I painted my '70 FJ40 last summer. I hadn't seen the posts about the $30 paint jobs or anything like that. I am not sure if I would have done it differently or not. I am pretty happy with the way it has come out. I didn't sand at all after painting. It did cost a lot, about $700. That was about half what the cheapest pro job quote I got. I also started with sandblasted metal, which adds quite a bit to the cost. I used Dupont Nason, because this will get scratched up soon. On the frame I used Eastwood chassis black on top of rust encapsulator. That stuff is durable! It is expensive, but I like it. The local auto paint store has chassis paint as well, but I haven't tried it yet. The pictures show how I did it in my driveway. That worked ok. In Arizona, I had to paint from about 4:30 am until it was 85 degrees out, which was usually before 9 or 9:30. The 2X2 frame was a life saver for all of the small parts. The body looks like fiberglass in the photo, meaning it came out way better than I thought it would. Nason is very forgiving. I kind of knew I would cause a run when it happened. It dries really quickly as well. Bugs were a problem as the rainy season came in, and I found that if the paint was still soft, I could lift the bug away with a knife and hit that area again to level out the paint. The steps I followed were sandblast, degrease and blow off the metal, etch primer, low-build primer, wet sand just to break the glaze, degrease, topcoat. The yellow doesn't cover well at all and I used 2 1/2 gallons to cover it all. In all I spent about 90 hours on the yellow parts. I used a Ford white color for the top and bezel, and that paint covered like crazy.
This method worked ok, and cost way more than the $30 paint job. I would really like to know how the Rustoleum holds up, because I am always interested in ways to do this kind of thing for less. The photo of that green cruiser looks pretty amazing!
Andy.
This method worked ok, and cost way more than the $30 paint job. I would really like to know how the Rustoleum holds up, because I am always interested in ways to do this kind of thing for less. The photo of that green cruiser looks pretty amazing!
Andy.
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