looking at the before & after pics, I would never believe that is the same car. Good job!

 

Looks great! Excellent work!

 

I'm diggin' the black headlight buckets

Just get some cool wheels on it and you're set!

 

looks good..hope you put a full roof on the car at the factory weld areas and not spiced it in like I have seen eway too many times...l

 

 

what kinda wheels would go well with the paint?
black z06's?

 

yes...at least black...cant wait to see this thing put all back together

 

Looks good man. Did you guys do the T-top conversion yourselves?

 

yeah we ground all the paint off and cut where the roof was brazed on at the sail panel ( you can tell because there's a gold colored seem from the brazing) and welded in the roof from the donor car

 

 

WOW!
that is some hardcore metal workin if you ask me. and im worried about putin a new quarter on my GTO.
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wait... so using that technique, i could technically make my T-Top car a hardtop?
how sturdy is it when its done?

 

pretty strong so far, we haven't had it on the road yet, but we're going to make some plates to reconnect the roof to the lower section of the car to stabilize any torquing that might occur, it's not a high hp engine in there though, just a mildly modified ho 305. the structure is strong though

 

oh yeah, i forgot to mention that the paint we used believe it or not is a sherwin williams brand the dimension refinishing system, really inexpensive paint but really good as far as i'm concerned too, although this is the first car that i've ever painted so i have nothing else to compare it too. the red is gm "bright red" and the black is just straight black paint from the same system. it's a 2 stage job and we used an overall clear coat, i can't remember the exact name of it. there's a lot of orange peel, but we're going to have a dealership wetsand and buff it out since i don't want to have to end up respraying clear because i wetsanded too hard without enough water or even worse burn through the paint when buffing. we've got connections and can get it done really cheap!(it helps when the company you work for does paint booth maintenance and installations... Clark Air Systems - Superior Air Cleaning & Filtration)