I recently purchased a 1986 300SDL for cheap because the paint was in such bad shape. I've been wanting to learn how to do body repair and painting. I've spent the last couple of months reading a couple other forums. I feel like I have a sufficient amount of knowledge to get myself into trouble. I doubt I'll do the painting myself because I don't have the facilities or the equipment (garage or nice compressor). I just have a carport right now. I'd like some feedback on my plan of attack. Thanks.

1. Strip entire car to bare metal with my Makita and the strip kit I bought from www.autobodystore.com There are some nooks and crannies that I think I'll have to use a wire wheel on.
2. Picklex the entire vehicle.
3. Repair any dents or other damage. I've got a hammer and dolly set, a gallon of Rage Gold, and a full set of sanding blocks and paper.
4. Prime with epoxy. Sand.
5. Send to painter.

The main question I have is about the primer. As I stated above, I don't have the equipment or facilities to spray. However, I can't just leave the vehicle unprotected from the elements. I assume the Picklex will help, but am I correct in thinking that I really need to get a primer on there to protect it as soon as possible. I live in central Texas so it's pretty humid. I suppose my only options for priming are rolling or Preval. Can I do an entire vehicle with either of those methods?

Here are some pictures of the vehicle.

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1981 300TD
1986 300SDL

dont think you want to sand the existing primer. there's a new guy on the forum who is a paint expert. search the forum for the last week on paint issues. (existing primer may contain lead, other toxic metals)

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

I would suggest spray can primer but you should be able to spray lacquer primer with fairly small compressor and paint gun from HF. That will probably work out cheaper when painting a whole car.

You can roll it on, but who knows what the results will be like and how much effort it will take to sand back when it's time to paint. Buying a basic compressor and paint gun will save you a lot of time which will be cheaper in the long run.

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With best regards

Al

The last submissions comments are true. If you are going to paint a car, buy a compressor, regulator, and a gun.

You may want to consider not starting this project. I'm the guy who says not to strip except in two situations

1) the coating is destroyed

2) something happened at the plant that will not allow paint to adhere, usually a serious overbaking of one of the coatings.

#1 applies in this situation. The photo you show show show no signs of the OEM coatings. I think this one was already butchered by someone else. If the pictures represent the condition of the topcoat on the rest of the car, you will have to take it down to metal. The metal orientation of the basecoat looks wrong for Mercedes; the color looks like it is from a domestic model. The finish is star cracked and was applied way to thick, and you may have body filler delamination in one of the pictures.

Do me a favor and take some pictures of the car where the coating has not failed. If these are the only spots that are this bad, you may be able to strip, blast, use epoxy and nonsanding primer to save the body. If the rest of body is this bad, I would suggest you find a better car. Bodywork is hard, and this could be a big challenge if you do not have the experience or an experienced person to lead you through the process.

Also take a look at the thread that says "welcome JMK". You have a critical issue spraying it with epoxy and taking it to a professional. Expoy primers can't tolerate UV. Most epoxy technologies chaulk when exposed to sunlight. You would need a garage to do the prepwork and store the car until it is topcoated.

Also trying to blast outside is very difficult. Surface rust appears quite quickly under uncontrolled conditions. You need clean metal for your coatings to adhere to. That is next to impossible outside.

Blasting can be quite dangerous. Some OEM coatings contain anticorrosive pigments that are quite toxic. I've known bodyshops to be shut down by the EPA beacuse of overuse of blasting.

Here is another pic. Sorry about the glare, but it's the best full body shot I have.




I had the same thought jmk. The paint on these failing areas seems to be different than the rest of the car. It's MUCH thicker and failing in such a dramatic way. Other panels look completely fine. The roof and the hood for example, where you would expect lots of clear coat failure, look fine.

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1981 300TD
1986 300SDL

I wouldn't be blasting. Like I said in the first post, I would use a rotary with disks. The picklex would protect it from surface rust until it was time to prime. The priming would probably happen immediately before I took it to the painter. I could cover it with a car cover. I suppose I could also just not prime it, leave it with just the picklex and then have the painter prime and paint.

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1981 300TD
1986 300SDL

That does look better, though I cannot be sure. At least you're in Texas, no road salt and usually dry (you aren't on the Gulf, are you?).

I need you to take some closeups of the good parts of the body. I'm looking to see if most of the coating is original, or at least a good repaint. I would also like to see pictures of the rocker panels near both front wheels. That is a prime spot for rust on these, and I would like to see how they handled any repairs, if any, down there.

The areas shown look like all of the original coating was blasted off. I see bare metal there.

You would have to remove all the coatings, fillers in those areas, blast to clean metal, use a non sanding primer to prevent further rust, fill, sand and repaint the topcoats. There are some experienced bodymen on this site that could give you some tips with this. I was used to dealing with new bodies in the plants. There are better folk to guide you though the refinish process.

I have a question about epoxy primer. I used it once and it was a huge pain in the rear to sand. Am i to understand that sanding is not required with epoxy primer? If so, how long before I apply the top coat and must I strip the car to bare metal if i'm to use epoxy primer?

