1 Gazillion Hours of Rust Repair + Maaco Paint Job

[garya]

Really it is:

1Gazillion hours of Rust Repair + so many bottles of POR15 + so many trips across the street to my neighbor with the welder + so many parts from the parts car + so much time using the Porter-Cable angle grinder + surprisingly little bondo = Looks pretty good from 3-5 feet!

-Maaco's version of Atlantik is a little more purple than grey.

-The hybrid black/tan interior turned out pretty good.

-Im still sore from chiseling out the crap under the carpets.

-When they say "common rust areas", they mean "you are gonna find some rust here, just hope it's not too bad".

[ndog]

nice

[landon]

Wow! nice job Gary

[Guest gliding_serpent]

Looks great! Congrats. Now you won't know what do do with yourself until you find more projects on your car, or decide another car is in order.

[PaulTWinterton]

Looks very nice. Maaco's not so bad.

And Hey! Those look like my wheels. Although maybe they're a little bigger. Mine are 13". Western? or Minilite?

[roadhog0]

Not to shabby! I'm not a huge fan of Maaco, but it gets the job done

[garya]

Thanks.

The wheels are 13" westerns. They used to be gold, and belonged to Phil the bomb guy, but at some point got sprayed black.

Really like the wheels, but don't like the funky lug nuts.

[visionaut]

Nice, Gary. Kudos!

Tom

[PaulTWinterton]

Don't mean to hijack your thread, but you're the first Western wheel person I've met.

The black and polished look is the coolest, if we do say so ourselves. ;-)

Western wheels, blasted, painted black, and edge buffed.

[codigoRojo]

Looks great! You found the secret to a really good paint job on a budget. Paint is all about prep. I've done the Maaco route a number of times. The only problems I've ever had were from my own failure in prep. I've taken cars down to metal, done all the bodywork, primed and blocked. Then bring it to Maaco on a sunny day. I've done my own finishing too, but got the best results when I hired an old (i.e. experienced) guy from a local detail shop to cut and rub. Cost me a couple hundred but man, someone who knows how to handle a high speed polisher will really make a paint job pop. -Rojo

[jerry]

i'd like more details about the extent of your rust repair. did you replace panels where alignment could be an issue? i'm in the middle of a similar project and am concerned about panel alignment and door seams etc...

[kyalami]

Looks great! You found the secret to a really good paint job on a budget. Paint is all about prep. I've done the Maaco route a number of times. The only problems I've ever had were from my own failure in prep. I've taken cars down to metal, done all the bodywork, primed and blocked. Then bring it to Maaco on a sunny day. I've done my own finishing too, but got the best results when I hired an old (i.e. experienced) guy from a local detail shop to cut and rub. Cost me a couple hundred but man, someone who knows how to handle a high speed polisher will really make a paint job pop. -Rojo

+1 Maaco is usually cheap because they skimp on the prep work. You obviously didn't, and your car probably looks really nice. I've refinished a few sets of wheels and equation usually looks like 10parts prep + 1part paint = great results.

FYI: I'm in the process of doing my entire car with my random orbital machine polisher (gone down another 12hr+ wormhole), and I can't tell you how amazing the results have been. Once your paint has had the chance to fully dry, you should look into that. Some Griot's Machine polish 3 and 4 would probably make a good job look even better.

Nice job

Jason