Thought id start a new thread, since the old one is vearing off topic. Since i got the car, its had old q-jet stock intake swapped for a holley 750cfm DP, and RPM air gap intake, along with headers and a 3" "cat-forward" exhaust. Full sound system upgrade with 2 10" subs, all new speakers, 500watt RMS amp, and a new deck. Its got a "new" trans am hood, several spoilers, and a nice set of 17" wheels and wide tires. It also has SFC's and holley blue fuel pump yet to be installed, along with a series of aftermarket gauges. This is in addition to the engine rebuild the car had before i bought it, featuring some 11:1 TRW forged pistons, 284H cam, and various other nicknack. And who could forget, A T56!!!.

Anyways, finally decided it was time to paint her, so i could finally call her "done" and start saving money for after school.

Here the progress so far in detail, and some teaser pix.
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/auto...ml#post3774417
















Will update soon.

 

looks great, body and paint seem to be the same as mine

 

Anybody else whos painted a similar year bird. What did you do for the plastic bumper "inserts"??? How did you prep/paint them?

Id imagine sanding would get rid of all the little "dimples". They have alot of overspray from the last 4 rattle can jobs, so they need to be redone.

 

heres an update;

 

and another

 

Looking good. Is that lime green primer you sanded down too -.^ ?

 

As for the inserts... the previous paint job had 'em sanded down, so they dont have much of a texture. If you can, use bumper stripper (SEM) and retain the texture. Depending on your choice of color, you could just leave them open (black no paint)

I may still swap out to 91 style soon,not sure yet

 

Thanks for the bumper tip. The problem is, there are many coats of paint on them, and i want to go for that "flat" look on them. I may decide to sand them down, we'll see.

As for the lime green, i mentioned it in the last thread. Thats not lime green, its actually yellow, it looks green because it was taken in the same shot as the green masking tape. But you can see its yellow in earlier pix. On the front and rear bumper skins though, thats the urethane plastic (i sanded down too far). The yellow stuff is Zinc Chromate, it "treats" bare metal, and essentially seals it. I needed to spray it because we reached insane levels of humidity and i had to prevent it from rusting.

 

Oh hey, if you have some large areas (heavy) of paint on your bumpers, give it a sand before you spray, it will help ALOT. Its lookin good!

 

Alright, so its done, and it turned out bad..... real bad..... So im looking for advice on the best course of action.

Heres the skinny;

6 weeks total of work, roughly 133 hours between my freind and i (each). Plus 8 hours from another freind of sanding, and 5 hours from one other freind from spraying.

We sanded it smooth, fought with a paint that never dries, got it down to factory primer, then fought with rubberized undercoat, and finished it all up in filler primer.

There were 4 spots with minor dings, that required some spot putty, that i did flawlessly (for a first timer).

I also screwed up the spoiler BADLY. It had a similar non drying/undercoat mix type paint on it, and when i was sanding with a large flat surface, some high spots were "tougher" than others. Result was, these high spots remained, and i sanded all the way past the fiberglass in some spots, and still had high spot paint in others. It looked like rolling hills......

My freind quickly cheered me up, by putting a THICK layer of bondo filler on top. I sanded for 5 hours the next day, and had it flat as a laser. A couple more spots of spot putty, and it was like glass. We layered on the final 2 coats of filler primer, let sit, and sanded down to a smooth finish with 450 grit.

Looked promising. It was supposed to get paint this past weekend on Saturday.

The plan was to clean out the garage where it was being painted, and let the car sit for at least 12 hours to let the dust settle, however, since it was pouring rain on friday night, we couldnt..... because we couldnt roll the car outside, to clean the garage inside.

Comes Saturday morning, we quickly swept and cleaned 2 hours prior to paint. We degreased outside, blew away all the dust, and degreased again inside for a final "smooth" surface.

I didnt want to screw up the final step so i had a freind who has done this before spray. Unfortunately, he got a lil "burn" on his eyes from welding the night before.......

Base coat went on, and it was FLAWLESS!!! Our sanding really paid off, it was straight as an arrow, and has no pits or bumps or anything. A slight ridge was showing on the bondo, but the clear would conceal it. 3 hours.....

As the clear coat started going on, the nightmare began to unfold. His eyes were starting to burn half way through the first coat, so he was having trouble seeing what he was doing. And we ended up with RUNS galore......

This carried through for 2 more coats, and im left with runs EVERYWHERE...... Atleast 50 little drips on each side of the car. Not to mention the endless speckles of dust.....

Im quite pissed off, because 6 weeks of work is useless now, and it doesnt show at all. Parts of the car (where he managed to get it right) look ABSOLUTELY flawless. Its like looking at a mirror, i had no idea it could look that great...

