Complete DIY respray..... anyone done it?

[Shamrockez]

I'm going to be fitting my cup car kit to my 98 Beetle in the new few months (hopefully) and the car has been in storage for 2yrs and the paint on the rest of the car isn't that great. There's a 2ft long 'key' mark in the driver's door where someone took offence to him one day, and the cats who used to live next door to us at our old house used my car as a scratching post so there's lots of scratches around him...... plus the usual bubbling in the gutters... and 107k miles of stone chips.

So, as I was going to be painting the body kit, I thought I may as well give the rest of the car another coat of paint too.

I've got painting experiance from spraying our camper:


So I mostly know what I'm doing.... but that was a full respray, not a blow over and no plastic parts.


This is currently what my cup car kit looks like:


And this is what I've done to it so far:


I think a toddler must have previously painted some parts of it as the paint has lots of runs in it:




So I've been sanding it back to level:



Then I was going to primer it with special plastic primer, give it a few good coats, flat it down with wet and dry and then spray the top coat on.

The rest of the car is red:



When I got a can of the same colour from the paint shop it already had laquer (clear coat) mixed in with it. Is this what the normal paint comes like? Or is it colour and then laquer?

To spray the body, is it best to just sand the top coat down to provide a key for the paint and then spray the colour on? Obviously putting primer (etch and normal) over any bits I had to take back to bare metal).

Thanks for any advice in advance



and yes - if it all goes horribly wrong, I can always take it to the body shop

The car isn't worth much over here in the UK as he's LHD, and he's not my daily driver, so it's not a problem taking my time with it.

[Shamrockez]

if anyone has done it, pics of the process are much appreciated

[swift801]

my car will be coming to pieces soon. i will take some pictures for you. not sure how far i will tear it down as i will be painting it yellow again. depending on what shade of yellow, i will have to do jams and everything.

[swift801]

also. i would use a base/clear setup. if you're spraying entire car. you could get away with the single stage paint. but i've only used it on vehicles that aren't worth putting the time or money into painting properly. i would spray the inside parts of the fenders and kit. install it on the car. and spray entire car at once. just my .02

[Shamrockez]

pics would be great if you could

I was planning on painting the bumpers etc off the car, but at the same time as the rest of the car, so the paint shade will be the same.

[Evanrude]

(steals your turbo s front & rear bumper and runs back to his apartment with them to put them on Sting)

[pm22071985]

Originally Posted by swift801

my car will be coming to pieces soon. i will take some pictures for you.....

Sweet!!! Please update your thread with some headliner shots also.

Originally Posted by swift801

also. i would use a base/clear setup. if you're spraying entire car. you could get away with the single stage paint. but i've only used it on vehicles that aren't worth putting the time or money into painting properly. i would spray the inside parts of the fenders and kit. install it on the car. and spray entire car at once. just my .02

X2. I did what swift said. Mine might be done in the next couple weeks. I'll try and get some shots up.

Originally Posted by Evanrude

(steals your turbo s front & rear bumper and runs back to his apartment with them to put them on Sting)

Yeah and I'm stealing the wheels.

[swift801]

you guys must own pretty big boats. thats a long open ocean to the uk. i thnk it did see that beetles will float somewhere on the internet. i'd like to see you guys try

[swift801]

ooopss. and the headliner. its actually all pulled back out. i painted pillars previously. i have them out and am going to wrap them in the same suede as the headliner. i also am shaving the visors and side handles. i haven't posted pics of my door panels yet.i know you guys will like them. nobody has the panels i made.

[Shamrockez]

best start rowing now guys!

[Evanrude]

Originally Posted by Shamrockez

best start rowing now guys!

Ok.. so a little bit of research shows that if a person were to row 10 miles a day, they could get from New York to England in 345 days.



Seriously.. I looked it up!

Might take me longer than I hoped

[Shamrockez]

it might take me 345 days to get round to taking the old bumpers off!

[swift801]

ahahahaha.... i can't believe you looked that up. too funny!