How to do smallish outside paint jobs and touch ups on the 80?

[e9999]

OK, will have to so some small touchups on the roof to get rid of rust and chafing marks from the rack. So, more than just the usual small rock chips.
Seems like having a body shop do it will be mucho $$, so since it's the roof, I'm willing to try myself. I don't know squat about body paint work on cars, though.

My thoughts were to sand down the rusty areas until clean metal, then cover with automotive rust-prevent gray primer in a can, sand that smooth, maybe another coat of primer and then later get some touch up paint and do that.

Am I going on the right track here? Is this Rustoleum gray primer in a spray can at the local OSH good enough or do I have to get fancy stuff from a body shop supply house?

And is there a best source for factory-match touch up paint in more than the tiny bottles at the dealer?

(I will practice on my trailer first...)

feedback?

E

 

[dans67]

If you are doing the rattle can touch up job, make sure you get all of the area perfectly clean, any dirt, dust, rust, moisture, etc, can haunt you in the future. Make sure that you use a good self-etching primer for the first coat. a couple applications of this, with a light sanding in between will help match the rest of the paint. Most auto supply chains (advance, auto zone, pep boys etc) offer the plasti-cote or duplicolor lines of paints. These lines have automotive touch-up lines in rattlecans that match the OEM colors, kinda. There is usually an application book near these paints to help get the closest match possible with the pre-mixed stuff. You may want a clear coat next, it will help the paint hold it's color longer. If you want a perfect match in a rattle can, many auto paint shops will mix the correct color, and put it into a rattle can for you. The best way to do this is to have a pint or quart mixed, for future use, and have them use some of this in the rattle can, a pint kit usually isn't too much between 40 and 100 tops, plus 20-40 for the rattle can. It is an expensive rattle can, but it is a perfect match.
Dan

 

[snowcruiser]

I always thought it would be neat to line-x the whole roof since it always seems to get scuffed up with use. I had a rattle can made up for about fifteen dollars and it worked pretty well. The local body shop supply also told me to use a three step prep process that involved wet sanding with superfine sand paper ~1400 ? I can look up if need be. Then spraying with this cleaning/etching solution and finally spraying with an adhesion promotor prior to the paint. I used this process to paint my ARB bumper to match the OEM color and it worked great. I got all materials including a quart of paint for about $70.00. The rattle can was for a different car. This being said I used rustoleum primer and paint on my newly fabbed sliders to keep the cost down. I do not know how long it will last. I'll probably end up line-xing or powder coating as soon as I finish my rear bumper. Good Luck my friend!

 

[snowcruiser]

rattle can of paint that is not line-x

 

[dans67]

hmmm, I can't personally agree with using a 1400 grit for prep. IMHO, this is just much too fine of a grit, the paint needs something to "grip". There are many different opinions along these lines, and I"m certainly not a know it all, but 1400 is usually better for a nice wet sand somewhere in the polishing process.
Dan

 

[Scamper]

The rattle-can approach will give you basically the same color, but it won't look like the real finish. It will be the cheapest way to go.

Modern finishes use a base coat (i.e., the color) with a clear coat on top. The rattle cans use a hybrid approach that mixes in the clearcoat with the base. In both cases however, it's VERY difficult to blend the edges of the repair with the original finish, even if you have a perfect color match.

Do be careful with what you put on there. The original factory paint will accept virtually anything you can put on it without problems. But if you put the wrong kind of paint on there, and then decide to "do it right", you will have to remove all traces of the wrong stuff to ensure you don't have problems (like orange-peeling) due to incompatible types of paint. It's a real PITA.

Spray painting is not very difficult, but it is an art that you have to learn by practice. 90% of the work is in the prep. If you have a compressor, you really only need to pick up a small touch-up size gun. I wouldn't practice on my truck. But if you don't care what it looks like, you could get away with it on the roof.

 

[e9999]

all good to know, thanks


Questions:

- I'll need to do some pretty precise touch up. May I use a Dremel with a fine stone or felt and polish to clean up the old paint, rust, and stains before priming? Tried the fine stone and it ended up very smooth. Felt and polish did not make much of a dent in the paint.

- can I brush on some primer and then sand it, and then brush on the touchup paint and sand that? Wouldn't the sanding make it smooth even though it was brushed on?

thx

E

 

[e9999]

OK, here is what I did after practicing a bit around:

Ended up using a Dremel. For rusty area I used a fine small stone on the Drem. Can do very small areas that way without hitting too much nearby. Got paint and rust out just fine and can follow the fine lines dug through the paint by the mounts.
Primed with self-etching primer. Used a toothpick to drop the primer. No spraying possible, areas too small.
Then sanded the primer down with a felt tip and compound. With 400 grit at the Dremel speeds you are through the primer in no time, so caution or finer grit is needed. I used 2000 grit but that may be too smooth for paint to stick well. We'll see.

and the saga continues...

E

 

[e9999]

OK, I finally decided on the following:
I gave up on trying to spray the roof touch ups. Between an airbrush that didn't have the right connector, a small spray gun that gave too wide a pattern, a disposable spray can that I'm told is not working well etc etc, I ended up just brushing the paint on the rack problem areas. The trick is that -contrary to when I used the touch up paint from Toy- I used some custom mixed urethane paint and diluted heavily with reducer. It no longer gave me bubble trouble. Goes up perfectly smooth. I put on several coats so it's built up nicely. I'll just sand it smooth, feather it, cover the whole lot with clearcoat and happily forget about it all. I think that'll take care of the rust issue and is not too ugly. Won't see any of it from the ground.
Basically, unless one is already proficient at spray painting and having all the equipment, it just was not worth the time futzing around with spraying for me. As is it, I spent way too much time on this already.
Gotta be realistic
thanks for all the help
Eric