Paint and Body Fox Body Painting 101

Davedacarpainter said:

Yeah, the fiberglass is cracked through there, it would have to be dug down deep and use fiberglass matting with resin to permanently fix something like that.

I finally caught on that you sold that! I'll cover the repair process for something like that during this thread.

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Davedacarpainter said:

PREPARING FOR PAINT:

Ok, you've decide to paint your car for one reason or another. It could be that you have a hood that needs to be refinished or you want to do a complete refinish. Now that you've decided to do paint what do you do next.

1. Be realistic with yourself, are you up for a complete refinish? There will be a lot of labor involved.
2. Do you want to fix those little dings in the doors and 1/4 while you're at it?
3. Do you want to do a complete tear down and restoration?

Only you can decide what you want to do.

You first need to evaluate your vehicle and what it needs to reach your goal, I'm going to assume you want to repaint your entire vehicle. Though if you just have a new hood or bumper you want to shoot, I'll cover that briefly since it has some of the same rules on a smaller scale.

Evaluation? What do I mean by evaluation? I mean understanding what your car needs to have done to reach your goal. I mean the first thing you need to do before you even decide what you want to do is to wash the living hell out of your car. Clean everything, not just the outside. Clean the engine bay, take a bucket of warm soapy water and wash the door jambs and the 1/4 and rocker jambs. Take a power washer to the undercarriage. Wash away all of the dirt.

Ok, so you have it clean now. Get it on a dry surface that you can lie down on. Get a bright flashlight and start at the right (passenger)1/4 panel. Start down on the ground and look behind the wheel where the 1/4 meets the undercarriage, hopefully you have blasted all of that dirt that builds up around the gas filler neck Is there any rust there? If so, how bad is it?

Rust will need to be looked for on every panel on your car, some of the key areas will be the 1/4's around the wheel opening. The bottoms of the door, you may just see a few bubbles in the paint there. That is rust. The fenders where they meet the rocker panel. Anywhere along the rocker panel, particularly close to the fenders. If you see rust right by the fenders, there's a decent chance it goes under the fender. Look in the engine bay, specifically in the shock tower area, look at the fame rail there. Get a small screwdriver and try to jab it into any rust you find, if it goes through into it, it is rot. Rot in the shock tower needs to be fixed. Your engines crossmember mounts there, it needs to be solid.

So, let's say you looked for rust and hallelujah, you've found none, good for you! Your not done looking yet. You need to check the floor of the cabin(the place where you sit) . It is very common to have bad rust in the passenger footwell area, I had to replace the pans in my car. You can check this two ways, the first way you don't need to remove any interior. Jack your car up and put it on jack stands. Lay down and get comfortable, use that light and small screwdriver to look over the floor boards, don't rush this, be systematic and poke and prod with the screwdriver to see if you can push through anywhere. It's best to find out and then fix it.

I had rot right next to both rear seat belts on my car as well. If you really want to hunt it down, put your car up on jack stands and pull those rear wheels off. Toward the front of the wheel tub area you will see the rear seat belt bracket, a little above the lower torque boxes (the place where your rear control arms bolt to the vehicle).

I live in Oklahoma now, I used to live in Iowa. I know you northern boys and girls will have a much greater chance of rust than we do.

I don't mean to harp so much about rust, but it is the great destroyer of older cars. It won't go away and will only get worse if you don't address it.

Good news though, it can be fixed and really isn't that tremendous of a pain in the butt to fix. Just find it!

It wouldn't hurt to use a grease marker as you evaluate your vehicle to mark the problem areas you have identified.

After looking for rust, look for dents you want to fix, anything from door dings to accident related damage that might require repairs to the panels below the outside panels. If you need to replace your bumper cover because of what seems to have been a minor accident, it's would be good to check to see how far back that damage went....will you need a new bumper reinforcement? Worse than that, need a new radiator support? Good news is that most of these panels are fairly cheap and really not all that difficult to replace.

Mark all of these with the grease marker.

What about scratches? Has your car been keyed by an irritated ex? How bad? Is it just a scratch, or did they dig in and dent wherever they scratched your vehicle?

Do you need new trim that has been damaged? Your door mouldings? Wimdow trim? Door handles?

Mark the hell out of your vehicle, everything. Do this so you can visualize what you want to do.

Is there paint that is worn out, it will take a little more to fix this than just sanding it. Is your paint peeling, has the clear coat let go and delaminated (usually you can tell this by a chalky pale to white spotty areas).

Do you want to replace the cowl trim at the back of the hood? Do you want new mirrors, new lock cylinders?

How do your headlights and taillights look? Are they yellowed out and foggy looking? Depending on how bad they are, you may be able to fix these problems without replacing. I have sanded many scabby faded headlights down and clear coated them, while not necessarily new looking, they looked damn good for a minimal cost.

Mark your car with all of these shortcomings you find. Take pictures completely around the vehicle, get a note pad and record everything you see and have marked.

Clean all of that damn righting off of your vehicle now.

Drive to the local liquor store and get at least a good strong six pack and go back home.

Pop a cold one, drink half straight away, and look at your list along with the accompanying pictures. Prepare a build list of what order you want to tackle these issues. Then take a complete day away from it, it will seem overwhelming at first. But you can do this and you'll realize you love that mustang and will come back to your list a little more invigorated.

Be realistic about your list and also be a dreamer too. Make two seperate list if you need of things you need to do, then one for things you want to do.

Always address safety issue first! If your floor has rotted around the seat belt area, you might tackle that prior to the scratch on the driver's side moulding.

This evaluation is important, you will need to get tools and supplies to repair and refinish what you find. It's best to be realistic, that way you can plan out, employ and finish the plan. Then you will be so pleased with yourself for having fixed it right.

It's late for me, I need to go to bed.

This is the beginning of your new paint job, be excited. You can paint a car, and you CAN do it properly, and it will look sweet. I'll be here to help you.

Chow for now.

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madmike1157 said:

UhhhCouple of questions...

Will beer purchased from the grocery store suffice? The stuff at the liquor store is more expensive,...and you know how I feel about spending good money on something that will essentially render the same result for less.

Do I have to eat "chow" at 10PM, or can I eat at a time closer to the typically designated slot allotted for that purpose?

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