How hard is it to paint a Camaro with t-tops? Does anyone have pictures of it being done?

Probably not much different than a bird.

Heres mine.

Did you have to cut in the area with the t-tops out or did you just not paint that? This is my biggest concern.

just cover the t-tops...

I understand that but I'm talking about the metal where the t-tops sit in, because the car would be going from white to black. So would you paint that separately or while you paint the whole car and tape off part from the inside?

I didn't check if the body shop did that part!!glad you brought that up! I know the door jams were done and the tops were off when he painted it but he's not finished with it yet.

Yes I'm glad if this can help anyone, I have no doubt I want to do it, just doubt in how I should go about doing it.

Remove the T-Bar,headliner and weatherstripping go under the center support with the plastic cover and tape it up good.

See that's what I was thinking but I really don't want to mess up the interior.

That's what happens when you go to another color!!!!!I'd keep it the same color.

Paint is bad on the car, plus the black helps hide the t-tops better.

I'm a big believer in doing it right the first time. Painting - go big or go home

You still have to prep the car for paint,what's the difference if you paint it Black or White and why are you hiding the T Tops?

Oh yeah I know you have to prep for paint, I'm just worried about there being a leak somewhere and getting on the interior and trashing it. I just want the t-tops to not be obvious because I'm not a big fan of them.

Mantaguy - how much of your car did you have painted? It looked to be in good shape!

When I had my car painted I removed the t top weatherstripping and had it painted without the weatherstripping in place. In fact, the whole reason I had the body work done was due to a t top leak that caused some rust in the channels that had to be repaired with metal. So - if your weatherstripping is old or you have a leak, now might be the time to address that since the car is going to the body shop.

Car isn't going to the body shop it will all be done by me and a couple of people.

I only wanted the passenger fender replaced and a new front bumper cover replaced and it turned into a real project.He tried to match the original paint 1st and that didn't work,so I had him paint the whole car.

It is still a good time to address the leaky t top issue. How are the seals?

Oh yeah definitely, maybe my question makes more sense since this will all be done by me. Everything up there will be taken care of. I'm 18 and I'm in Collision Repair and Auto Refinishing 2 at our career center. In our class we have yet to go over painting vehicles with t-tops because not so many are made with t-tops anymore. And haven't really gone into great detail of taping up a whole car to be painted, only really sections of it.

Nice - it should be a good learning experience. Paint and bodywork is the one thing I won't go near - I have no idea what I am doing, and I don't have the facilities to do it.
If you take out the t top weatherstrip you won't have as much of an ordeal trying to mask it off in a way that you won't see tape lines because you can hide all of that with the weatherstrip.
The seals on these cars all leak and if you address the issue you might be able to take some tips from here on how to install them properly and make them as leak free as possible. They are a bad design and there are ways to tackle the job to minimize the problems that cause them to leak.

I hope so and I look forward to it, I love working on cars and every aspect of them. Plus I don't have a ton of money so most of the things have to be done by me or my friends since its free and we have all been working on cars since we were very little kids.

Nice - good luck with the project and keep us up to date on the progress. There are lots of good guys here willing to help out if you have questions.

Will do.

Plastic is a NO NO for masking.

When you get overspray on the plastic, say during the color, then 15 minutes later you go in to do the clear, and the air ripples the plastic the paint flies off it since it doesn't stick well and lands in your wet clear.

Always mask with PAPER.

-- Joe

That's a great tip thanks. Has anyone used liquid masking?

I here ya!!,I guess he's been lucky so far I haven't seen anything so far I'm pretty sure that material is standard to the industry.

So here is the car, its a 1984 Z28. The car has a 305 and a th700r4. I will be paying $600 for the car. Story is the guy bought the car non-running, he tried to fix it, that didn't work he only created a under hood fire. So he took it to his mechanic friend and had it rewired then ran out of money to find the reason there is no spark. Then he contacted me about selling it to me since I had a wanted ad on Craigslist for a 3rd gen Camaro.

Last pic.

you can also just use rope to hold the gaskets back... That is what i have done before.

I changed my roof color from red to black. I pulled all the weatherstripping so that I could have the channels and around the windows painted. Otherwise the red would have shown somewhere. I did not remove the center bar though. Just taped it up. If you don't do at least this much, the white will still show in places.

I have did this on several cars. A good gauge wire works also. I like to remove the windshield trim on the older cars and replace with the wider from 91-92 cars. It just looks nicer.

I also like to just pull the interior except for the dash to keep it clean through the whole process. That is the best way to keep it clean.

that car doesnt look all that bad. this thread some what reminds me of 3 days ago when a guy came to buy my 87 iroc front bumper cover. had no idea he was putting it on his NICE *** 82 z28. i tried to talk him out of my own sale lol. car was red, and he mentioned after putting the bumper on, he was going to go with the "classic eveyone has-black". i just couldnt believe it. his car was nicer than almost all of mine. you dont see 82-84 style anymore.

Let us know how the paint job comes out. How about some before and after pics. Good luck!

Sorry guys this is no longer something I'm going to be doing because I ended up buying a hardtop car but I figured maybe some people would find this useful who are painting t-top cars. My car will be painted though and when that happens make a new thread for that.

Only one way to do it "right" and that is to remove everything.

yup remove it and paint away. Install it with your new weather stripping when it ready to put back together.

[/IMG]Hi Bro! That colour looks sweet. What colour is it? Nice ride Cheers...

Candy Apple Red, not many ppl notice, I removed the side molding and shaved the door handles off. Shes my baby. Thanks for the compliment!

I had a '92 RS camaro that followed the same body line for a two tone. Was the stock teal down the center and the top and ground effects kit were a black cherry metallic from a '50's Chrysler

Forgive me if it's a dumb question but how do you open the door if it has no handles?

They use solenoids or actuators to unlatch the door, like your door locks or trunk release. Everything is fine until your car battery goes dead or the latch fails unless you have a mechanical secondary way of opening the doors. There are kits out there that enable you to make this change without too much of a problem. The largest problem is covering the holes in the doors where the handles used to be. Not my style but each to their own.