Actually that is not a bad idea. Twenty five years ago I painted a few cars that we sold at a garage. I think doing all the prep work right is the hardest part of painting a car. The actual painting is not as hard as it sounds. Here is a link to the new turbine HVLP systems. The Campbell Hausfeld model is around $530. IF you can go in with someone to buy it and do both your cars the price is not bad. Then when you are done you can sell it on ebay for ~$300.

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/articles/showarticle.asp?articleID=1959&partID=2

The last thing I spray painted was our house. It came out great but you are at the mercy of the wind painting outside in open air. Insects seem to love crawling, flying into, and dying in fresh wet paint. Twenty five years ago my next door neighbor painted his Datsun 240Z and it came out only fair. One of those portable plastic car garage set ups would be a big plus. Then you could at least wet down the grass before you paint to keep the dust and pollen down while you walk around painting the car. My new to me from Florida 1983 300SD has a nearly rust free body. My mechanic told me he believes it was garage kept when we inspected the body, but the original paint is getting very thin and fading after 23 years. Someone else suggested removing the trim and mouldings from your car then letting a painter have a go at it. This way you can spend the extra time to do all the prep work. Sand and scuff it up very well, and use as little filler as needed to repair the minor dings and scratches so you get a nice smooth finish coat is ideal. The suggestion to find someone to paint your car on the side might not be a bad idea. I do like the idea of being able to spray the underneath frame, and underside body panels, and under the side lower moldings with a good rust inhibitor paint like Magnet paint finish, primer, and and rust inhibitor paint. http://www.magnetpaints.com/products.asp
Finding the time to do the work right and having the patience to do things two times if it goes wrong is part of the DIY body work game. See if you can find someone to go in with you on a paint sprayer perhaps. If you can teem up with someone it is always nice to have two people working on a car to get them prepped and ready for the actual painting. You could then team up to do both of your cars back to back. Good luck and let us know how you make out. There is a place about 30 miles from me that sand blasts fleet trucks and cars. I am still trying to find out the cost to have them sand blast my car. That would be too cool to have it down to bare metal for a primer in rust inhibitor paint and a finish coat custom blended to match the original yellow my car was. Of course I will faint dead away when I drive there in a few weeks to inquire about their actual rates. John

I would stay away from the idea of painting a panel at a time; too much of a chance for panel mismatch.
Doing the prep yourself is the key to saving money and getting a good-looking job.
I disagree with the advice to use a single stage paint. In my experience the BaseCoat/Clear Coat ( BC/CC) gives the occasional painter a better shot at a good job. In the BB/CC process, the BC goes on just like the lacquer you used before. It dries just about that fast. As you spray BC you simply look at coverage and metallic pattern. The CC has all the gloos, so you simply spray for gloss. You can color sand and buff the CC for ultimate gloss, and to get rid of tiny mistakes ( dust, drips etc).
If you have a local paint supplier whom, you trust, use them. If you don't there is an online company called SmartShoppersinc.com that can sell you the stuff at greatly reduced prices. I priced a local jobber for his mid range BC/CC and it was nearly $1000 in materials. IIRC, the SmartShoppers cost was about 1/3 of that.

If you decide to go with single stage urethane AND you don't care about a factory color, smartshoppers carries Kirker paint , which is good paint at less than half the price of the PPGs, Dupont. etc. That's what I used- GM #81 Flame Red at about $50/gallon. This sort of stuff is about $200 at your local paint store. This particular color looks very much like signalrot.

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80 300SD (129k mi) 82 240D stick (193k mi)77 240D auto - stick to be (153k mi) 85 380SL (145k mi) 89 BMW 535i 82 Diesel Rabbit Pickup (374k mi) 91 Jetta IDI Diesel (155k mi) 81 VW Rabbit Convertible Diesel 70 Triumph Spitfire Mk III (63kmi)66 Triumph TR4a IRS (90k mi)67 Ford F-100 (??)

is lighting. Setting up a porable garage and using plastic to close it off is a good idea, and I have done similar things. What most people forget about is proper lighting. If you don't have that thing lit up like noon day, you won't be able to see if you are applying the paint evenly and smoothly. You will likely end up with thin spots and drips if you can't see what's going on. I agree with the advice against painting panels sepparately, it will take a long time, and probably not match especially with a metalic paint. Also consider all of the extra work involved with changing colors. All of the door jams, hood and trunk areas will have to be painted or it will look goofy. I also agree with the BC/CC comments. This system is very forgiving and not bad for the first time painter. Final word of caution, be careful how cheap you go with the paint gun. The first car I painted, I used my Dad's old speedaire. I ended up using about a gallon of paint, when it should have taken about half that. The newer/better guns use way less paint.
bb

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For Sale: 1982 MB 300TD
1995 Chevrolet Suburban 6.5TD

Sold: 1980 IH Scout Traveler- Nissan SD33T Diesel

You should paint it yourself. Decent guns are cheap now and if you use base coat clear coat you can't go wrong. Also to save on materials look in your local paint store for miss matched paint they practically give it away! New paints are way easier to use than old laquers. very forgiving.

ive given the idea of draping plastic all over my moms garage so i can paint my car in the future or at least do all the prep work like fix a little rust fill in a lil dent or two and remove all trim. then bring it to a local paint shop.. cost would be considerbly less.. and ill even wip it down before they shoot it. .. im thinking midnight black or a nice evergreen forrest green.. a nice set of 8-holes to go with it and revitalized chrome.. mm sex on wheels

Let me "AMEN!" to the lighting comment. It is very important. Almost all of my painting problems have resulted from not enough light. You can get some real cheap 2 tube florescent lights. Use 4 of them and you should be OK.

