How much paint would I need to paint the body, door jambs, and engine bay? I'm looking at a gallon of paint with a quart of reducer, so 1.25 gallons in total. Could I get by with it?

 

Yes, unless you lay down more than 2 or 3 coats.

 

What kind of paint? Basecoat/clearcoat or single stage?

 

And what color?

 

Acrylic Urethane, single stage in gunmetal grey metallic.

 

I used paint from Eastwood. If you are careful, a gallon should be fine. but I would get a couple extra in quart size.

 

For primer, I planned to use epoxy primer. With the plastic bumpers, would I need adhesion promoter, or would the epoxy primer bond well to the plastic?

 

Using the Eastwood paint ,no, it was built in. Check with the manufacture of the paint you are using.

 

The epoxy primer will bind well to anything.

 

I've done a whole car in BC/CC with under 1/2 gallon (T-Tops)

I would still put a layer of acrylic primer over the epoxy primer. I've had some adhesion issues before between the epoxy and a single stage.

You'll also want to block sand the filler primer.

 

So skip the adhesion promotor, and shoot the epoxy primer straight on the urethane bumpers?

 

no, always use adhesion promoter on bare plastic. ALWAYS. I am a painter and can assure you that there is no DIY product on the market that is designed to be applied without an adhesion promoter on raw plastic.

 

The urethane bumpers on these cars are actually pretty porous, so epoxy and urethane primers stick fine with no adhesion problems. You dont need to sand to bare urethane either, unless the old paint is cracked. But you can spend the money on an adhesion promoter if it makes you feel better.

 

I am also a professional painter. If you and to the bare urethane, you NEED an adhesion promoter. If you are just sanding the current paint that's on it, but not getting down to any bare urethane, then you will be just fine without it.

There's nothing harder to feather out than peeling paint. I'd absolutely never spray bare urethane without using adhesion promoter. You can get it in a spray can for like $15. That's the absolute cheapest insurance policy in the world to not have the nightmare of peeling paint on your bumpers.

 

I ended up getting the adhesion promoter anyways. I figured I'd rather just put it down then to not put it down and regret it later. Plus it's cheap enough to not worry about it