Good question. My garage isn't big enough to paint the tub inside. I can do the panels in a makeshift booth but the body had to be done outside.

My strategy was to plan for an early morning before the breeze came up and everything was still. It was far from perfect but not bad at all.

My lack of skill causes more issues than the dust in the air.

PushingMyLuck, I was not surprised to find rust, only at the extent. The door jam area was covered by trim and the picture you see is after I did some serious poking at it with a screw driver.

This car was far from perfect when I bought it and exactly what I wanted with the entry fee I could handle. It was my daily driver (parked outside) for more than 5yrs (in a Florida beach community) before I tore into it. I actually would not have found much of the rust if my good Pelican friends hadn't prompted my to go poking around.

I am a total newb when it comes to these cars and the rebuilding process, including paint. I am looking for a late 80s carrera coupe, I also have limited space in my garage so interested for future reference. With the prices going the way they are currently, I think I'll be project car territory soon. Like seeing these threads, I come from a mk6 gti community so most of the work guys are doing is modification work. Nice to see some larger projects with drastic results.

I love that yellow color and the very thorough job stripping the interior. I'd say that's a really good looking bead you welded on that seat bracket as well. Keep it up!
GK

Getting better at this painting thing. Here are some shots to this weekend's work.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1373324245.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1373324275.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1373324300.jpg

SmileWavy

Looks great Glenn!

Nice job Glenn!

Looks good! Looking forward to seeing the car back together.

Looking real good! Love the color. Are you using single stage or base clear?

Many people take on the most serious rust repair work and very few paint after the repairs,you have proved it Glenn,well done.
Have enjoyed your progress for a while ,top marks

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement. It is a tough journey when every single task takes you a bit beyond your comfort zone. It will be great to get the bodywork behind me and get back to turning wrenches. My minimum goal is to have the body and rear panels painted and back together before the end of the summer. I still have some metal work to do on the front fenders, have to fabricate an oil cooler mount and fit the front valance. So that will be the work for the fall. Then the winter will be dedicated to interior work.

As for the paint, I am using Glasurit 22 Line in Talbot Yellow (the original color of the car). It is an expensive paint to learn with.

Time for an update.

The summer has been full of ups and downs. Learned some lessons the hard way. My first attempt at color on the left side of the tub produced some real good drips and I had to sand it down and soot again. Much better the second time around and I got the whole tub painted.

I used the wrong product to coat the rocker panels and have had to strip those. I've got the right stuff now and will be taking care of the in the coming weeks.

Doors were looking good but I felt I needed to add another coat of color but screwed that up by mixing the paint wrong. :rolleyes:. So sanding the doors and re-shooting them is also on the short list.

I spent the long weekend stripping the front fenders, front bumper and rear valance. Then several hours yesterday afternoon color sanding the hood. Of all the pieces I've painted, I am happiest with the hood. Only a few small blemishes that I can live with.

I figure I have another 6-8 weeks of working-outside weather and a ton of work to do in what time the family will tolerate.

Goal: Have everything from the doors back painted, color sanded and reassembled before the end of October.

Over the winter, I will return to cleaning up the engine, replacing fuel lines, rebuilding pedals, reinstalling the engine and transmission. I also hope to fabricate the oil cooler mount.

Glenn, I love the color! Very nice job!

I also have done a bit of paint work over the years and learned some paint techniques from a very experienced friend. I'll share a few that have served me well over the years.

- After you prime and wet sand the primer, look at the panel very closely while it's wet, since it's wet it shines just like paint will and you can easily see any imperfections like small dents. Also, if spraying a dark color you can pick a dark primer to help see imperfections.

- You'll also be amazed how much you can learn about surface imperfections with your hand! This one amazed me: During wet sanding of primer use water with a small amount of dish soap and wipe down the panel with this water/soap mixture then close your eyes (really, no looking) and slide the palm of your hand over the entire panel using left/right then down then right/left and down. Simply you are feeling the entire panel surface with your palm without looking. You'll be amazed how easily you'll feel imperfections.

- When painting panels I have a infrared heat lamp, looks like a 4' florescent lamp but it's a large 3000Watt heat lamp. I use this to preheat the surface of the panel to about 120F. You can use any indirect heat source to do this, even a heat blower gun for small panels works well. Once warm shoot a very light coat of paint so it's just spot painted where you can still see primer with very light paint spots. Let this very light coat dry about 10 minutes before you shoot the next full coat. This technique really helps reduce paint drips. Then if you have a infrared heat tube (not a blower) you can apply heat between coats. The idea is to get the prior coat to tack up before you shoot the next, normally about 10-15 minutes between coats. Heat lamp like this one works well: http://www.ebay.com/itm/321199821002

- I also am a big fan of single stage paints with wet sanding the final finish. I personally don't care for clear coat finishes on a show car that's not a daily driver. I shoot paint and usually leave significant orange peel and then just wet sand it and polish.

- When wet sanding don't take shortcuts by using heavy grit paper! It only makes polishing more difficult! I always use 2000 grit paper and sand till the orange peel is flat then polish.

- One more big tip: remove anything and everything containing oil from the area you will be spraying in! If you paint in a garage and within the garage you have a oil drain pan laying around with even the smallest amount of oil in the pan it will very likely make it's way to the surface of the wet paint (I have no idea why or how this happens but trust me it happens!) and the result is what they call 'fish eye' in the finished surface! It's also very important to degrease mechanical stuff still on the car, or better yet cover these things (Like engines, trans, ...) with plastic so this transfer of oil/grease does not result in fish-eye.

- If you want to spray with perfect dry and oil free air you can purchase a bottle of nitrogen at your local welding supply store then get a good pressure regulator for the bottle and use this as your air source for the paint gun. A bit expensive but you have perfect air for painting.

- I've done some amazing finishes in my garage without a spray booth following these tips.

Just thought I'd share what I've learned over the years spraying autos at home.

Keep up the work, looks great!

Your work is truly inspiring! I was certainly not brave enough to shoot the final paint. My hat goes off to you for taking on every step of this yourself. Well done and keep trucking:D

Thanks Sal. Great tips. I seem to be in the shoot-for-orange-peel-and-sand-it-out camp, without even trying. My drips were the result of poor technique more than anything else. I like the pre-heating tip though.

Doing it all yourself can be rewarding. The draw back is while I started my project well before you started yours, you are back on the road and I'm still dreaming of the day... :rolleyes:

More yellow parts!! :D

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1379372720.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1379372740.jpg

I've spent a good bit of time sanding and repainting. Just about everything is yellow now. Hope to do the front fenders and valance over the winter, after I do the engine maintenance, install new fuel lines, rebuild the pedals and some other mechanical stuff.

Still planning to be on the road in less than a year.

The other day I fitted up the fenders, bumper and valance to determine the oil cooler location.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381610592.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381610645.jpg

Looks good Glenn. Just keeping making forward progress.

Great job!

Nice job ! fun to work outside and get others involved.