Carrameow....
Like you, I like to do things myself ......wrench, weld ... even paint.
At some point...and at some age...You need to let a shop do something...
1- Read the warning label on a can of automotive paint " Fumes can cause death"
2- A very good friend of mine decided to paint his car after seeing me paint mine. He did not realize that I used a pressurized breathing device while I was painting....
3-Several weeks after painting his car ....well need I say more. It was not good. Wearing a mask just don’t do it.
4-For your safty and for any one else that may be thinking about paint...Leave it to the professionals.

The chemisrty HAS changed. A pressure mask is required. You are only issued one set of lungs. Buy or rent a pressure respirator. HobbyAire is one supplier of such stuff, as is Eastwood.
I think even some HVLP systems have a second compressor for breathing air.
By the way, if you decide to go ahead, you probably want to use HVLP anyway. It uses far less paint than the old Binks7, and there is much less mist in the air to breathe. It is much easier to get a good finish, especially for the sometime painter.

Go the Campbell Hausfeld website.

Look up HVLP sprayers.

Buy what you can afford. There is very little overspray with HVLP. You don't waste paint like traditional air compressor sprayers.

It uses a turbine - much like a vacuum cleaner in reverse to pressurize the gun to a high volume low pressure spray.

Main thing is to get the RIGHT NOZZLE TIP for the type of paint you are using so you don't clog the gun.

I bought a Campbell Hausfeld from Tractor Supply on clearance becasue I like to finish fine furniture with Laquer. The turbine is not as important as the gun. The finish comes from the gun with the right tip.

Screw the neighbors when it comes to smells. Their crap stinks too. Just don't get paint on their cars. Little worry about that with an HVLP. Try doing that with a traditional gun and you will have a cloud that will fill the neighborhood.

You could do a paint booth by buying one of those portable garage things with the metal poles and white top and sides from Northern Hydraulics. Probably fleabay. They go up easy with no tools - we use them in Boy Scout events all the time. Then get the drop sides for it and you got a portable paint booth for $200.

The Nason line in Du Pont is a middle grade base coat that is good. But I would go Du Pont highest grade Base coat clear coat. Sand the entire car with 600 and then prime with a high grade primer and then base coat. Do your clear after the base has dried sufficiently.

Those portable garages have a drop down door so weather is not an issue for drying time. Just get the correct thinner/reducer for drying time you want.
Let me know and I will help any way I can.

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1982 300SD Light Blue
2002 Honda Accord SE
1974 Toro Wheel Horse Tractor
2000 Toyota Tundra Pickup

It's your car- paint it to suit your own philosophy. Personally, it's all about extending the car's life- nothing more. Totally utilitarian. I prefer white cars because if you touch up a rusted area with spray bomb white rust paint, and rub it out real good when it's dry, it's pretty hard to spot the imperfections. Part of me wants to get my 300D painted another color- anything but white, but as I'm on such a limited budget, white allows me to keep the car rust free, by myself, for the price of spray bombs, rubbing compound and sandpaper. Last year I started using POR-15 products- absolutely superb, but they don't sell it in spray bombs. So, I'm thinking of investing in a cheap spray outfit, and maybe someday I'll get real brave and do my color change myself- using one of those POR-15 industrial equipment colors for the lower half, and leaving the roof white so I don't have to fuss a lot over the roof trim and windows.

Dave
1976 White 300D

Prep is what makes the paint job great. Also dont use a cheap paint. Spend the money and get some paint with lots of pigmant in it.

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1981 300D 147k
1998 VW Jetta Tdi 320k
2001 Dodge Ram 2500 141k
1979 300D 234k (sold)
1984 300D "Astor" 262k(sold)
Mercedes How-To and Repair Pictorials
I love the smell of diesel smoke in my hair

ya know .. im thinking of going bare metal ive seen a w115 bare metal.. looked hot . patina is also nice .. but to stay surface rust free id have to wd-40 it down every week and repair the rust spot..

Use a paint like Awlgrip, thin it by 10% and "Roll and Tip". Thats what the boat guys do andthey get a real good shine. They key to any paint job is the prep, prime and prep, prime and prep.

Of course you can always spray, but use a professional respirator.

Joe.

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www.jerseyplanning.com
1987 300TD 440K - My car
2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo 107K - Tim's car
2000 - CLK320 100K - Deb's car
1994 C230 150K - Josh's Car

Carrameow,

I used a cheap gun with a small compressor in my dads garage to prep and paint his (now mine) 1966 Glassic replica of a 1930's Model "A" Phaeton.

You can find the results right here.......

See the pictures on Page 6 for Car 129, (that's the serial number....the 29th production unit made), they are the top three with the Champaign and brown metallic.

Like a fool I sprayed the dark color first, then had to try to cover it (after a masking job) in the overspray areas with the lighter color. All in all it turned out fairly well. I then put three coats of clear on it over the whole thing. I would have done more, but I ran out of time.

Considering the working area, I think it turned out just fine....It took a first place trophy and almost got me more business, but I was over 1300 miles away by then.

I taught myself how to paint.....using positive thinking and the directions on the can......You really can do it....if you believe and give it an honest effort. (sorry, couldn't help myself...)

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1998 W202 C230 - The money pit of late.
1984 W126 300SD (356,800 miles) Gone to the wrenchapart
1984 W123 300D Gone to the wrenchapart
1972 W108 280SE 3.5 (sold but not forgotten)
1986 Buick Grand National 3.8l Turbo (86k miles)
1966 Glassic Model 'A' Replica http://www.glassicannex.org

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