whats involved in painting car yourself... what do you need...not lookin for anything fancy, some sort of black, midnite or metallic... whichevers easier
old paints not horrible just faded on hood a few spots on the roof... its the original paint on a 92 black... besides those spots its killer... the normal scratches for a 12yr old car, but absolutely NO RUST. Not a color change, at least i dont believe, im going either midnite or metallic black... whichever is cheaper cuz i like them both. The car is currelntly black but i couldnt give you a specific.
I'm not sure what tools you have so I'll give a general list of what you need.
Air compressor, Paint gun, water seperators, masking or painters tape, plastic sheets or thick trash bags, a place to paint (Garage, car port, tent, etc..) Grease remover, sand papers in various grits, Bondo or like product, Primer, paint, and clear coat. Find a paint supply store they will have all the Items needed or can make suggestions on where to get what you need. You kinda need a clean area to paint in so no dirt gets in the paint. Put sheets of plastic in the garage to seal it off, hang plastic from a car port you get the idea. You can find more detailed information if this seems like what you want to do. It also might be possible that your paint can be polished out.
What works good, if your going to paint the car yourself... is to hang up old blankets or something along all of the walls, and drench them with water. Dirt will stick to the wet blankets, and won;t get in your paint!
Is it better to take pieces off and paint them and then put them back on the car? I wonder about this because I'm thinking about doing piece by piece. I know this sounds silly but I'm doing this in my parents garage and I don't think my dad understands that this isn't going to be a two day project...
Maybe do the front bumper and fenders and hood as one peice...you get the idea.
Sorry to cut in on your topic, but I was wondering the same thing. I am going to be putting my car in the garage for the winter and will have plenty of time to do it.
2 main questions
1) I may change the color of my car. What steps should I take?
The door and trunk jams wouldn't be too bad, but will take a bit of time
Underside of hood would be easy.
What about engine bay? I don't think I would be pulling my engine.
2) No one mentioned heater lamps or anything. Are these necessary?
Painting your car is a very big job. Be prepared for some major disassembly. Furthermore, there is a consideration of cost above and beyond paint and body supplies. For example, if you have a fox GT, many times the clips for the ground effects need replacement, along with all of the rivets (and have fun drilling all of them out - there is about 458936279567 of them). Also, bodywork takes a bit of talent. Luckily when I did mine, I had a friend who was quite knowledgeable in this area help me, otherwise I know the final product would not have turned out nearly as nice. But I guess time is the biggest issue. Taking the car apart and putting it back together is not a simple task, let alone any body work that the car requires. Cool project though, and good luck with it (hope I was not too discouraging here).
I still haven't decided to do it. But my car doesn't need any body work other than a tiny scratch fixed. I have also worked at a body shop for several months doing prep for paint so I can fix minor dents as well. Time is definately the only issue, and if I decide to do it i'll have a few months of winter on my side. The only thing that does concern me is taking a lot of parts off i.e. ground effects.