Hey all,

I live in Livonia and I need some help finding a body shop/ hot rod shop. The reason is, I just bought some ground effects for my car and I would like to get them painted. I also have some metal brackets that need to be spot welded onto the doors so that the ground effects can be put on. My main question is, does anyone know of a good place that will do it for a good price? I am a college kid and I don't want to pay $1000 just to have some dumb *** ground effects put on. Also, if anyone does this stuff (either for a living, or a hobby) I would pay you to help me accomplish it. By the way, I have an 83 Trans Am, and the ground effects are the 82-84 Aero set. Thanks!

Steve

 

i don't know of any out that way..........come east towards the water and i could send you to at least a few. let me know if your interested and i'll drop some numbers your way.

the unfortunate thing with body work is the good work is always expensive......i'm sure i could get them painted very cheap for you; but i'm not sure on what is involved with the brackets so that's a different story. hopefully it might send you in the right direction at least.

 

Yeah I'd love the numbers to a couple of places? Do you know anyone personally that might be able to get me a good deal? Whereabouts are the areas that you are referring to. My dad lives out in Eastpointe near St. Clair Shores area.

Steve

 

paint wise i could hook you up with a decent deal i'm sure so long as it isn't a custom color.

as far as doing the hangars.........i've got connections with shops that know how to weld; but i'm not sure exactly what you need done.

if it's not to far to get to your fathers then you shouldn't have any problem going where i might send you.

let me know exactly in detail what you want and i'll go talk to a few and get a word for you. also, i'm not going to ask you how much your looking to spend, but it might be a good idea to go to some local body shops and get some numbers so that when i give you what these guys want you'll have a good reference. never hurts to bargain.

 

Awesome! Well, what I basically need is:

The Ground effects primed and painted (6 pieces)
(I might be able to do the prep work myself, if it reflects a major difference in price)

I would either need them painted white (universal white) or matched to my red (prolly not a custom color). Which do you think? I have a red car with white decals. I can send you pictures if you'd like.

As far as the welding, I was told that I would need three spot welds on the lower/bottom part of the door for the mounting bracket to be attatched.

If you could see what you can do with this info, I WOULD SO MUCH APPRECIATE IT! If you need any more info let me know.

THANKS!
Steve

 

what time frame are you looking for..........and yes pics would help, but without looking i would say go red for the gfx.

 

What do you mean by the time frame. I am not desperate for these ground effects to get done. I am actually more concerned about the engine I am building and my punk *** friend who is not coming through on his word. Basically I am very flexible. I can drop off the ground effects whenever, and whenever they get them done is fine with me. I might be picking up a wrap around spoiler if my friend decides to buy this other trans am so I might as well put that in there too. I am at work right now so I will post some pictures when I get home later tonight.

Thanks

Steve

 

Ok so here's a pictures someone gave me with a similar setup to mine. Red car with white decals and white ground effects. How does this look? I don't think it looks so bad but i think red might be better.

 

it's all preference........i'm not to say.

my paint guy is out of town til monday. beginning of the week i'll get all the info you need.

 

Thanks! I will be awaiting that info. Again, I don't want this to take any priority over anything he might be doing. If he has some part-time kid apprentice or something, they could let him do the gfx for practice. It really doesn't matter to me when they get it done or anything, or who does it. I really don't even want a spectacular job, just something decent and economical on my college-student budget, lol. Thanks so much for your help! I really appreciate it!

Steve

 

hey steve, haven't forgotten about you... he wasn't reachable today. if i can't get ahold of him tomorrow i'll just get you numbers of the other places i know of. all the real personal numbers i have the guys would want to much...be patient and i'll get it together for you.

jeff

 

No problem. I am in no hurry whatsoever. I actually just bought another car this weekend so I should be conserving my money for a little bit but......OH WELL! Whenever you get the information is fine, my ground effects aren't going anywhere, lol. Thanks so much for you help!

Steve

 

Hey I live in Livonia as well, I just got my car painted last winter by a guy in PA. But driving around this summer I got a nickel size dent and chip in my hood and I am looking for someone who will repair it, and do a good job of it as well. I still have the paint too so I just need someone skilled to work on it. I've seen Kandied91z's car, whoever worked on his car knows what they are doing.

 

92RS shearn, thanks for the compliment. as far as your hood, it depends on the dent.....if you can reach it with ease from underneath (meaning you don't have a part of the hood structural brace in the way) you shouldn't have a problem getting the dent out nicely.........depending on the size chip you ought to try and touch it up yourself seeing as how most shops really don't take the time to do very small touchups with any real effort you might do better yourself. how big is the chip? two years ago i had a metal rod fall on my car putting the same size dent and a small chip in the hood..........i just used a magnifying glass and a fine tipped toothpick and it turned out somewhat decent.........i use the same meathod on all my cars and it works excellent with solid colors...........not so well with candy; but it's the price you pay to have three different colors i guess.



steve, the guy that works on my cars is out of town........not sure when he'll be back or if it will be this week. i went to some other shops that i know of and the lowest quote i got from them was 300 mind you they don't have to do any major work on them...this of course is in any "stock" color and either a single stage or a dual with a separate clear. how many pieces are there actually?

you might want to check with any shops in your area to get some prices just for piece of mind if 300 is too much. i'm not sure but i would think my guy would do it for less.......but i don't know. i paid 75 for my front gfx 4 years ago and i recently had to pay 300 to paint just my bumper........but again, the bumper is the new custom color.

give me a little more time, i'm trying to help as much as i can. i'd still look for other prices if i were you though; let me know what you find and from where.

jeff

 

I did inspect the dent and it is directly under a brace, just my luck. The chip is about nickel size. The dent is not that deep so if it is touched up I doubt many people would even notice. I was even thinking about trying the 'dent king' That removed them from the surface. I'm not sure how well I would be able to touch up the paint myself. It is a metallic paint so I'm not sure if that would make it more difficault or not. I am thinking about buying a touch up gun and use it on my compressor, then tape off the affected area and see what happends.

