Paint Day!

[widebody911]

I was up until 12:30am last night hand-blocking the car 4 times with #500 paper. It was hard to get up this morning, and I couldn't get my sorry a$$ outta bed until 9 or so.

I got the tacking finished, garage cleaned and plastic hung by ~11:00am, mixed up some paint and immedately shot a run on the driver's door. Oh yeah, test the gun on the wall, first, dummy!

I'm getting a *lot* of dust for some reason, and have 3 runs so far. Oh well.

I'm stuffing some food in my face right this minute, then I'll go out and do a couple more coats. Bumpers et al get painted tomorrow.

[john70t]

The paint looks incredible. Top of the line professional quality! (It should help to cut some of the wind resistance from those monster flares as well ).
By the way, did you do any modifications to the headlight mounts? I just adjusted mine and it seems strange that the whole assembly is held on by one screw and a very thin lip of metal.

[Zeke]

When I paint, I leave the fans off while spraying (I see your fans under the door). It does get cloudy in there with no fan, but there is less dirt. I also plastic across the ceiling and make a complete bag around the car.

Important Notice: You may run the risk of having an explosion! The fans can ignite the fumes and so can lights you are using. Be very careful. The car should not be grounded and it isn't sitting on its tires, but you should somehow be. A tracer wire from the gun back to a properly grounded compressor should prevent static electricity.

As far as the runs go, stop and sand them out, sand out particles of dirt, retack and have another go.

Looks nice so far, good luck.

[widebody911]

Thanks for the kind words, but this is nowhere near "top of the line professional quality!" It will be fine for a daily driver and track car, but I'm seeing all kinds of little spots where I'm thinking "Hmm, coulda sanded that a little more...

Overall, I'm happy with the job. Here's how I'd grade it:

• coverage - A-
• dust - C+
• orange peel B-
• runs - C+
• detail (jambs, etc) - B+
• bodywork - A-

I still have to do the bumpers, mirrors and all of that stuff tomorrow.

I used 3 quarts of paint so far!

Thom,
Looks good. Fumes give a nice buzz too.
Mark

[widebody911]

Well, the car itself is done. The paint was dry to the touch, so I pushed the car out into the sun and removed the masking, and it can bake for a bit.

[RoninLB]

Thom..when I shoot...I use 400 to give a better bite to a thin 1st coat which I let dry off for a little while..this becomes the foundation/glue/fly paper for the 1st real coat..I would stop shooting and block any imprefections/low spots/fish eyes after the current shoot is farely hard w/400..I would only work on the imprefections till everything is perfect, doing small areas at a time, maybe using only a touch up gun..I need full unclouded sun to check out a freshly painted/unsanded area and a box of red Marlboro high test to see how it reflects in the specific areas..If it reflects like your bathroom mirror it's good enough..anyway after touch up/imprefections is over I give a full medium coat at high psi...if everything seems perfect except for some dust then I'm getting close to the short strokes..everything gets cleaned w/800 or 1,000...then finally a 90psi, 50/50 [paint/thinner] is blasted on..I'm only looking to fill in the 800 scratches..a very thin coat that dries fast, so thin any dust comes off w/polishing...I fake the whole job and when the pros want to know how I did such a great job in my dusty garage I tell them.......MAGIC.......Ron

[Nader]

Not too late to chop the A-pillars for a Speedster look!

It looks good and will look even better when finished.

Is that a B&B rear muffler?

[CamB]

Hmmmm. Thom painted his car on the weekend (after a previous weekend of prep)....

... I did my handbrake assembly (and I #$%@# a couple of the levers up and will have to redo). So much for me feeling like I accomplished something

Great job Thom!! I hope it really does look good in person (and the internet isn't lying to us).

I look at Thom's car (which looks awesome) and think there is no good reason why I should pay someone to repaint my BMW '02 race car (on which it wouldn't matter too much if I screw up).

[Brian993]

Thom, I take my hat off to you. I have always wanted to do this. I you should be able to make this paint look perfect with some wet sanding and machine polishing. In fact most times it's what makes the job.

[makaio]

Good job Thom!

Cam, I feel the same way. It took me 8 hours just to repair my sunroof Friday. Some of it was removing the roll bar though.

[Chuck Moreland]

I nominate Thom for "Most prolificate DIYer".

He moves incredibly fast. In the past few months, let's see -

3.6 conversion
Turbo Brakes
Dual fender oil coolers
oops, valance oil cooler
Cab conversion
Fiberglass bumpers
Monster wheels/tires
How many wings? I'm losing count
Roll Bar
ERam (cut him some slack, the guy's workin' hard)
Now a paint job
What else have I missed?

Roomer has it that he will be converting it to a coupe next weekend.

[widebody911]

Not to mention:

TRG sway bars
22/29 torsion bars
new wheel bearings
several iterations of the SPI (sewer pipe intake)
new front struts
5-point harnesses
home made harness bars
Recar SRD seats
debug spacers for track wheels
C2 engine lid
Homemade splitters
brake cooling

Next up:

homemade ducting for stock oil cooler
Electronics for C2 spoiler (I'm working on the design of an air-pressure triggered setup)
Transmission cooler
RS door panels
new carpet & interior
bolt-on rear track wing

The thought has run thru my mind to get a 993 in the next couple of years, and convert the 77 to a dedicated track car. I'd install a roll cage and - you guessed it - a fiberglass or carbon fiber roof, making it a coupe. The circle will be complete, and the world will end.

(of course this is all contingent on my continued employment @ HP/Compaq, which is looking more tenous by the day)

Originally posted by Chuck Moreland
I nominate Thom for "Most prolificate DIYer".

He moves incredibly fast. In the past few months, let's see -

3.6 conversion
Turbo Brakes
Dual fender oil coolers
oops, valance oil cooler
Cab conversion
Fiberglass bumpers
Monster wheels/tires
How many wings? I'm losing count
Roll Bar
ERam (cut him some slack, the guy's workin' hard)
Now a paint job
What else have I missed?

Roomer has it that he will be converting it to a coupe next weekend.

[Jim T]

You da Man!!!

Looks great - as you know color sanding will take a lot of the imperfections out. Its gonna look great when its all together!

[pbs911]

The circle will be complete, and the world will end.

Just let me know before you do this. I need to go to confession.

Seriously Thom, I really can't stand all this 3.6 motor swaying, oil cooler fabing, fiber bumbers, welding, allegedly spanking Jack Olsen at Thunderhill, several hot new girlfriends and now a full paint job! You are really starting to chap my hide! Do you ever sleep man!

[Jack Olsen]

"...allegedly spanking Jack Olsen at Thunderhill."

No 'allegedly' needed. He just plain beat me.

(Now, there's another event we're both scheduled to attend in July, so the story's not finished, just yet. )

But the guy is like a force of nature. And his car is fast.

[glenndeweirdt]

Looks outstanding.
How do you get your wife to let you do this in your garage?
Or are you already divorced due to this project. I guarantee if I tried spraying that beautiful red it would end up looking like a baboon's rear end,