Submitted by: MR BEN R ANDERSON (QUSY72A at prodigy.com)
All the product used in my resto was made buy Dupont, so all names and descriptions are only true if you use Dupont products, which are far and away superior in my opinion. First of all you must generalize what you plan on doing to the car, a good 2-3 year paint job is easy to do, what we are after is the 10 year finish, which is very easy as well only its gonna cost a little more time and money. The products I used are Guaranteed lifetime, both materials and labor, you can't get a guarantee like that from an inferior product. Dupont is the only way to go here gang! I stress this point heavily! Now to begin the project, in my case I had heavy damage to the clear coat surface on the car,I'm sure you have all seen this. The only way to resolve this problem for good is to strip the cars finish to bare metal. In order to remove this you will need to get some stripper, We used "Auto Strip" made by "Kleen Strip". You must be very careful when using this as it eats paint, so it is very acidic. Tape up the edges and cracks very well and be sure not to get it on any rubber parts or down the inside of fenders as you will have a rust problem if it gets down into the underside of panels. This product is in a spray can so it is very easy to use, just spray it on and wait till the paint bubbles up then push it off with a razor blade. You may have to apply more than 1 coat on some cars. Mine had the Galvanele on it so we went with 2 heavy coats. You will get some pretty good scratches from the razor blade but we will get those out later. Once this is complete, wipe the car down really good 2-3 times with Prep-Sol, this removes tar wax sap grease ect.Go over the bare metal with 80 grit on a DA. The edges you taped up must be sanded to the metal as feathedging will not produce a good end result. As I said before we stripped only the Top, hood, and trunk lid. We also did the tops of the fenders to get uniformity. also make sure you remove the rear spoiler, the stripper will eat that into a liquid. Once the surface is stripped to bare metal and your done sanding with 80 grit, step down to 180 and sand to a uniformed finish. now you ready to treat the metal, Wipe the surface to be painted with Final Kleen to remore grease and dust ect. Tack the area off very good and apply 2 medium coats of Vari-prime, a self-etching primer that etches into the metal itself. This is the stuff GM should have used instead of Galvanele. Your next step is to prep the rest of the car. I had to remove th stripes on mine so that was next thing we did. We used a Heat gun along with a razor blade, try to get all the glue off as well. We found this to be pretty tough so we sanded it off. Any body damaged areas should be repaired at this time, we had only 3 door dings to deal with so we started sanding the rest of the car. Use 180 grit paper to start and fade in with 220 to finish. It is very important to note low spots and dings at this time. We used Body Filler (bondo) to fill in our three dings, none bigger than a dime. Your next step is to Block Sand the car to get all the big low spots and dings out. Use 220 to do this. Don't concern your self with real fine scratches and small imperfections just yet. Now we are going to prime the whole car. Once again wipe it down real good with Final Kleen and tack the car well. Use the Uro primer-filler, it is the best thing to happen in auto-body in 10 years. It covers up scratches like you wouldn't believe and it sands great as well, this is a three part primer. you will need activator,converter and Uro primer. It is pricey but well worth the money. I paid $135 for it but I have enough for 3-4 cars. Use 2-3 coats of this and lay it on heavy. Block the car again and check for low spots, repair small spots with a spot putty. Go over the car again with your block and use 400 grit paper this time and get it to a uniform texture. Wipe the car again with Final Kleen and tack the areas to be painted well. Your next step is to Seal the car, had a special color mixed up as the color of the sealer affects the Base coat. Consolt with your local Dupont rep. on this. Apply 2 coats of Sealer followed by 2 coats of your base coat. Finally the important stuff, Clear Coat! Wipe the base coat down good with a tack cloth first. Apply 2 coats of Clear. the first coat should be a medium coat. Your last coat is the most important of all, you are gonna want to lay it on exactly how you want it to look. I like the wet,deep look so I lay it on real heavy almost to the point that it begins to run. Remember you can always wet sand a run out so if you do get one don't sweat it to badly! We can fix it later. Also laying the clear on heavy helps to minimize "orange peel" Now your done and man is it sweet, you got a 10 year paint job and it looks awesome. Most of you probably can't do this type of job but I think you can use this info I have shared when you carry your car down to a bodyshop to get it painted. The methods and materials I have discussed and used are the best in the industry today and as a car buff why would we settle for less than the best we can get? In short, don't get suckered by the cheaper prices of some National chain paint joint, An ambassador finish for $299 isn't worth $100 because 2-3 years later you'll be shelling out more to have a real body shop repair and repaint what they screwed up. Find yourself a good and honest body shop and insist on the methods and materials I have just described, It will have to be one that uses Dupont as body men don't like shooting different paints. MATERIALS NEEDED TO COMPLETE PROJECT 1. 1 gallon Prep-Sol 2. 1 gallon Final Kleen 3. 80, 180,220,400 sand paper 4. tack cloth and clean rags 5. Vari-Prime Self-Etching Primer and Converter 6. Uro primer-Filler,Activator and Converter 7. Basecoat, Sealer and Clear coat (talk to a pain rep before deciding on what type) 8. Paint stripper if needed