Is there anyone on this board that know what they are doing in terms of body prep or body work know-how?

 

No

 

What is your question. I am not the best but have done the work and painted several cars.

 

Yes I've sprayed and done bodywork but that was with a little help.
Now I'm doing my car and I would like to now what people's preferences are on sanding down the body.
like starting with let's say 60 grit and then 120 and so on.

 

What are you sanding down, and why? Are you fixing a dent? Painting the whole car? You do NOT need to, and SHOULD NOT, strip the car to bare metal. The only time you should do this is if the original finish is ruined- by ruined, I mean dented, dinged, checked, cracked, peeling, or otherwise mutiliated. If the original coat of paint has withstood the "test of time" for adherability, you shouldn't strip it off. It will provide a good foundation for the new paint. And, what if you ruin a perfect bondo job? Did you know about the lead that GM used on the roof?

Scuff sand the entire car's "good areas" with a d/a sander and 320 grit paper. Be sure to use a cleaner on the paint before you spray, it will remove road film and bug juice and armor-all residue and etc. Otherwise, you sand the stuff into your paint, and it'll show up on your final paint job!! I use "Total Prep", sold at Strauss or Pep Boys, in a spray can. There's better stuff out there, but it works for me. When you've scuffed the surface enough, the finish will look like a faded paint job. Be careful not to sand thru to the metal; if you do, you need to re-prime. And if the paint sands all the way to bare metal very quickly, then it wasn't adhering to the surface, and it needs to be re-done.

See https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=100797 for my tips on getting a maaco job, that might help you out. And I posted in your other message, too.

 

I'm painting the whole car and the car has two ****ty black paint jobs under and I wanna start fresh.
I'm doin it black again so the body prep has to be dammn near perfect.
any help is much help to me.
Thank you

 

Hey your from Jersey.
Cool!:rockon:

 

I do it every day.

I agree with Tom about leaving the factory paint on, but i just saw your pic from the other post.

All that work to strip and get right, black, i'd forget about Maaco. Unless you plan on sanding and buffing their job. Black is my favorite color to paint. But,......there are a lot of hacks out there, and your car should not be someone's learning curve. Good experienced techs are not going to be working at Maaco. I'm sure there are exceptions to that, but why work for Maaco for 30k, when (if your good) you can go down the street to a dealer or large independant for 60k+.

For a complete black, use a single stage paint like PPG Concept (DCC). When you scratch clear, it turns white, (swirls). With single stage, when it gets scratched, it scratches black, much less noticeable. More chemical resistant too.

 

Are you planning on priming the car before you paint it or are you just going to get rid of the crappy paint as best as you can and then paint over it? My Z was painted in neon orange spray paint under white so it was a pain to get it sanded good. I spent two days wet sanding it just for the primer.Wet sand the car if you want to get the best looking paint job on your car. That way it is slowly and more gently removing the paint rather than scratching the metal, and you not notice until you paint your car and then you can see the annoying scratches. I wet sanded the car with 320 grit and in some places I used 600 grit just to be morew careful so that it would not scratch the metal. I had to go through 4 layers of paint though so you may be able to just use 600( always safe to double check though). My dad was the one who helped me and he has been painting cars for 22 years and his Harley has won some trophies due to the detailed paint.

Does the car require any body work that you will need to use bondo on?

I also agree with Tom do not strip it to the bare metal way to much work to mess with and then you have rust to worry about.

-----Drew

 

I had to go to bare metal on the rear 1/4 panels and roof and hatchback's deck lid when I did my car back in '96. The paint was checked on all those places. That's when I discovered all the bad bodywork that had been done to the right rear quarter panel. But the rest of the paint I just scuffed with 320. 'Fact, the hood and one fender was so worn out that I went right to baremetal with the 320!! So I said "screw it" and took the other fender down, too. Luckily I didn't have to take the doors down. What a pain. I'm hoping that for my next paint job (when I shoot it myself, yikes!), I don't have to take anything down to bare.

 

By the way I just did some fiber glass work today on some rust holes behind the right rear wheel.
I'm gonna probably do about five layer of cloth backing to make sure that son of a biotch is gonna be rock solid.
tonight I'm gonna sand it down and do some body filler.
I sure as hell it comes out as good as I think it will, I didn't get a single air pocket in the cloth when I laid it down.
HEHE it's gonna be dry in about an hour from now.
Oh and I mde the mistake of not wearing latex gloves earlier in the day and that ****in resin isn't comin off to well, but about three hour ago my friend which is a vetenarian gave me a whole box of latex gloves which definetily saved the day.

 

Rust Holes? On a Third-Gen? Geez! and I thought my car needed bodywork! Just make sure you grind all the rust away before you patch it.

 

I'm afraid I've had to take mine to bare as the original and subsequent **** jobs have bubbled and cracked in so many places that I can't trust the body to be rust free.Living in Uk climate doesn't help and the last thing I would want after spending weeks and a lot of money is for a dormant rust spot to ruin the paint.I don't think anyone can really accurately assess the need to keep the original paint or baremetal it without looking at the car in person.Obviously I'd have been happier not baremetalling it but it doesn't always work out that way.

 

fast83, you want rust holes? https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=108890

LG4, did you grind the old rust away, or did you cut the rust away? You might want to cut it all away. It always seems to come back, but with a vengence... as in the case of my 1/4 panel. (See that message above)

 

I cut it away but if it will come back with a vengeance that bad then I will go back and do one of the rust holes over again cause there is no way I'm letting that happen.
Yesterday I bought some 40/60 grit I'm not sure but that worked real well on takin the old paint off.
I'll post some pictures of the fiber glass/ bondo work i'm doin.

 

If you have rust and don't want to put new metal in I would use a rust inhibitor such as rustmort it is actually for marine use (salt water) and contain phosphoric acid that will chemically change the rust into a material that will not rust again. Also Sherman williams has a new cleaner out I can't remeber the name but it will get silicones off real well, I painted a 60 metropolitan (blended a quarter with a dent tri caot and the base wouldn't go on at all) that was a show car and had horrible fish eyes in the paint and then called the local paint shop and was talking to them and they said that this stuff was great, prep sol was good but I had never had a cleaner that cleans well enough to get silicone off well and I have used glazzurits (not sure if it is spelled correctly) dupont and sherman williams. Good luck