 

Hey thanks for your help! I have 7 pieces altogether. 2 pieces per door, 2 for the rear and 1 for the front. Is that price for the welding and mounting? I don't know much about paint, what exactly is "dual stage"? I would just basically need a couple of coats of red and probably a clear coat (or just whatever they do to a normal car body). I'm going to check the Maaco near me and see what they say. Thanks for all your help! Please don't feel pressured to get these prices, I'm in no hurry!

Steve

 

92RS shearn, i wouldn't waste my time with the dent product.......just get a small suction cup and try it if your doing that...typically that works on places where there is least structural reinforcement behind it unlike your area you will have trouble.

touchup gun? never heard of it........you could try it, but if you have to mask off an area your going to make things worse.......your paint is metallic; but hardly a real "metallic" that you would have to worry about.........park next to a custom heavy metallic car...the difference is crazy........my 2nd layer color is heavy metallic gold and silver mix, the little touch up bottle is pure sparkles.........not fun in any way.

do it the cheap way, clean the area real well with a wax and grease remover.......wash the area again well and let it dry thoroughly...........or skip that part and just wash it good, let it dry and then go buy some touchup paint for your year car.........it's a common color and i'm certain duplicolor or someone else will make it.

just use something small to apply it like a needle or a toothpick and make sure you fill in the spot as well as a very tiny bit over the edge so it "seals" the paint.............that or what i like to do is fill in the area completely letting it dry for awhile and then put a very lite coat of clear to seal it........it's cheap and it will work and look about as good as paying someone 50-75 to try.

good luck

 

no steve, that isn't for mounting as well...........i haven't even begun to look into that because without looking at it to see what is involved i can't begin to ask anyone.

without getting into paint.........the biggest difference between the two would be your stock paint is probably a dual stage meaning it has a separate color and a clear...........the other type i was talking about has everything mixed into one.

dual stage will last longer exposed to sun and elements of that nature but isn't as durable.......something like gfx, unless its a show car take quite a beating........so sometimes people will paint it with a single. it's just a choice of preference, i would do a dual because unless you drive over alot of dirt roads or rocks you should be ok........that and it takes longer to paint so you actually make the person work a little more for your money.

checking with macco isn't a bad idea, especially if you are not particular on the job...do what you have to do, let me know how it turns out. when i find out anything new i'll let you know.

jeff

 

by touchup gun I mean a paintsprayer that is small, its the same think as any other compressor based sprayer, just smaller and sprays less than them. And why should I use the touch up paint when I have the paint the car was actually painted with? My friend used touch up paint on is car and it wasnt really close, it looked better with the scratches IMO. use a needle?
the scratch is circular put a nickel on your hood and imagine the area that is under the nickel has no paint, thats the size of the scratch, a brush or sprayer would be required I imagine.

 

hey........i'm giving you suggestions; not telling you what to do. if you have a nickel size chip in your paint you should consider repainting that section anyways. i'm saying if it were me what to do. obviously if you had it painted and have some paint left over you should use that; you made it sound as if you had it painted out of state with no way to get paint. did you have the color changed from the stock variation? if not then the off the shelf color will work. i've used it so i know..........now if you have a custom metallic based off the stock color then no it won't work.

now how many times do you think you will use that gun? would it be worth your time and money to try it? if so then by all means why not try it.... if you want to save money on a impracticle situation then using a needle, toothpic, or any smaller size solid aplicator would do the trick to allow you even flow of the paint so that you can control it's layout and properly fill the hole. using a brush is the absolute last thing you would ever want to use and why they put them on touch up bottles is beyond me; ask most body shops and they will tell you the same.

touchups will not ever look "good" the idea is to make them look as "good" as you can and not have it noticeable from 5 feet....it's impossible to keep a car chip free if you drive it anywhere.

if you think that it's something that is beyond your doing then take it somewhere to have it done; but everyone has to learn somewhere and you'll be pretty upset when you see the body guy do a similar process to what i'm talking about and charge you 50 bucks.

good luck with it.

 

And I do appreciate your suggestions, I have absolutely no experience when it comes to bodywork or paint. It just sounded odd to me to use something so small to fill in a chip that big, but if thats whats done, then better I know know before I try anything. I did get the car painted out of state, but I was given the excess paint that wasn't used, so I guess I will give it a shot here , thanks for your help.

 

that's the whole point of using something like a toothpic........you would be surprised how much paint will run off that just dipping it into a touchup bottle. using something like the toothpic, especially wood allows for absorbtion so you won't have any chemicals into the paint.

i typically let a very thin coat dry on the pic, they i just apply to what's needed, using the pic gives me a fine tip to be able to move the paint around while it's wet and fill in all the wholes, just do a nice thin coat once or twice and you'll be ready to roll.

might try on a piece of metal or a small area to get the hang of it, but once you get it you'll hardly notice the spots there; well that is unless it's the size of a nickel.

good luck.