stalin05

Ok im about a month or so from painting. Should i paint my car myself or shell out the bucks and have a body stop do it? (Might I add the only local body shop that I trust is MAACO, and you know how worthy they are) If i do it myself, should i put the car all together and paint? Or paint the fenders,GFX,bumper,hood , etc all seperate?

IROC212

iTrader: (1)

Personally I would paint the car apart, no overspray into jams, and there is no edges where the panels butt together, only to peel later. The only problem with painting the car while its apart is taking extreme care not to mess up the paint while putting the car back together. In my opinion the extra care is worth it, the overall paint job will look so much better!

jay92,85,79

iTrader: (1)

I like paint with the car together. I have done it apart and was spraying gun metal gray When i but it together it did match right. I think it was because i was not spraying the same way the met came out differnt. I spray the jams(if change the color) inside the doors all at the same time Than close the doors. Have some thing set up so they don't close all the way. Than paint the out side. Before i put the door on i edge the a piller and the buttom of the door. Were the A piller meets the rocker there is a breaking point. The hatch i paint off the car. The feders on. bumpers on but not all the way on. Everyone has there owen way they like doing it. No wrong or right way about it.

z2885er

I just painted mine recently. I also do the door jams at the same time. Definitely remove the gfx and mirrors. I also removed my bumper covers, gas doorlock cylinders, door handles, tailights, window gaskets, door gaskets, fender skirts, door panels, spoiler pieces. Kept fenders on, didn't wanna have to straighten them later, handling them more than necessary. If you do the jams and/or remove the door handles you can flip up the door lock on the back end of the door to prevent locking yourself out and the door closing all the way. I had trouble dealing with a MAACO by me when I was shopping for a place to paint my car. They wouldn't give me any straight answers on prices for my car being painted as is, prepped and ready to go. They still wanted to charge me for their prep package and color change, even though the car was in primer. But it turned out for the better as I found a decent shop that actually let me finish prepping my car and paint it myself in his shop. And I got a job offer out of it. If you were to paint it yourself, I would have someone with some experience help you, same with prep if possible. Otherwise hopefully you have a decent MAACO by you.

stalin05

hey thanx. ya i hate the maaco by me. They wanted $440 to install my High Rise. Let just say i never went back. I have zip exp when it comes to preping and painting cars. My dad does, but i wouldnt call his exp good. I dont know what im gona do yet.

TomP

You definately want to paint it when the car's bolted together. If you're worried about overspray, you just have a lot of masking work to do! Like jay92,85,79 said, if you get a different spray pattern on each piece, they won't match.

Plus- wouldn't you hate it if you painted everything separate, bolted the body back together when you were done, opened the door, and found out the door-to-fender clearance was too small and you cracked the paint on the door's edge?

So get all your body panel alignment done first, while the car's being prepped, before you spray.

But it is smart to remove blinkers and headlights and headlight trim and taillights and antennas and door handles and locks and whatever else you can get out of the way.

stalin05

I think i can do all that , the only thing i might have problems with is the power antenna. Its currently not working, or i should say, it has never worked. Any ideas on that?

jay92,85,79

iTrader: (1)

ahhh just shave it. To get it off take a part of pillers and turn the flat nut on the top. Than take the fender skirt out and there should be some 6 mil bolts holding it to the piller. And yes take every thing off the car. With the bumpers I leave them on the car but leave a gap were that meet to the fenders

stalin05

ya but i kinda want the power antenna. I just want it to work lol
I think i might get the fenders and hood on just right, and then the rest should be easy. I hope.

Jim Berry

I purchased a '91 Firebird for $600 for a ride while I take my T/A apart. It has a damaged nose cone and left front fender. Interior is pristine with only 120K on the odometer. I'll replace those next month.

I am taking all of the GFX off the T/A before painting and doing them seperately. I think I will spray it myself this time. I did a few cars before HVLP became popular, so I will need to read a little before painting.

I will add some flex agent to the paint when I spray the GFX so that they will not crack if they get bumped. Most shops just spray the car and send you off into the sunset.

Jim.

Spdfrk1990

Cleanest way is to paint it is apart i never had any matching problems unless you used 2 different batches of paint. If you cant get it to match with the panels off the car your not painting it right if your doing metallic and it doesnt flow then your not laying down a mist coat.

87and 93birds

i do it both ways. if i paint it together i loosen the bumpers and stick a piece of wire in the crack to keep them apart for paint to get in there. that goes for the windshield rubber also.

Tricked-Out-Toy

iTrader: (1)

I see alot of ppl have different ideas about painting there gfx on and off there car, im painting my 91 in a month or so and was probly going to do the side gfx and rear gfx off the car but when i replaced the front one a while back i notice that its suuppeeer flexable, when you paint it off the car doesnt the paint split and spider when you try to put it back on? how careful do you have to be? I understand the flex aggent helps but how much?

