My high school friends father used to paint cars professionally and we used to watch him paint so everything I learned was from him. He started us with spray cans, focusing our attention on prep work initially as it is one of the most important steps. You can actually achieve very good results using spray cans if done properly. Last night I was bored so I decided to paint some body panels that needed some attention due to clear coat issues. I'm pretty happy with the outcome. All materials were purchased from automotivetouchup.com. The parts were sanded to the base coat,I sprayed adhesion promoter over the sanded base coat and painted another base coat over that once it was dried. The key is the clear. They offer a 2 part urethane clear coat in a can. I sprayed multiple coats of clear and made sure not to overspray in the same locations, causing runs. Overall the panels came out beautiful. Not bad for rattle cans.

Thats pretty impressive amsrn...great work! I would love to attempt the following with my VR4's peeling spoiler and the rock chips all over the front bumper.
As you stated-the most important part being prep work, with chips and dents would your following steps suffice-have a friend who swears by using dry ice on smaller dents with the sun beating on the problem-spot (ever heard of such a practice)?
Love following your build by the way...learning more and more from your posts
Thank you

COVR4355 said:

Thats pretty impressive amsrn...great work! I would love to attempt the following with my VR4's peeling spoiler and the rock chips all over the front bumper.
As you stated-the most important part being prep work, with chips and dents would your following steps suffice-have a friend who swears by using dry ice on smaller dents with the sun beating on the problem-spot (ever heard of such a practice)?
Love following your build by the way...learning more and more from your posts
Thank you

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Yes I have , I'm assuming using the cooling and heating to contract the steel and pop out the dents. If you have a lot of chips you need to sand the bumper down until u can blend the chips out. If it's through the clear and base coat you might have to take it to primer. I would use some etching primer, wet sand it down smooth in steps , throw a base coat down and clear it. I did my spoiler first..... u can make your car look new for little money

You rock good sir! Once again great job and cannot wait to attempt it myself...thank you, who can really afford a 3k or 4k paint job

COVR4355 said:

You rock good sir! Once again great job and cannot wait to attempt it myself...thank you, who can really afford a 3k or 4k paint job

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Not that you couldn't afford it, it's like paying someone 500 dollars to change a headgasket. Ignorance isn't acceptable anymore, you have every resource at your disposal..... do it yourself and save 3k. YouTube is a powerful tool

I agree. There's is so much info out there for everyone to research and attempt a diy. Great learning experience.

Its all about that 2 stage clear. I see so many people spray can things without clear and it just looks like trash.

I think I'm going to attempt to paint my car within the year and I have no experience doing it. I've only painted r/c cars so maybe that will help. I'm scared though.

Vegas smith said:

I think I'm going to attempt to paint my car within the year and I have no experience doing it. I've only painted r/c cars so maybe that will help. I'm scared though.

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The key in my opinion is making sure you take your time and be patient. If at any point in your mind you try to convince yourself that ... "eh this is enough" your probably being lazy. The quality of your work is dependent on how much time your willing to spend making things right. The nice thing about automotive touchup is that they sell the pain matched and ready to spray right out of the can either in a gun or rattle can.

I used automotive touch up paint to so my engine bay. Also usee there two part clear coat. My engine bay looks 10x better then the outside haha

I just recently finished painting my eclipse. The key points are prep work. Your only spraying paint for a few hours most of which is waiting for it to flash. I've probably got at least 200 hrs into prep and I know that there's things that could of been done better but it's my first paint job and it turned out awesome. I didn't use spray cans I have nothing against them but doing a whole car it's more cost effective to buy a gallon of paint and clear.

She's looking good

Gorgeous! What glorious work...aren't you supposed to be racing today
Hoping you have a video or two to post as well.
Good luck and keep up the great work!

That came out very good.. I'm going to do my engine bay/fenders (hopefully) I got all 2k rattlers.. Primer, satin black, gloss black, high temp black (engine), and clear..

I was going to leave my fenders alone, the clear coats peeling where it meets the hood, but after seeing yours I might give it a shot...

Gonna do the engine bay satin black, and do bolt on goodies like the brake booster, part of the MS, the t-stat housing, etc in gloss black and mayyybe do the old school jmf drag manifold black too.

I bought it black (rough shape tho), stripped it and polished it but I since got a new exhaust manifold ceramic coated satin black. I might do it to match.. Not sure.. I also have to respray the UICP I got..

I got 2k paint, and with such a low shelf life after activation I have to make sure I do it all at once.

What do you think about the drag IM? leave it polished? or redo it black?

@Geeb How much did you pick that manifold up off eBay for?


Amsrn...what all was repainted?

Spray paint does look good if you do it right however it is not going to look good after 1 year of exposure to the elements. I did the same thing to my old gs and it got super faded after only 1 year

Funny thing is it was red and black like yours but a 2g gs

nice job ...good pointers

DetroitStroker said:

@Geeb How much did you pick that manifold up off eBay for?


Amsrn...what all was repainted?

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I repainted the front half...... it so easy, just a matter of taking your time. I don't have a great compressor or setup so a spray gun is out of the question. It's a little more expensive but the results speak for themselves. I gotta finish the rest of the car as is not 100% matching due to the faded clear

More

Ecliptomaniac said:

Spray paint does look good if you do it right however it is not going to look good after 1 year of exposure to the elements. I did the same thing to my old gs and it got super faded after only 1 year

Funny thing is it was red and black like yours but a 2g gs

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What kind of clear coat did you use....? I used the spraymax 2k urethane clearcoat. Its a two part clear, it finishes really really hard. I camt see this clearcoat fading. Ive never seen this type of clearcoat in the store.

How long did you wait from paint to clear

DSM_Ant said:

How long did you wait from paint to clear

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I was taught that you can clear when the smell of the paint does away. I always give the paint time to dry really well, this depends on many factors including temperature and humidity obviously. The key is taking your time. When painting urethane bumpers you need to make sure you use a good self etching primer or a primer designed for urethane otherwise the paint wont adhere properly and will peel off during heating and cooling.

amsrn13 said:

I was taught that you can clear when the smell of the paint does away. I always give the paint time to dry really well, this depends on many factors including temperature and humidity obviously. The key is taking your time. When painting urethane bumpers you need to make sure you use a good self etching primer or a primer designed for urethane otherwise the paint wont adhere properly and will peel off during heating and cooling.

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Thank you

http://www.automotivetouchup.com/indexsidebar.htm

DSM_Ant said:

Thank you

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im debating......keep the roof black, or paint it red..

Amsrn13 no I did not use any clear straight 1k out of a can. The 2k clear should last a couple years. If you garage it, it will last longer

Cont

Almost looks as good as my hood.