Hello All,

I just took my car in to Vetteran in Crystal Lake IL and had the full diagnosis...so she is currently undergoing $1,000 worth of work of which I don't have money for. Aren't vettes great! :p:

Side note, Vetteran has been great, Joe walked me through everything he said needed work, showed me why, pointed everything out and didn't force anything on me. I'm glad I found them...now...

My problem is my paint - it's pretty awful. I simply cannot afford to spend the money for a real bonafide vette paint job. Joe says they do paint jobs for $6,500 - if he cut corners for me he could do it for $4,500 if I stayed the same color.

Problem is I probably want to go orange for starters with some kind of stripe. Secondly, the day I have $4,500 bucks to spend on this car may be never.

But this thing needs painting bad. It was repainted once, and they did a "fair" job. Lots of nicks and such, paint is somewhat dull and so on.

I am really don't want to take it to Maaco or some such - I know some guys have done it, but they just don't take pride in their work and I know I won't be happy with it.

So I am thinking of doing the prep myself. I used to do some bodywork on my own as a youngster so I am familiar with the basics, and I'm decent with tools, and I do have a garage to use. I assume I could get Eckler's fiberglass book (any good?).

Question is how much might I save by doing the prep? Am I still in for a big price tag? The body on my vette is in great condition, there are basically no trouble spots for me, it just needs prepping.

Barring doing prep myself, are there any options I have not thought of?

Thanks everyone!

Tom

 

Let me say this, last year, when I was considering fixing some damage on my vette and repainting I talked to two paint and body shops. The local Chevy Dealer quoted me 3500.00 for body work and paint. Another well known painter in my area said he did't care to fool with it beings the body work would take so long and make a mess in his shop, but if he were to do it, it would be more than 3500.00. So I decided to do it myself. The body work did take a while ( 2 months of my free time). The well known painter told me the other day had he known I was going to do the body work, he would have shot it for $600.00-1000.00.

 

I figure I saved $ 2500 to 3000 by doing all the prep myself. Stripping, sanding, and primer. It may take a little time, (took me all winter) but you can do it yourself. I then found a good paint shop, Guy does mostly street rods and clasics, He looked the car over, gave me a couple of pointers on a few places that need a little more work, and then he shot the car for under $ 1500. I was very pleased with it. He put 5 coats of base coat and 3 coats of clear. I thought it was a good deal.

 

You save money if you do the prep work yourself. Saves shop time and labor for the painter.

Do you have bodywork to do, or simply prep for paint?

 

Tom, lots of folks, myself included, have been in your position. You can save a ton of money out of pocket if you strip and prep the car yourself. I wrote up my experiences on my webpage listed in my sig.

For about $100 in materials you can strip all the old paint off the car. Then you can fix any repairs yourself and get it smooth. Do you have a compressor and spray gun to shoot primer yourself? Since you'll sand it all down the quality of the spray job isn't terribly critical on the primer. Then the challenge is to find someone willing to spray the topcoats over your work. I had a friend do it for me, but in general most shops don't want to shoot over top of something they didn't prep. This will be the most challenging part , finding a painter.

I have about $1200 in my paint job including all materials and paint shop labor. Of course, that doens't put a $$ value on my time, but hey, it's a hobby!

Good luck, post any questions you may have.
Shannon

 

I've never painted a car before but I am seriously considering it. It seems to me that doing all of the prep work is at least 75% of the job. Since you're willing to go that far and money is an issue, why not just go all the way and spray the car yourself?

Another point to consider is that if something happens to the quality of the paint job, the painter may blame your prep work, regardless of whether it is faulty or not.

Just my $.02

 

1LE, your car looks great! I don't have a DA sander anymore or a compressor, but I am willing to buy those if I am going to prep - its not worth doing anything unless you have the right tools!

Its encouraging you guys saved so much money. I feel I can do the work, I will have all winter to prep it.

I don't have really any bodywork to do at all - the car is very sound and straight which I think works in my favor. The only thing I do want to do is pull off the luggage rack. I wouldn't want to patch those holes myself, i would have that done at the end I guess.

Probably Vetteran won't spray it for me but I should be able to find a shop that will in this area I think.

What did you guys do about weatherstripping and so on? I kind of would want to pull all of that off, as well as all the tags and anything else I could, maybe even including the taillights..did you guys do that?

Tom

 

I'm starting my paint next summer. Strip, smooth and shoot.

The main thing I've learned is that you should use the primer recommended for the paint you are going to use, i.e. don't use PPG primer and House of Kolor base coat and dupont clear :rolleyes:

 

Tom, you want to remove everything that you can. I removed the taillight lenses, but not the housings themselves. I removed all weatherstripping, emblems, trim. grilles, headlight bezels, rocker panels, door sills, etc. Since you're talking about changing colors you'll have to do the jambs too. Make sure you mask over the trim tag and remove the door switches too. It's the little details that make a difference.

Shannon

 

How do you get the tags off? On my 74' Nova I had as a teenager, I stripped my nova (and painted it with SPRAY paint! whoohooo!) and I remember pulling those tags off - some were on with a black type of adhesive, but some were on with speed nuts or whatever you call em, and I seem to remember those being a REAL pain...

 

Out of all the body repairs I did, the luggage rack holes were the EASIEST, and came out the best, I cannot tell where they were.

 

You can do it! If your body doesn't require a lot of work then you got the majority of the battle won. I had major body work to do.
If you can find an experienced painter that will work for a set fee for advice and to shoot paint that's the way to go. My painter also had his own spray booth at his home shop.
My paint cost -
$300 for sealer/surfacer
$300 for primer
$450 for bc/cc
$400 to the painter
The aggraviting part to me, because I have to borrow a trailer, was having to keep hauling the car over to get each step in the painting done and then hauling it back to my shop for guide coat/block sanding. I've done it three times now and this weekend carrying it back over for the final color sanding. But, the savings is worth it.

 

I'm doing it NOW! I used Kleen Strip for fiberglas and it worked great. 5 week-ends to strip and now I'm on to sanding. It's going to look great.

 

Where can I get ahold of Kleen Strip?