As if this wasnt bad enough, he accidentally tripped the hose, and scraped it on the hood. It took away the clear AND the base on a few little spots..... How do i fix that?

What should i do????

Pix to come.

Im thinking of sanding it down, and doing the clear again..... $$$ is a big issue though, but it would be just embarrassing driving around like it is.

 

Pix;

 

 

 

Wow sorry to hear that. Sounds like you got to sand the clear down and reshoot it :-/ Are you whipping the car with a tack cloth before you shoot for the dust particles?

 

wetsand and buff it all, it may get rid of the runs and the dust, however it may require re-clearing. and the hood, wetsand the areas he scraped and then re-base the areas then wetsand around the areas (a circle maybe 5-10 inches), then clear them, wetsand and buff the whole hood, if done properly you won't be able to tell since the paint is so fresh.

 

Im not sure what you mean by this.... I bought a roll of shop towels, and a gallon of degreaser from NAPA. We used plenty of shop towels to degrease (one wet, and one dry) and kept switching frequently. It didnt leave any dust behind. The dust that floated onto the paint, was airborne. It was because we swept not too long before the actual paint, andthe garage door had to stay open, or we would run out of air. The car was dust free, but the airborne dust screwed us.



Thats what im leaning towards. I talked to a bunch of people about this, and they all suggested RAZOR BLADES soon!. (by razor blades, they meant the little X-Acto knife blades). I was very skeptical about this, but one guy said, wrap the corners of the blade in masking tape, and scrape along the run. This way the corners wouldnt dig in. So i tried it, and it seemed to work pretty well. I screwed up in 3 spots and went through the base, down to primer. All three spots had spot putty on it and filler primer that i didnt sand much, so i guess that was my fault.

All these spots are on the doors and hood, so i think im gonna sand down to base, respray the base, and reclear the hood, and both doors. The clear feels fairly level after i scraped off the runs, but its not a "smooth" scrape. I had to go at it a few times. So im hoping i can get the scratch marks out.

 

Sorry to here it didn't go so well, maybe you should of sprayed it yourself. Hard to say without being able to see it in person but, any runs should be able to sand out. Hood you may have to re do . I can say when I painted my wifes 87 ta I did have to re do the door twice. Once Isanded through the clear, then I sagged it on the recoat-first time I have ever done that! I guess I trying to say just keep at it and it will be nice when your done! They don't get big money for paint jobs for nothing. It is just paint you can re do if you can't live it . HTH. here is a pic of us at the POCI conv in Spearfish SD. I got alot of compliments on her car!

 

Wow, shes purty....

Yea im working at it, and hopefully itll be nice when im done. When i saw the car today, i looked at the runs, and said to myself, oh those arent so bad..... The most upsetting part is, the 133 hours i put in, didnt show because the final step got messed up....

But im gonna keep at it, and it should turn out nice. Thanks for the encouragement.

 

Here's a picture of Lisa and her GTA at Devils Tower

 

I always use this trick and I "file" them out at a 30* X angle, basically the same technique I use when block sanding. however I've run into that same problem you encountered with the base coming off which is why I recommend just sanding them out, it'll take longer but its safer IMO

and trust me man, I've got way more then 133 hours into my exterior so I know that pain, just keep looking at the beautiful spots lol

 

I really appreciate you sharing your story. My 92 has a bad undercoat and the paint is flaking off, so a paint job is in plans. I've gone back and forth as to doing it myself. Even though you have had your pains, it makes me want to do it myself. After you fix the flaws you will have a job that you can take real pride in. And steve87ta, I really like that color. Would like it much better then the flaking Dark Green Gray.

 

tack rag:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRZVL8dFeY8

It is basically a 'sticky' cloth rag that removes any dust left over. They are only like $.80 at carquest and you can reuse it a couple times. Whip down once just before spraying.

 

The guy who told me about the tape and blade trick, suggested i just go over the parts where i peeled the base coat with a brush???

Anybody tried this?

He said just cover the primer with base, then layer on a THICK coat of clear, and the sanding will take care of the rest.

 

I have been painting since I went to vo-tech in high school. Which has been (gasp) 10 years now... Very rarely do paint jobs turn out perfect. Even when I was doing it daily for a living, that's what they make 1500 grit sand paper and a buffer for. Don't get down on your buddy for a few runs and sags. Proper paint technique is a lot harder than it looks.

As far as the dust problem. Did you change all the plastic drop cloths before you started the base and clear? If you repaint the hood, you might wanna try hanging it instead of laying it on the plastic. The plastic is a MAGNET for dust and dirt. Then when the air blows across it, the dust is sent airborn again.

Definately use a tack cloth to wipe down the car before each coat of base and the 1st coat of clear. The shop rags and degreaser will get most of the dust, but the tack cloth will still help with the fine dust left behind.

