The paint kind of protects itself it's odd to describe. But this was my test case after I finished. It sat in the sun for about a week and in the rain that week too no staining. Fresh paint no wax over it. Cleaned it at the end of the week and it's still good no fading or anything. Parked it under a tree known for bird dropping for a day. Cleaned it 3 days later no staining or paint came off.
When you finish painting you will have some spots that are glossier then others but it's still acceptable to drive around. Once you final wetsand and polish it's amazing looking. Very hard to tell. But since I painted it i could point out all the blemishes right for you. However my friends were hard pressed to pick anything out.
I've since driven it 800 miles highway to and from buffalo to paint my friends 240. No rock chips on the hood. Smacked and went up on several crubs in parking lots. The underside of the front bumper is still solid blue.
Thsi weekend I took a key to it on the trunk. I was able to scrape through the first coat it seems when I used alot of force (as if I was keying my own car). but generally brushing against it didn't seem to harm it.
The parts I didn't prep well (by the trim for the conv top in the back) I could peel up some paint around the edge when I scratched. But you could see the unsanded original coat there. I could only peel up about 1/8 of an inch of paint. Once I got to the other stuff that was prepped and actually sanded it was good. I can sand that and it doesn't peel it creates dust. I plan to actually remove that trim this time so it works out fine.
I then took a chisel to my hood 2 nights ago and delibrately chipped it alot. I sanded the area around it. Painted the area with a rush, left dry (about 6 hours), recoated (left dry 12 hours), Came back and put a final coat on the chips (let it dry), I wet sanded the area's this morning and hit them with the buffer. They look excellent for chip repairs. So it can be fixed from my experience.
It dries really hard. Note: I wouldn't try this stuff within the first week you paint it... give it some time to set and dry completely. I painted my last coat and took it on the road 12 hours later.
2 things scared me when I did it:
1) The initial shock after the first coat of oh god what have I done to my gorgeous red car?
2) the first week driving it around I kept insisting it looked horrible cause I could see all the problems in the paint since I did it. After I drove it a week I don't notice it anymore. It's not show quality by any means but it's much better then the keyed up red coat and shines very nicely with wax on.
NOTE: The rustoleum aparently looks very dull when done. The brightside paint does not. I first painted the spoiler with rustoleum and it looks kinda crappy. But if you have an older car it has that appearance. Many people on the mopar boards are happy with that because thats close to how their cars came from the factories.
The 240sx:
Note: These are pictures after the first coat. I'll have to get the latest and completed pictures from him sometime tonight and put them up. You can see how glossy it is after 1 coat. Note there are some spots where coverage is questionable. There were no roller marks from it just some wasn't painted yet. The second coat took care of that.
http://www.novaslp.net/pics/v/NewYorkBuffalo/JonsCar/
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, well hopefully the sapphire blue looks better. Can't wait to see how it looks. I'm gonna be starting mine sometime next month, so it would be great to see how it looks.
