Finally after 15 years -- a Repaint!

[jluetjen]

After a decade and a half of people point out the crappy paint job on my car, it's finally gone into the shop for a new coat. It's also the opportunity to fix untold evils inflicted on the car by the previous owner. It all stemmed from an improperly done repair of the sills, leaving the car bent in the middle. The bend was removed a couple of years ago, and now it's time to fix everything that was jiggered to account for the bend.

The good news? Very little rust!










The bad news is that the damage on the rigt side from the car being parked against the guard-rail at Watkins Glen was not repaired well. So my body-shop guy had to spend a few hours pulling out all of the puckers and ripples after the filler was removed.

Things are moving along fast!

[Reiver]

Nice.
I often contemplate doing the same on my SC....I have 259k miles of 'patina' on the front of the car. The original paint has held up well and looks good at 10 feet...but the miniscule rock chips look like a shotgun salt blast.
I drive it all of the time...12k this year...so my worry is worry. If I do a windows out paint job I'll be an anal worry wart about the paint.
I suspect I'll go that route as the car is so nice otherwise...I'm also afraid I'll delete the sun roof, mirrors and do an later RSR bumper job.
Decisions decisions.

[jluetjen]

I know how you feel Reiver. The value of these cars have gone up so much that part of me is afraid to lose the "just drive it" feel. I don't want to be afraid to drive it. A Concourse winner is specifically not my objective. I want a clean solid car that I can continue to drive on most sunny days 9 months out of the year -- just without the...

- peeling paint
- rust bubbles
- variable color
- wonky bodywork fixes
- Cracked dash cover
- etc.

[lsf911]

John,

What shop did you bring your car to? I live in the next town over from you, I am surprised I have never seen you driving around. Occasionally I do see a black 911 cab in Westford. Not too many old 911's around here.

[universeman]

Dr. Colorchip does a pretty good job hiding rock rash. It's not perfect but if you take your time and work on it, you'll get a good result that looks like you spent a lot more than $50.

[u242447]

I'm thinking about repainting my car what was the cost for your 911 to be repainted? I know the price will vary with body work. Just wondering Thanks!!

[JackMan]

The cost to repaint a 911 is directly correlated to the strength of your marriage, for you married people. The stronger the marriage, the more you get to spend. The weaker the marriage the more you have to lie about the cost of the repaint. For you unmarried types, the cost of painting your 911 is expensive, what's more expensive is all the little things that pop up and say hi after the paint is removed.

[Reiver]

Originally Posted by jluetjen

I know how you feel Reiver. The value of these cars have gone up so much that part of me is afraid to lose the "just drive it" feel. I don't want to be afraid to drive it. A Concourse winner is specifically not my objective. I want a clean solid car that I can continue to drive on most sunny days 9 months out of the year -- just without the...

- peeling paint
- rust bubbles
- variable color
- wonky bodywork fixes
- Cracked dash cover
- etc.

I get your motivation...our latter cars are less prone to rust and I've never found any anywhere (of course being a lifelong Az/SoCal car didn't hurt either). If I had rust/bondo issues I'd go for it most ricky tik.
The value of your long hood will overcome the expense if it hasn't already.

[jpnovak]

John. It has been a long time. Glad to see this happen.

My motto. "I built it to drive. If it breaks I will fix it. If I crash I will repair it. I won't stop driving it".

[Tremelune]

$15k is often the number thrown around to repaint a 911 properly...Paint is only original once, so think long and hard.

Body issues, dust patches, bubbles, mismatched colors, and peeling would lead me to repaint a car. Rock chips, dullness, and scratches would not.

It's also worth noting that "tired" and faded paint can often be brought back to showroom perfect by a good paint correction person. Most cars of this era were single stage.


What color is the car going to be?

[jluetjen]

I agree -- price to repaint will be $15K plus/minus any issues or surprises. The cost of the materials also matters. A significant portion ($,000's) is made up of the paint cost. This shop's standard paint is Glasurit (I believe a BASF company) which was also an original paint supplier to Porsche back in 1969.

Keep in mind that this is not a full strip, but only the exterior surfaces. He'll also include rust-proofing inside the doors, new "bed liner" inside the new fenders, etc.

In the case of this car originality is not an issue. The red seen in earlier pictures was a crappy coat of non-standard lacquer applied by the previous owner. The car's original color was Diamond Silver which was scuffed up prior to the lacquer being applied. It also originally had a Sportomatic, which is long gone.

I'm treating it as a mildly updated, period looking hot-rod. The new color will be Tangerine/ "Blood Orange". In the process I'm also adding an "S" front spoiler in place of the 1970's era black rubber air-dam that was on the car when I bought it.

Here are some more pictures of the car with it's coat of poly applied.

[jluetjen]

Originally Posted by Reiver

The value of your long hood will overcome the expense if it hasn't already.

That's only true if I sell it -- which I don't intend to do. So it's not so much a case of the ROI as it is the specific cash-flows during the repaint.

As far as the earlier comments about the strength of the marriage, thankfully that is not an issue (my wife has long since acclimated to what she calls my "girlfriend" in the garage), the maintenance of the college tuition bills is the bigger challenge.

[jluetjen]

An example of a not so hidden evil that is being fixed is in the area of where the B-pillar meets the sills.

- Previous owner replaced the sills with the car sitting on jack stands on either end of the car. The result was the chassis was as straight as a potato-chip, which he attributed to crash-damage from a track-day. It was discounted in the purchase price and I just aligned around it (with the result that the car had a slight crab to it).

- A few years back I had the sills replaced correctly and the shop pulled the chassis straight in the process. He confirmed that the bend was not due to the crash damage, but rather the improperly done sill repair. Since then the car has aligned straight. Curiously though, the passenger side door would still be sticky to open, and required a solid shove to close, in spite of the chassis now being straight.

- In fixing the body work, Jimmy found that the previous owner had also done some work on the passenger side where the sills meet the B-pillar/door jamb. I'm guessing this was done after the PO did the sills, and was prompted because the chassis wasn't straight. The result was that the door always stuck because it was being pinched by the frame. This "repair" was then covered over with generous amounts of bondo. This has all been removed and fixed.

This whole experience has further confirmed my belief that most of the issues that vex us with our cars are either caused by botched repairs done by the previous owners, or else by ourselves.

[jluetjen]

Here's an interesting picture showing how Jimmy pulled out all of the wrinkles from the previous owner's encounter with the rail at Watkins Glen. I guess the process is to weld a tool to various places along the dent, and then pull it out. You can see the weld marks here prior to the poly coat being applied.



Incidentally, the body shop for anyone in the area who is looking for a reference is Jimmy's Phaze II in Westford. He also did my friend Ray's car a few years back.

[jluetjen]

[Duc Hunter]

Looking great! Love the orange!

[lvporschepilot]

Outstanding. I'm doing continental orange for mine. Glasurit paint is painfully pricey!

[jluetjen]

The car is essentially done. It paid a visit to the body shop this morning to be touched-up from the occasional reconstruction ding, as well as to get rubbed out. I figure that this is about as good as it will ever look!

Thanks to everyone for lots of good input on completing some of the details (like gauges, hardware, etc.) Just one minor problem left to fix and I'll be looking for another project while I enjoy driving my "girlfriend" as my wife likes to call the 911.





... and now with the decals on it.




Now about the stainless steel exhaust, mapped ignition, rebuild the engine, replacing the first gear synchros, ....

[lvporschepilot]

That looks great. The 74 Carrera I'm restoring will be the same color, well it is the same color as the paint is done, just need to put the thing together. Love it.

[69porsche]

Beautiful car! Well donee!