guide to e30 painting

[mops]

Hello fellas...

excuse my noiobness, I'm in the proces of restoring (and turboing) pre f/l e30 325i coupe.

anyways, paint looks kinda bad, so I want to give it a paintjob. I never did that before (painted few bumpers - thats all). I searched the net no end, but i cant find a good guide on how to prep and paint a car...

i dunno, should i remove doors/front guards/boot lid/hood/sunroof and paint them separately ?

in terms of prep, whats the best, i mean i knoe the best is bare metal respray, but thats just heaps of work to strip all exsisting paint, would it be just ok to well sand exsisting paint...

how many layerst... primer first or i shouldn't bother ? 3 layerrs of colour + 4 layers of clear ?

beas would be to point me to a pictorial guide or something.....

thanks in advance.

Mops.

[der affe]

alot is going to depend on if you are going to do a colour change or not.
greg

[StereoInstaller1]

If you go down to bare metal it is no longer a "respray". Then it becomes a "money pit" and will suck you into an abyss deeper than a black hole.

Seriously, Mops...(how the hell can I type that with a straight face)...let me ask you a question or two.

1. How the hell did you find "nothing" on the subject of painting cars? Do you suck at teh intarwebz? Just kidding man, there is SO much info out there it is unreal. I am painting my sons car with a roller and rustoleum, for $50, and it will look professional.

2. What kind of finish are you looking for? As in just make it look good, good enough, absolutely fantastic, a deep lustrous finish that makes girls wet from 40 feet (only applies to Ferraris and giant 4X4's) or just a non-embarassing daily driver? As Greg pointed out, there is also a HUGE difference whether or not you are gonna do a color change....door jambs SUCK to paint!

[trent]

Go hang out on the autobodystore.com forums for a week. These guys are great and knowledgeable.

I am ass deep in a bare metal colorchange for my '71 2002. Luke is right. The time/money is pretty insane, but I want the car to be perfect. I had to take to bare metal as due to age there were lots of rust spiders in the metal. If your E30 does not have a lot of rust, possibly, sand, seal, paint.

[der affe]

i took my 58 ragtop bug down to bare metal when i did a RESTRO-CUSTOM with it...and i didn't know any better (it was a long time ago!) and everyone always says that the ultimate paint job is a bare metal respray. yes this is true, but only really pratical for barrett jackson types. in the real world you maybe 80 grit the car to find any hidden body work, if you are really worried about any plastic body filler you find you can dig it out, make sure that the metal under it is not rusted and redo the bondo work or rework the panel then respread it. if you find BAD filler work (kinda lumpy and not smooth like metal...if you have seen it you will know what i am talking about) or you find shrink (when you can see scratch/sanding marks under the paint) reblock it smooth. remember that you want the body to be smooth AND flat BEFORE you prime it, don't use heavy primer to fill in low spots or make it flat. this heavy priming to cover up bad body work can cause shrink, because the primer does not always cure completely from this, and when it drys under the paint it shrinks and the sanding marks reappear.. REMEMBER when you are sanding LET the paper do the work! do not press the block throught the car, you will just dig holes and redo the work over and over again.
hope this helped,
greg

[mops]

Thanks for heads up guys.
I'll check out autobodystore.com forums.
Long story short, I dont want to change the colout, but possibly put something lighter/darker that what is it now... havent decided yet...

I dont want $10 paint job, i want it to look fresh and nice.

currently my car has few minor digns, shopping mall scratches and spots where I fixed the rust and painted it with a spraycan (with badly matched paint i might add).

however i do reaize that there are few spiders, especially front and rear guards....

I'm thinking about stripping and undercoating rear guard areas with por15, and then painting over....

I dunno.. that's why i'm looking for a generic guide... a collection of do's and dont's and to know what products/techniques work and which dont....

Mops.

[der affe]

ok here's a couple of hints:
when you do under coating USE WATER BASED under coating, it is almost same thing that was used factory. it goes on with a rocker shuttz or stone guard gun. same stuff that is used as a stone guard on the rockers/valance/etc. it will not melt from heat, stands up to degreaser with out melting. it is a little more $ that the cheappy rattle can type, but you will be very happy with the end result.
when you are working on "spiders" on plastic you must competely sand them away. if you don't, the will come back after the repaint.
greg