Just some tips i thought I'd give. Feel free to ask anything else.

 

No im not gettin down on my buddy for painting. I dont really look at it as him screwing up, just the way it turned out. I know i wouldnt have done better so....

What about the brush? Can i brush on some base coat and get away with it? Can i brush on some clear?

 

I've never heard of any kind of brush technique... I wouldn't recommend doing it. The proper technique would be to sand the bad spot with 400, make sure it is flat and blended to the rest of the hood, sand the entire hood with 800, then spot in the base coat and reclear the whole hood.

It's a fairly simple, easy process. Plus the hood is kind of a high focal point for the car. I wouldn't cut corners on that.

 

I dont think he needs to reclear the whole hood, he could probably get away with spot base coating then blending the clear out (only since this is all fresh paint), then wetsand and buff the hood. and when respraying, get the ground wet with water to hold the dust down.

as for the brush technique, I personally think you'd see brush lines in the paint but you could always give it a try.

 

If it was me, I would reclear the whole hood. It won't take very much more material or time, you would probably throw that much away if you spot it in. Plus a decent looking clear blend is difficult to accomplish on black. Eventually it could develop a white line right where the blend was.

I'm just saying for my 2 cents and a higher quality end result. I would reclear the entire hood.

 

Ill hopefully be spraying it tonight (if i have enough materials left), will let you know what i end up doing, and how it turns out.

Pix to come.

 

Ok so i havent been on in a few days (been busy) and couldnt find batteries for my camera. So i went and took some pix tonight.

Heres what happened. I figured i would play it safe, i only had 1 paint gun load's worth of clear, so instead of spraying everything, i would spray what i needed.

The hood was fine, i was releived to find. The hose scraped the clear, and embeded some dirt into the clear, when i sanded it with 800 grit, the dirt went away.... SO it'll buff out.

As for the deep blade scratches, they needed to be recleared.

Heres where i went down to primer (now based again). Ready for clear.











Excuse the crappy pix, but heres two of the same (after my "touch-up"). The car looks more like the latter in reality. The dirty parts look really bad, and the rest of the car looks like a light abosorbing mirror.











I know its not the "right" way to clear the car, but i had limited materials, and i feel safer with sand paper than i do with a blade.I tried to make it so the "ridge" of the new clear lands on a body line, so it wont be so obvious. Looks good so far.

 

This is the camera sitting on the spoiler. Can you tell which one is the reflection?

 

so did you re-clear all those spots that you taped up? if so you should have moved the tape out a few inches after each coat and not spray up to the tape, just let the overspray hit the tape so you would end up with no clear lines.

but anyways, looks better from what the pics show. oh and you should buy your friend some pepto bismol after the clear job he did on that.

 

Actually i was thinking of doing that, but it was too much work to move the tape out a few inches. There is ALOT of clear on the car, even though we screwed up. We figured it was best to lather it on as much as possible, so i could sand it smooth later.

Like wise, the spots you see in one of the pix where i went down to primer are 3 little holes with a white fuzzy sanded look around them. Also the drips are visible cuz you can see where i shaved them.

I figured for the doors (also a huge attraction peice) it was best to reclear all of it. So i taped on the body line and did the upper half.

As for the rest of the spots, i masked quite a bit outside the trouble spot for the clear. The ridge is quite big, however, i can sand it out, itll just take a lil longer.

I also sanded the area i cleared quite a bit, so im hoping its the same "level" as the rest of the clear. My idea was, i have to sand away some of the drips anyway (the ones that didnt have deep scratches in them), so why would a ridge be any different.

I have LOTS of room to work, cuz of the thick layer of clear (and orange peel), so it should turn out ok. If not, i could always just reclear the whole thing.

Im concentrating more on assembly right now. The car would have been together by now, but i dropped a bracket out of the nose bumper-skin at home (20 mins away from the car) and i couldnt finish assembly. If the nose isnt on, the fender isnt aligned, and i also cant put on the hood, or the air damn. So i wasted a whole day cuz of one bracket.....


Hopefully itll be together by tonight though. Im dying to take some pix of it in the sunlight!

 

Looks really good!! Wish i had the courage and know-how to paint my camaro!

 

Gotta start somewhere.....

This was my first real paint job. Ive painted little parts before with rattle cans, but nothing like this.

 

Ok just to revive this thread.... Heres the car done! almost!

Theres a nice thick layer of dirt/dust when these pix were taken, as you'll be able to tell. The car has been buffed with 1500 the 2000 and buffed. I only wetsanded the big panels because i was running out of patience, and the car has only been buffed. It still needs to be polished, but im sure if you imagine, you'll see what it'll look like when its finished.

FIRST heres some "BEFORE pix".

 

And this is the "AFTER"