Monstalining a Cruiser that already has 2.9 coats of paint? (1 Viewer)

[mct75]

My 80 has crappy paint. There's factory burgundy, then a coat of blue, and finally a coat of black. The black is flaking off to reveal the blue, the blue seems pretty durable.

I'd like to Monstaline the whole thing, but I think anything applied to the black paint will detach as it's not bonded to the blue all that well. What kind of surface prep needs to be done, and is it something I can do in my garage? A professional paint job will total the Cruiser, so I want to do it cheaply.

 

[Box Rocket]

I'd get a random orbital sander and go to town on the black. get it down to the blue at least and then get after it with the monstaliner. If the blue isn't flaking/peeling you should be good to go.

 

[jpoole]

I'm in a similar spot with my 80 and have had other cars with crappy paint as well. The first thing I'd do, once you decide to do anything that is, would be to go to a local car wash place and see if the black or blue paint comes off with the pressure washer. It sounds like a lot of the blue may come off easily with a pressure washer and simply washing it off will be way faster and easier than dealing with a sander/dust/etc.

After the pressure washer test and removal you can re-assess. You do want to get any loose paint off before putting a new coating on or just as you mention, the new coating will come off as the old fails.

Monstaliner or other coatings will all have their prep guidelines to follow. Basically though you want any loose/failing coats off and you want whats left on the truck to be smooth-ish, well adhered, very clean (degreased, solvent-wiped) and probably prep sanded to help the new coating(s) adhere better. Some top-coats may require that you put down a primer to help adhesion and others will not.

 

[Uglymud]

I'm in a similar boat. The previous owner took it for one of those 200 buck spray jobs, think I am going to just do as others said and sand down to the original paint.

 

[Nay]

You really need to do extensive sanding prep either way to ensure the bonding of the bedliner. It’s the longest part of the job.

Done correctly, the bedliner will pull off even the original paint, as happened in my accident last Nov.

 

[NCFJ]

The harsh part is, the amount of prep work required for the liner plus just a bit more and it can be prepped for paint.

 

[2fpower]

The harsh part is, the amount of prep work required for the liner plus just a bit more and it can be prepped for paint.

I disagree..... Liner can hide so much damage, it makes it so easy, plus you can sand with Random orbit sander easily.

The only issue i run into is sanding down the surface is going all the way to metal -- so I just plan on priming with epoxy, then monstalining.