JPrevost

I'm also having this dilemma.
I'm going to pull my car apart and just be really careful putting it back together. It's easier to shave the door locks and antenna when they're off the car.
Yes I have to be careful but for me that's a no brainer.
Does anybody have any ACTUAL pictures of where the spray pattern looks different when you spray them seperate? I've never heard of this unless you spray thin or too rich. If you're in the middle and the paint is a flat color (flame red for me) then the only way it won't look right is if there were different mixes between shooting. I had this problem with my spoiler, it's a darker red than the rest of the car.
In anycase, I'm pulling the car apart so I can spray the door jams easily and do the front end (minus fenders and body parts) black. I want to have a black engine bay and removing the hardware seems like the easiest way. Not to mention with the fenders off I can get the inner lips easily.
After writing that I just came up with another dilemma, the fender hardware. It might look funny with "old red" hardware installed on a fresh fender, hmm... maybe i'll install the fenders after painting the engine bay/front end black. That might work out but it's more masking I was hoping to avoid .

Tricked-Out-Toy

iTrader: (1)

I see alot of ppl have different ideas about painting there gfx on and off there car, im painting my 91 in a month or so and was probly going to do the side gfx and rear gfx off the car but when i replaced the front one a while back i notice that its suuppeeer flexable, when you paint it off the car doesnt the paint split and spider when you try to put it back on? how careful do you have to be? I understand the flex aggent helps but how much?

jay92,85,79

iTrader: (1)

I paint all the GFX's off the car. That front one is a pain to paint. Get a horse and set it on there. I take zip ties and tie it to the horse. U can bend it a little have someone give u a hand putting it back on the car. I would not bend it in half might crack. But there is no resson to do that.

AJT86

if using a metalflake paint- paint the car together- if its just a solid color i would pull everything off. ive seen guys do a metalflake job- and the doors, GFX, and body and hood all had a different amount of flake in it- you could tell what was taken off- if its just a solid color- it makes everything easy to paint IMO

heavy_chevy29

i painted my car sunset orange. i did it completely taken apart. its the best way to do it. i painted from the doors back first. then i did the whole front end. the booth i used wasn't big enough to fit everything it there. use one batch of paint, use the same air pressure, and do it all in one day and you'll be fine.

Spdfrk1990

Exactly if you get the metal flake off then you just dont know what your doing.

91bluemetalicRS

the most common methods for overall paint jobs from the 10 shops I write estimates at are: take the bumpers/rocker mouldings off. r&i all door handles, headlights, sidemarkers, sidemouldings etc.. rope or remove back window and w/s, then paint entire vehicle with rest of the parts still on vehicle.

Spdfrk1990

Thats a shop though they are not going to take the time to take everything off they are going for speed. Now if your doing a restoration you would take it all off the car.

VILeninDM

plus shops generally do repair and those are painting the same color on top of what was there.

I am about to start my body prep and I had same questions (still do to a degree) before finding this thread.

I am changing my car from red to black and I want to make sure that when all is said and done, there is no red anywhere peaking out.

Kandied91z

iTrader: (7)

candies and flake paints really need to have most of the car together. some things just won't look right otherwise unfortunately as it is extremely hard to almost impossible to make things match apart with these paints. solid and pearl paints as well as color changing and i would pull the car apart to the slightest bolt.

Spdfrk1990

My car had flake i painted it apart matches perfect.

Kandied91z

iTrader: (7)

i highly doubt it... it may seem to match good but unless you hung the parts right next to the car and did a continuous flow even then i'm sure someone could notice something. anything's possible though so if it does then congrats to you... people should be paying you very large amounts to paint then.

Spdfrk1990

Actually we have a restoration business only have about 5 cars out right now. Its not that hard you just do a even mist coat for your last coat hold the gun far away and do some fast sweeps. The hard part is when you have to put on quarter panels and rockers and getting the body perfectly strait and all the gaps even painting is the fun part at least to me. Trust me im really picky if something wasnt even i would repaint it. I would post some pictures if car domain didnt take a dumb right now. My dad finally got into restoration after being into collision repair forever I always been into it and worked in it for awhile but just wasnt my thing to do everyday and I mainly just liked to paint. So let the body shops tell you thats how they have to do it and charge you the same as if they did it with the panels off since thats the easy way.

jay92,85,79

iTrader: (1)

The painter at are work paints panels off the car. And they come out great. But for someone that is learning how to paint. Or has not painted alot of cars. For them I think painting them on the car is better.I'm trying to get out of the collision repair buss now.Been in it for 9 years and all i can say is 9 years to long.Wanna do restorations to. Glad to see that its working out for your dad. Everone thats in the collision that u talk to allways saies there is no money in restor's.But i have to dis agree.Anyways off topic some sorry.

FirehawkSS

iTrader: (2)

IF you want the hassle of painting all your friends cars do it yourself. Trust me as soon as you do yours everyone will be asking you to do theirs. After you do enough paint jobs youll be doing this That stuff kills you unless you have a full on supplied air oxygen system and a booth to paint in. Ever wonder why all the bodymen and painters you know have a nervous eye twitch. Spend the money and let someone else suffer through it.
Unless you want a career in autobody then go ahead and do it yourself. It is extremely rewarding and builds a lot of confidence when you do it yourself. Just remember experience is the best teacher and you'll learn more than you want to from your first paint job.

Spdfrk1990

Heres our booth and alot of people and family members ask but when you have customers waiting you dont have time plus if thats where your money comes from and friends basically want you to do all the work for free its kinda hard.
Here I also added some of the cars in my car domain
Restoration cars click here