The original Lacquer on my 82 wasn't in the best of shape, especially
since someone tried to cover it with clear.
The car has been in my pals shop about a month now. Not only has he been smoothing out the low spots that C3's have, he's been filling dings, & most importantly, sanding & steam power washing in places that sanding did not help.

I opted to change the color from Spectra Red to Torch Red as the
original color is quite dark IMO.

Here's a glimpse of the small parts painted ahead of time so my pal
could get my 'approval' on the color before doing the whole car.







As you will see below, we've gotten allot accomplished in such a short time.










As we all know, C3 lines weren't the best but we were able to make the hood look allot better by removing shims in some places & adding in others.
He also 'worked' the doors a bit do the lines looked better & so the new door handles fit the curves of the door (as you all know, repro, 'eh' at best fit quality).
For 30 yrs old it's as good as it's gonna get w/o throwing obscene time & money into it.

All the weather stripping has been removed with new weather stripping already delivered.
I have new seats, door panels & carpet coming as well.

This week it will be taped, sealed, remove tape, retape, primer then paint.

It should be in paint by the weekend, then the week after comes the
daunting task of wet sanding before I can reinstall everything.

 

Looking good! Keep us updated with pics!

 

Coming along nice. Keep up the good work.

 

From what I read, when the bowling Green plant was opened in mid production for the 81 model year, they went to Base/Clear on the paint. Are you sure your 82 ever had original laquer, or did I misinterpret something I read?

 

Nothing like a new paint job. Keep up the good work and post some pics, when it is done.

 

81polit Is right on the money. Base coat/ Clear coat was used on all 1982 Corvettes! All 1981 Corvettes built in St. Louis were painted with acrylic lacquer. 1981 & 1982 Corvettes built in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Used the Acrylic enamel base coat/clear coat system. I still have the Wal- Mart paint on my 1982, shopping cart ready, It's touched up original. Please show us the finished pictures. Have a nice day. Gene

 

Looking great. I can certainly relate to what your doing and going through since someone keyed the left side of my '76 back in December. On December 24th I started to strip it down to glass, fully disassembled the car then trailered it to a local painter (45 mins away) where I worked with him almost 3 weeks of the job doing all the primer sanding, masking then the color sanding after we painted the car. Trailered it back to my shop and put it back together. Took more than 3 months but I'm glad it's over.

Keep the pics coming

 

I am in the 90% range sure for 2 reasons.
1: When I got the car I used some polishing compund to try & bring back a shine & my polishing cloth became red. Clear coat will not do that & base w/out clear does not shine, my car regained some resembelence of a shine when I was done.
2: My pal says that the 70L on my trimtag ( I removed it & will re-rivet it when done) means code 70 for the paint & L for Laquer. That & when he was D/A'ing, it was clogging up the discs real fast as base/clear will not do that.
Either way, it's gone & done with because:

I have a new update.
My pal redid the front & rear window trim.
The driver side front had some dings as if it had attempted break-in at one time, he was able to straighten most of it & the pass side was dented which he fixed. Now both sides are barely noticeable, except for the driver side which had the dings too deep to make look smooth.

The rear trim paint was chipping away & he was under the impression the trim was painted by the previous owner(s) & came factory shiny.
So I did net search it seemed most all trim came black, I saw some not black. Was it a give & take from the factory, shiny or black?
Mine are now black anyway. Pardon the quality, he used his iphone to send them to me:






The car got taped put in sealer today.
As you see, I removed the wheels for 2 reasons.
1: To have NO chance of over spray &:
2: I need to work the calipers & put then put them in paint with the POR kit I got, then put the Kinetic crossdrilled/slotted w/ceramic pads I got from our fine vendor Brakemotive.





He sent me this pic because I had told him of an 80 I saw repainted near my condo & the shop that sprayed it did a good color job, but poor masking job. There was over spray on the mufflers, spare tire well & the frame rails were painted red with the car! I told him to please make sure that does not happen as I don't want to do black touch up on the the rails & when the lower trim its back on it'll look dumb with red showing up under it!


Tomorrow we remove the tape & then retape so it can be put in primer.
It's looking as if it'll be red Friday or Saturday.

Pics to follow on that as well from when it is 1st done, buffed, spray some black behind the parking light openings & the edges of the side vents & then finally put the whole car back together.

From what I've been reading, the T's are gonna be a bone far as re-adjusting them goes with the new weatherstrip on.
Let's hope I get lucky with mine.

 

T-Tops aren't that bad. Leave the interior panel off and put them in place with the 3 bolts on the guides loose, front pin loose and adjust the rear triangle so the top will seat. Sit in the car and tighten all the bolts down with the weatherstrip in place and let it sit for a day or two then remove the top and reinstall and it should be ok, if not make then a few adjustments and you should be in business. Worst comes to worst you may have to remove the center interior panel to adjust the receiver slots but probably not.

 

If you don;t mind, what kind of price-point ballpark for this???

 

I believe you are incorrect. The 70 does stand for red on your trim tag, but the L does NOT stand for lacquer, it stands for lower. I'll bet you also have a 70U on that trim tag which stands for upper. All the 82 tags are that way, since two-tones were an option, and they were indicated as such by lower and upper paint codes. 70L and 70U means both the lower and upper halves were painted red. As has been stated in this thread already, all 1981 & 1982 Corvettes built in Bowling Green, Kentucky used the Acrylic enamel base coat/clear coat system, not lacquer. Someone may have resprayed it with lacquer, but it didn't come that way from the factory. Regardless, your car is looking good.

 

Sorry for the dupe, freaking slow Kodiak internet...

 

ep, I am. Thanks for pointing that out. Laquer, enamel, still crappie paint & thanks for the compliment!

 

Here's another update & I'm not gonna do allot of typing here:
IT'S RED!!!
1st, the jams:













Now the paint.
It was painted Saturday night & no wet sanding has been done yet.
My pal used an extra quart of clear, & it paid off.
Very little orange peel & very little wet sanding will be needed.
I oughta have it by weeks end.

 

it looks good .after all that work i bet it feels good to have color on it.

 

not bad... only thing i would have done is removed the striker bolt from the jam before the paint....

 

Sweeeeeeeet. I like that red

 

As in 'just' acceptible? Didn't feel like messing with door realignment as they never on any car, re-align right.
Then again, everyone does things different.

 

How much of a PITA was it to spray the jams without removing the doors? I want to remove the doors for paint but I dont want the headache of trying to re-align them.

 

Looks great! now if you get bored I know a guy who owns a 72 vert. that would let you do the same with his. I bet you are looking fwd to hitting the road now.