Thoughts are gratefully appreciated.

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With best regards

Al

I'm not very experienced at these things, but I think I can partly answer your questions.

1. There are lots of different epoxy primers. They all have different sanding properties.
2. There are windows of how long a paint can sit before the next coat. If you go beyond that point, then you have to sand. Again, different products are different here.
3. You don't have to strip to bare metal if the paint is in decent shape. Scuff it up and spray epoxy on top.
4. The real answer is that you have to read the specs for the product you're working with. Go to the different companies websites and read the tech sheets. It's tedious and boring, but necessary.

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1981 300TD
1986 300SDL

Any type of sanding can be dangerous. It is the dust particulates from the coating that has the anticorrosive pigment in it that is dangerous. It doesn't matter if you remove them with a sander, blaster, or by hand with paper.

Also, I don't really think you would be able to effectively sand with an orbital sander this car. It hard to fit a DA into nooks and crannies. From your pictures, you have some of those to do.

You need a controlled environment to do bodywork if you want to do it right. Also, you do not want your neighbors complaining about the smell and dust this type of work generates. Done incorrectly, it can be quite dangerous--not just unsatisfying.

Here is a quote from another website on powder coating, and I agree with his observations:

Again..... I'll add my 2-cents as per usual,lol. Picklex is nothing more than a low V.O.C. water based acid wash compound. It basically works in the same manner as phosphate washing for iron but supposedly is "better" somehow. While this is a relatively new product on the market (compared to iron phosphate,that is), it lays some pretty hefty claims as to what it can do. Picklex claims when used properly it can make welds up to 60% stronger,remove scale and convert micro dust. Well....uh I dunno about making a weld stronger or taking rust scale and converting it fully to a useable compound. Seems a little bit tall of an order for me. Let's just focus on what it "basically" does and where the name derives from to help keep expectations realistic,k?

Picklex....which derives it's name from "pickling" your substrate is a surface prep. Pickling means that you acid etch the surface of your metal. Nothing more. You can dip metal in orange juice and pickle it, truth be known. In my very limited experience using this product it has it's advantages. Such as.....phosphate applies a crystaline structure to said substrate and acts as a primer. Pickles does that as well as digging into the metal to help ensure the bond. It also "does" indeed make the surface more conductive therefore theoretically more condusive to application of charged particulate. While iron phosphate is a simple wash and rinse....picklex is a little more intricate and CAN create flash-rust on the surface of your metal if all processes are not adhered to (perhaps why you are haviong problems). First step....degrease (this is where phosphate has the advantage. It's basically a soap truth be known so no excessive degreasing needed). Second step....rinse (again, same as phosphate) Third step... picklex (not needed in phosphating). Lastly, rinse again (you already did this step 2 moves back with phosphate). Both processes must be thoroughly dried at this time (pay attention all you people who have flash rusting!) as the vehicle for both is basically H2O. If left on a part, prepped steel will most assuredly rust no matter what you do before hand.
Is Picklex better than phosphating? I leave time and you, the user to be that judge. Both have thier advantages and dis-advantages. I may be willing to put my money on the picklex in due time only for the fact that it actually helps "etch" your surface metal, albeit microscopically (do some research on "ultrasonic cleaning and etching" to see what I'm talking about). However....it's by no means a cure all for a rusty scaled part that needs to be mechanically prepped (sandblasted) and I wouldn't treat it as such. If one would REALLY need a home run in this area....I'd sandblast and then either picklex or phosphate to have a win/win scenario. After all.... it's the prep that matters most in powder coating. Once in a cure, the powder will do the rest for you. Hope that helps answer your questions (I'm not even touching the Picklex-20 subject as it can't be used under powder coatings without getting an unstable surface into the mix. Good for your 79 Pinto before bondo maybe, but not the part you're going to powder coat). Take care all and best of luck...... Russ

Phospating is the first step in painting a car in the factory. Iron phosphate is the most basic of these treatments. It would not be practical to phosphate metal (which picklex is most likely doing), store it, then move it to another facility to coat. The car would flash rust, and would need retreatment. You could not store a phosphated body in the factory, you must at least e-coat it before you can store it, or it will flash rust. Also, his comments on phosphating being no substitute for heavily scaled parts. Some of your pictures show heavy scale, and there is no treatment that will effectively fix that. It's basic physics of steel rusting. When steel and oxides back into iron oxide, it expands 10x. This creates an unstable surface that has to be removed to paint. There is no way around this. Even marine and industrial coatings that are designed to paint rust scale work much better if they are blasted before application. And those coatings generally have phosphates added to them to promote adhesion to the bare metal.

I will admit that I have no experience with picklex. Maybe there is some magic with that material. I've only used phosphating solutions. Anyone out there have an opinion on this?

