1st paint shop job

[Mars55]

I’m planning to finish the last step of the restoration of my ‘68 1600, a repaint to its original color, Florida. It’s a driver with all mechanicals refreshed. The interior is complete and while the headliner is in okay shape, I’ll likely install a new one.

I’d like to hear suggestions on how to prep the car for paint. I may replace some of the body trim, so would you deliver it without it? Any suggestions on what to look out for in the process, like how to communicate with the paint guys on the job, what to ask, etc?

Thanks in advance!

[Mike Self]

If you know how to remove the trim, then there's no need to pay body shop rates to do that  The more you take off, the more $$ you'll save.  

 

You don't need to remove the door glass or vent window frame; once you remove the outer window sill trim, there's plenty of space between the vent window frame and window glass to mask.  

 

Be very careful removing the rain gutter molding.  Takes a lot of patience and strong fingernails to get it off without bending.  Start at the back. 

 

If you really want to do this right, remove the door latches and catch plates, and also the trunk lock, latch and catch plate.  If you're doing any painting under the hood, also remove the hood locking bar and latch plates.  

 

Are you replacing any of the other glass gaskets?--windshield, backlight, quarter windows?  If not, there's a trick to masking off the rubber gaskets to keep paint off 'em.  Carefully pry up the rubber lip and slip plastic coated clothline under the lip so it stands proud of the bodywork.  Then you can fold your masking tape over the lip's edge.  Once the car's painted, remove the tape and then the clothesline, and the paint part line will be hidden by the rubber lip.

 

When I did my '69 some years ago, all the above (including bumpers, grilles, head/tail lights etc) took me 4-5 hours tops.  

 

90% of a good paint job is in the prep work; if there's a blemish in the old finish, it'll show in the new if not taken care of.  And....you're gonna notice every worn piece of trim up against that shiny new paint, so act accordingly.

 

mike

 

PS--if you're gonna drive and enjoy it, don't make it so perfect you are afraid to drive it anymore.  That's not what 02s are for.

[Dionk]

From my horrible experience

 

note if they ask you to sign a non disclosure - that’s a red flag !-  Ask me how I know.

 

Find out the shops labor rate.  Tear down is roughly 40 hours (a good savings if you do the tear down yourself).

 

give them explicit instructions and get it in writing for example -

 

it’s not good enough to say paint the car- be specific exterior, door jam, trunk, engine bay, underside.  
 

- know what paint is being used 

-know what clear is being used

- ask your inspect the car between stages 

 

some shops might find you annoying (good) 

 

spending many thousands of dollars on this most critical component is something you want to micromanage if you are paying top dollar.

 

advice I wish I had received before I took mine to a paint shop.

 

good luck!

florida -mmmmm love it

 

 

 

 

[AceAndrew]

Couple knee jerk comments:

 

It sounds like you aren't planning on a bare-metal repaint?

 

1) Do as much of the disassembly as possibly by yourself.  Can't count the number of time well-intentioned body shops have lost/broke trim/parts.

 

2) Have an action plan in place with regards to rust (Don't ask, don't tell.... doesn't fly).  In my own .02 cents, don't rely on cheesy fiberglass/bondo fixes... insist on photos of the repairs.

 

3) You're either going to find a place whose bread/butter is insurance work, OR they are a classic car hotrod work.  Pricing generally correlates with priority.  For example, my car was in a good insurance-work shop and was worked on during gaps in insurance work.  As a result, the paint was great, but it took about a year.  Some hotrod specific shops quoted a quarter of the time, but double the price.

 

4) Communicate frequently, but with a friendly disposition .... showing up unannounced once a week with donuts or brews yields a drastically different reaction than showing up with a frown.

 

5) Pricing varies not only with paint quality, but also with the geographic cost-of-doing-business.  Ex. California will be much $ more than the midwest.

 

There's more, but that is what jumps to my mind right now.

[tech71]

The more prep you do the better the results will be and might save a few bucks in labor at the shop since they dont have to mask as much.

Minimum for me would be to remove bumpers, grills,door handles, mirrors, all trim and clips as well as rain gutter chrome and all door/window finishing trim.

I would also remove front/back glass ,  window and door seals and replace afterwards as well as the little rubber bits that go under door handles and mirrors.

I would also prep sand in my driveway and deliver to the shop on a trailer.

Of course you may not be in a position to do all that so look at it as guidelines.

