Paint and Body Fox Body Painting 101

Yeah Bill, that’s seam sealer. I use a wire brush on a drill to take the old stuff of my panels. You’ll find that in areas under the hood as well.

You’ll want a good two part “epoxy” style seam sealer to replace it with. Flowable seam sealer is the best to use, but it’s a pita when doing the curved areas of the door, it flows back along the curved sections and wants to
puddle in the center area. I used a heavy body seam sealer on the doors for that reason. It takes a little more work to make it lay out nice.

Here’s a picture of my hood when I masked it to seam seal. I’ll come up with a couple more pictures in just a little bit.
The seam sealer helps, believe it or not, to prevent rust along the entire edge. It causes moisture to be directed towards the weep holes.

As for more weep holes? You can, just make an elongated hole similar to the factory holes. That helps to prevent blockages from larger crap.

You’ll want to get some sort of corrosion protection spray inside the panels along the bottom areas to seal up from the inside too. Nothing difficult there, you can use the same stuff that I spray inside my frame rails. You can find a parrafin type that has a little plastic wand that can direct the spray where you want it. There are other things that you can use as well, like POR 15 (rust encapsulators).

You can paint your car with the panels on or off. Though it will be easier to paint everything off so you can avoid having tape lines in the jambs. If you go that route, be sure to put tape along all the edges before mounting the panels after it’s painted so you don’t scratch anything during reassembly. The hatch would be easier shooting off, then you can paint the jambs at the same time as the outside. Nice and smooth that way.

I’ll post more pictures here shortly along with a little more explanation on painting.

I'm running out of battery, so here's a few more pictures of prep for seam sealing. You'll want to be able to remove the guide tape just shortly after getting the seam sealer on the panel so it can flow out on the sides. Wait until the ss starts to harden, it'll only be three or four minutes, then pull the tape. In the end you can smooth it with sandpaper after it hardens though.

If you can get one of those little hand held sandblasters, they work great. I think they’re pretty cheap at HF. That’s how I stripped my driver’s door.

billison said:

Hey Dave. Cleaning some surface rust out of the seam on a door. I plan to sand, blast and otherwise remove everything that I can. Would you suggest using a rust converter before prime? Worried about anything in the seam that can’t be reached

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Yes. Let it go down in the seam and dry first. I did that on my doors.

Yes, primer, seam seal and then paint.

RaggedGT said:

Hey dave,
I’m wanting to paint the cast aluminum wheels on my wife’s Lexus , and was wondering if you would give me some pointers (or basically a step by step How To .)
Also.. I Really liked that Gray color you used for Doby’s stripe- What’s the color called?
Thanks again dave

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I’ll get back with you tonight on this Chris, sorry I spaced out your question.

kendawg73 said:

Here's a paint ? for your... my 90 GT is white... I was just going to paint it white again... but I'm thinking... I live the Matte paint look... I was just black, but now a lot of colors are being offered even on factory cars... so I was thinking of doing Matte White... and I guess go over it with the matte clear coat.... how is painting with matte paint compared to regular? I've google a few pics, and what I seen so far looks pretty good to me, what's everyone else's thoughts?

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Matte clear isn’t very hard to shoot at all.

In general though, I would shoot it with a gloss clear first to provide better UV protection first, let that harden, sand down with 800/1000 grit sandpaper and shoot the matte finish.

Like Bill mentioned though, you don’t want dirt. If you buff matte clear it will make it glossy.

A real matte finish paint job is a pita to take care of. You best be ready to baby it.

It can be done and I’ve shot a few myself in a matte finish. You’ll really want a paint booth to shoot it in though, one that has a bake cycle too so the paint won’t stay open allowing dirt to settle into your new paint job.