JMK. I value your input and you are obviously have much more knowledge than I do. However, what you're saying about epoxies doesn't really jive with what most others sources are saying. Most people view epoxies as very durable and a good way to temporarily seal metal to prevent corrosion. So, I'm curious as to why your opinion is so different from what I'm seeing everywhere else?

The idea behind using the pickelex was to convert any small amount of rust that I wasn't able to get to, tiny crevices, surface rust that reappears, etc. I'm not suggesting that it's a solution for proper rust removal and repair. It's just an added insurance policy on top of the rust removal.

As far as the removal process itself. I'm not concerned about my neighbors. I live on an acre. Like I said in the first post, the rotary would be for the large flat areas and I would use a wire wheel for the nooks and crannies. If there is a better way, I'd like to know about it, but media blasting is not an option. I would wear a good respirator and eye protection. I am concerned about dumping lead and toxins into the watershed. I suppose it's a small amount, but I'll have to think about that one.

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1981 300TD
1986 300SDL

Epoxies are great for corrosion protection. That is what they are best at.

Epoxies usually have terrible UV resistance. They cannot take UV radiation in sunlight. they need to be coated with sanding primers and topcoats to protect them from the UV. With time (for some chemistries that can be as little as a couple of hours), they will chaulk. You get fine layers loose coating at the surface that will prevent good gloss development and adhesion of subsequent layers. Initial exposure of epoxies to sunlight can cause serious adhesion failures later. The only way to remove chaulk from the surface is to sand and wash. You do not want to sand non sanding primers. That will release the anticorrosive pigments in the coating which contain heavy metals. A lot of people do not realize this.

On cars, the bottom layers prevent rust, and the top layers protect against UV radiation. Placing the topcoats directly on metal greatly reduces the corrosion protection. Using no topcoats greatly reduces UV protection. They are designed to work in conjunction with one another.

Safety for you and your environment: you should care greatly for that. You do not want to have to deal with heavy metal contamination in you or your surroundings. The anticorrosive pigments in automotive primers contain lead and hexavalent chromium. These materials do not break down with time. Once they are deposited, they do not go away until they are removed. From personal experience, removing them from your body is an expensive, somewhat painful process.

If you own your property, you would not want to have to pay someone to clean up one of those messes. Remediation is very, very expensive. The way the law is written, selling the property does not relieve you of responsibility. If a contamination occurs, title searches can be done to find out previous owners. If the courts determine that you were responsible, you can be required to pick up the cleanup tab. It is much better to have a contained space to control the process.

How do I know the legal end of this? Currently I am a financial advisor, and I work with large estates. Corporate trustees that manage properties will tell you the same thing that I am telling you about liabilities from contamination.

Will one car cause enough problems that you will have to remediate? Honestly, I could not tell you the answer to that. That depends on a lot of factors. I just wouldn't want to risk it.

Prepping your car in a controlled environment where you can do a proper cleanup will protect you from future liability, will produce better results on the vehicle, and will be safer. I am glad to hear that you are planning to use protective gear on this job.

Phospate solutions prepare the metal for immediate coating. Picklex sounds like a phosphate solution. They will not make a long lasting coating. Phosphated steel can rust in as little as a couple of hours (sometimes sooner). You can actually can buy phosphated test panels to use in the lab. To keep them from rusting, they are completely wrapped in paper treated with another anticorrosive. The wrapped test panels are then placed in a sealed bag. If they are left out for a couple of hours unwrapped, we would just throw them away. They had already gone bad from flash rusting (even if you cannot see the rusting immediately). I don't see how picklex would allow you to transport the car to a bodyshop before flash rusting would take place. Again, you would need someone who has had experience with that material. There may be some magic in the formula which I do not undersand that makes it more permament.

Thank you for all of the good information. To be honest, it has been very frustrating to hear. I'm ticked off that this is proving to be so much more difficult than I originally hoped. But, there is no way that I'm going to risk dumping lead and chromates into the environment. The whole reason that I drive these cars is so that I can run them on B100 made from WVO. Defeats the whole purpose if I turn around and make my home into a toxic waste dump. It's surprising to me that the Krauts were still using such bad stuff in the 80s. These days they are at the cutting edge of environmentally friendly paints.

I'm still trying to find a way to contain the dust or strip the car without dust. Chemically stripping is an option. The fumes suck, but at least I won't be dumping lead and chromate into the watershed. The truth is that I'm not so confident that sending it out to a bodyshop would guarantee that it would be any better. I know a lot of them would grind it all down and not care a bit about the fallout. The best option IMO is to find a way to do it safely at home, contain the old paint and take it to my hazardous waste disposal facility. I'm lucky to have a great place here in town. They take everything and there are super nice people that work there.

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1981 300TD
1986 300SDL

I think I've come up with some acceptable solutions to dust containment.

Here's my question. Does the clear coat have any of the nasty stuff in it? I ask because on the panels that are in just shape, I'm just going to scuff them to prep them for epoxy primer. If the clear is (relatively) harmless then I'm not going to be as concerned about the dust containment.

Thanks.

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1981 300TD
1986 300SDL