Talk to the shop about paint, find out what type and brand they plan to use.

Lacquer...bad    Enamel...not great   Urethane.... better

Edited March 7, 2022 by tech71

[joysterm]

The only thing I would add to the previous comments is that if you're planning on replacing  the headliner, your front and rear screens will have to be removed to properly install the liner. Cheaper to do it now, rather than latter.

 

Also, I would remove anything you can lay a wrench to. The less that has to be  masked, the better the result, IMHO. Ya its a lot of work and  care required to remove all the trim and glass., doors and interior doors... but you will be happier at the end of the day. The drawback,  it adds to your time and  budget. You will not want to put the old stuff back on shinny new  paint. Its a slippery slope.

 

As @Dionk points out, establish a good re pore with both the painter and body guy. Be assertive without being a real PITA. At the end of the day you get what you pay for so stay involved in the process. Find a guy that you can trust to work with your needs. Good Luck.

Edited March 7, 2022 by joysterm

[1936spyder]

Don’t know what I could add to what’s already been stated. So to simply echo what others have mentioned:

 

To save a few bucks I removed (and reinstalled) all the trim and interior myself except for the glass and bumpers. Also, I elected to replace a few things while my car was apart for paint as it would save a bit of labor $$$’s, the most notable being the headliner. I also replaced some trim that I found substandard as I knew that it would look even worse once the car had a fresh coat of paint on it. I also called and/or visited at least on a biweekly if not weekly basis to check progress as well as the quality of work.

It did take awhile (8 mos) as the bread and butter of the shop’s work is insurance related but they also do partial and full cosmetic restorations of cars because of the owner’s connections and history in the area.

 

At the end of it all I was pretty happy and still am. I am planning on getting the front end repainted later this year as the only area that was left untouched was the engine bay. We also rushed things a bit towards the end to complete it for a show that never happened because of Covid so a few details suffered. Since everything else is so nice now, my OCD tendencies flare up every time I gaze upon those tidbits…

 

Best of luck with finishing your project!

[johnny02]

I just did this this last spring/summer.  I used an insurance-type shop.  The paint is beautiful but they took forever.    All trim was taken off by me; all glass out. I would re-iterate having a written list of EXACTLY what you want.  My guys did a good job, but they never ended up filling in the side marker holes, which I had wanted done.  Now I'm stuck with having to source new reflectors as I had planned to delete. Drawback of using a non-2002/classic shop.  

   Good luck!  It's notoriously an un-fun part of the project if you don't find the right shop to deal with. 

Edited March 7, 2022 by johnny02

[dblinsqaun]

Just to echo Joysterm.  If you are going to replace the headliner, that calls for front and rear windows to be removed.  (This might be debatable.  The place that sold me my new headliner said not so.  The place that installed it said a must.)  So it would seem smart to remove the glass ahead of paint & get the headliner done at the same time.

[BarneyT]

What you need is this crew on your paint job…happy women’s day…

[tech71]

Nice shoes!

[esty]

44 minutes ago, tech71 said:

Nice shoes!

OSHA Approved too

[tech71]

3 hours ago, BarneyT said:

happy women’s day

Thank you Barney!  And Happy Womens day!

Need to go buy some flowers now?

[wojo]

Having completed a long restoration last year, make sure the shop is willing to deal with a classic car.  This is not the same as insurance work.  And many shops want quick insurance work without an owner making sure the work is done properly.  I agree that regularly visiting the shop and having lots of pictures is very important so you know what is going on and for future documentation.

 

Save all the parts that you remove and the shop removes.  You may have to reuse original parts that you thought you would replace as we did.  Mission creep will set in.  If you want to update things, this is the easiest time to do it.  And yes, this is the time to replace a headliner with the glass out.

 

My car was painted with Imron in the '80s.  When I showed a picture of the car in primer to the shop, he immediately said it had to go to bare metal as the new paint would not work with the existing primer.  Taking it down did reveal some small rust spots that would not have been found as easily.

 

Mine took far longer than it should have.  But it let me spread out the cost and the result is beautiful.  

 

Good luck.  And enjoy it when it's all finished.

[Mike Self]

5 hours ago, BarneyT said:

What you need is this crew on your paint job…happy women’s day…

Interesting that the picture shows an NK sedan in the foreground--I didn't realize the factory mixed two and four door cars together on the assembly line.  

 

mike