So I picked up this 92 RS from a guy who needed some money. Story of peoples lives right? The car sat in a barn for a decade and nobody knew how to fix it or what to do with it. My goal is to bring the exterior back to almost stock, paintable condition.

I'm replacing the hood with a stock one (already done.) the rear bumper beam, the seals, window trims, drip rails, taillights, door hinge pins, windshield, front grille, front pass side fender, removing the door moldings, and I'd like the car to be painted a straight blue, no metallic. Have professionally refinished OEM wheels with new tires and center caps also.

I considered the factory medium green metallic, but as my buddy said "It's your car man, it's not a collectors item, paint it what ever color you like best." So that's just what I'll do.

So far I've removed the exhaust from the cat-back and been wire wheeling the underside of the car and undercoating it. As far as body work there's only a couple lows in the hood from the guy painting over top of sanded oem paint. The roof has a little ding, the door has a little ding, and that's about it. Minimal plastic work needed.

My real questions are:

- In what order should I work this car? I tend to jump around, so I need a more formal plan of attack here for the body work.

- What grits of paper should I order for my 6" DA to remove all this old paint, and should I use any chemical stripper or just sand and sand some more?

- Any preference on long blocks to order for all the block sanding?

- Would an inline air sander be of any use or is that for cars that require huge areas of filler?

- Anybody here have a recommendation on what site to order supplies from? I like Eastwood products, a bit expensive. anybody use them?

- I'm guessing the front bumper should be removed to properly remove all the old paint yes?



This is my 3rd, 3rd gen. As my screen name indicates, unfortunately this one's not stick, I sold that one.

Happy new year, thanks for reading my long post. Guidance appreciated!

 

Really like that hood, nice car.

 

I like the car too. And the current color. But paint it the color you want.

The only tip I've had passed on to me that might be helpful is to work form the front to the back, fitting the panels. You can't move the quarters, so fit the doors to them. Once the doors are set, fenders and hood can follow.

 

Traded the hood to a guy and his son that were building a pro-mod 92 RS. I'm registering this as a classic / collector car when it's finished and it's gotta appear to be stock. The hood looks better than it performs. The windshield is full of pits, cracks, and chips from the stones that hit it through the cowl. It's really an awful design and even with some mesh there it would still happen.

As for the paint, the photos don't show it but it's been painted in somebodys garage in the dark.. so you can see through the paint to the primer in spots. Other areas there are severe clear coat runs, and some spots just plain poor body work so basically it has to all be redone weather I like it or not.

 

Before I start answering I wanted to mention that it might be very beneficial to you if you read the build threads that my self and RobGuitarGod have over in the member's camaros section. We are both doing complete rebuilds of our cars and make mention of what we see as helpful. Rob does a more professional job and his body would probably win on a points system but I've been going further with the custom work stuff.

Rob's: https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...n-91z-ls1.html

Mine: https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...oming-aka.html

As long as you can see the car assembled with the parts/components you are using before you begin the painting process where you begin has no real relevance.

First you should find out how many times each panel has been painted. Even if the paint is a stock color and has never been in any accidents-- Do not assume! My Camaro was just that, the stock color with no reported fender benders and look at this, count the layers to find out how many times it was painted...





Once you've found out how many layers you have you can go from there. More than one layer and I would strip it completely and at that point any way you strip the paint is fine. Media blasting would be the fastest and best followed by sandpaper followed by chemical strippers. My opinion anyway. The more layers of paint to remove the lower the grit you can go. If you have more than two layers Just grab the 80 grit. Other than stripping paint I wouldn't use any sander for anything other than knocking down the body filler or heavy orange peel.

The DuraFlex long blocks are my favorite and the longer the better. They have a small amount of flex for when you have a slightly curved surface. Lots of cheaper blocks are too rigid. Harbor Freight has a Yellow long block that is very bendable that is great for long areas that have more curve.

Leave the power sanders to the professional. You want to use long blocks by hand for as much as you can. Power sanders can remove too much too fast. Using a long block by hand will easily show you your low and high spots. Remember that since you are usually spraying as little as possible (or to coverage or to hiding) you only want to remove as little as possible. Some other great sanding pieces are varying widths and diameters of the foam paint rollers with the sand paper wrapped around them for concave surfaces, the 3M sanding sponges with some paper around them for small flat areas too small for a long block.

Eastwood is good and you are right that some of their products are a little pricey. I used Amazon and eBay for the bulk of my purchases.

 

Well, thank you for that awesome reply - that was really great and I appreciate it. I'm definitely going to look at those builds and take tips from them!

You two really went all out, I wish I had the time to do that sort of work but unfortunately at this point in my life I am stretched too thin between all my other vehicles, work, and houses... I would be happy just to do the minor body work, and get the car ready to paint. Really happy to see people dedicated to this level of work on these cars though!

 

I don't know Rob well enough to speak for him but I am an average guy just doing this stuff sometimes for the first time. We both are humble enough to show when we screw something up or if we could have done it better or if something was worth the price or effort. Body work is easy stuff because hey, if you screw up you can always redo it! Don't be afraid to do as much work yourself as you can.