My Mav has about 16 small rust "bubbles" on the paint, and I am already on my way to stripping-off the paint, grinding-out the rust, putting either the bondo or fiberglas resin on (depending on the damage), sanding it down, and putting the primer on to prevent it from rusting again. Aside from these small areas, the boby seems to be in good shape, with it's original paint job (yellow, faded). My question is this: can I get away with grinding-out and filling these spots and taking it to the paint shop, or do I need to take all the paint off and primer the whole thing? I'd like to make this thing look really good, and I'm not so concerned about the original paint styles of the time. I have the dark green vinyl cover on it. What colors would you guys recommend that would make a 1976 4-door look good? Thanks in advance.
i took some classes in bodywork but i haven't done a lot of it. we filled and sanded the spots and made sure they would be feathered out so that there was no seeing the lines where the new and the old meet. i would talk to the body shop first, but i would think they would just rough up the old paint so that the new would adhere to it. good luck.
factory paint remove as little factory paint as possible, the factory paint can be cleaned and sanded good and is a good base for repainting your car, i only srtip if there is evidence of multi layers of old and unknown {cheap} types of paint on the surface, good luck,
First of all, if you are just looking for a temporary fix, you can fill the rusted areas with body filler. You can expect the rust to pop back up anywhere from 3 months to probably 12 months at longest. It's time consuming and could get expensive but if you want your new paint job to last then you need to cut out the rust bubbles and hope you get enough of it to fix the problem. You'll need to make new panels where you had to cut out the rust which may be difficult for the novice but is everyday work for a good reputable body shop. When you cut out the rusted areas you also need to sandblast all the surrounding metal inside and out to remove any remaining surface rust, treat the bare metal with some type of rust preventative such as Ospho, weld in the new metal, undercoat the insides after the repairs are made or else (urethane spray-in bedliner is great for this). Only after these rust repairs are made should you paint or have the car painted. Also, I have seen very few 30 year old paint jobs that are in good enough condition to be used as a base coat. Yours may be okay but look at it very closely. If there is any signs of paint checking or small hairline cracks, chipping, peeling, or oxidizing, then by all means the paint needs to be stripped off completely. Otherwise if you make the proper repairs to kill the rust and don't strip the paint you'll be in the same boat...a paint job that will fail you in less than a year. I managed a Lincoln Mercury body shop for 16 years so take it from somebody that has been there many times. I presently am a certified auto appraiser and also work in a shop doing restoration work so I'm still actively involved in rust repairs. We strip 75% of the cars we paint to the bare metal and cut out all rust completely but we build a lot of cars for show. If you want to do this one time and make it last for years and can afford it then please heed my advice. Good luck whatever you do and like we always say, post plenty of pictures. Ray
Well, I've entered on Excel all of the spots... right now, it's like 43 spots that need repair... I've got about 60% of them bond-o'ed with fiberglass, sanded-down, and then primered... I'm taking-out every "bubble" down to the metal with about 2 inches more down to the metal on each side, and it looks like someone puttied up some rust spots without really grinding-down to bare metal... It looks like the rear quarter panels will need an overhaul in 5 or so years, from my guess... there's deep rusting in the wheel wells... I'm looking at getting the car in "decent" shape to last for 5 years, at what point I'll have more time, and hopefully have a welder and the skills built-up to be able to comfortably cut-out and replace panels. I'm finishing-up my degree right now (I'm one of those "go in the Army, then to college" students), so I want it to look pretty-decent for right now, and then I'll really get it "done right" when I'm done. The one potential concern with the present sanding and primer I'm doing is that I have a slight raise-up from the primer coat. Should I sand that down with a 1500-grit pad, or just leave that for the "roughing-up" by the paint shop? Should I get a thicker basecoat? Considering that this will probably need a couple of coats, how much would be considered reasonable to do a final rouging-up sanding, and paint the inside and outside? I'd like to get the inside door frame painted to match... Thanks in advance.
make sure you grind out all the pits where the metal was rusted, but thry not to go through the metal. When you use bondo, make sure there is no moisture in the air, and it's a lot easier to work with thin coats, and sand between each coat with a block. Just my .02 Shaun ps, there's nothing finer than black primer
I been doing bodywork and painting since 1969. I could not have said it better at all than Rayzorsharp. That is the gospel man. Dan
What do you all think would be a decent price to get a final "roughing", and a forest green paint job on this?
There's no way to tell you something like that unless you know EXACTLY how much time it's going to take to finish the job. Most shops such as the one I work in either charge by the hour or charge a flat rate but they have to estimate the hours it will take finish it. My shop would give you both options. We would estimate the time after looking at the car and would charge you $38.00 for each hour estimated. Or we would give you the option of paying $30.00 per hour and you would be put on the clock and charged for every hour it is worked on. Believe me when I tell you, we come out better on a job like this on the $30.00 option because it always winds up taking longer than you estimate. Either way, nobody in their right mind would give you any kind of estimate without looking at the car. About 99% of the time the car owner always has a different idea of when a car is ready to be painted. Anyway, I can only suggest that you don't rush the job, maybe see if you can rent a video or something to help you with the body work and try to do it the best you can in order to keep a body shop from having to redo everything you have done. I wish you luck.
I finished-up the sanding and primer for all the spots I could find... I brought it over to a paint shop to get a final sanding and painting... Due to the complexity of all the green colors due to fading, I chose a Shadow Beige color... similar to Desert Tan... I will be picking it up next Tuesday... I'll post some photos-up when it comes-back...
