Quote:
Originally Posted by ykobayashi
Someone mentioned a really great idea about this years ago here. They said before taking it in, just razor blade off the rubber rim off the edge of the windshield seal so the paint shop can paint under the lip. Then pop the window out and put in a new seal when you get the car back.
There are the pluses and minuses of replacing with a URO seal that are a topic for another discussion. The URO is narrower and exposes more of the body. When I replaced mine it exposed the ugly mask line of the prior owners cheap respray. At some point I’ll either pull my windshields and have it resprayed or do the razor trick. URO seals are inexpensive unlike the mb but they do have this drawback. I guess that’s the gist of it.
I’ve always wanted to learn how to paint a car. I’ve done motorcycles in the driveway with cheap harbor freight gun as a kid and had average results. It’s part of my bucket list to do a base coat clearcoat metallic like my diamond blue on the 300d but the older I get it seems easier to just take it in. I’m not a kid anymore with overspray all over my face.  But part of me still wants to nail it just because. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos on diy spray jobs and it looks doable.
When you count trim stripping, masking, sanding and absorbing the new 2k paints in the body I guess a few thousand isn’t much. I have my car together engine, tranny, interior and chassis wise. It just pesters me with its cheapo maaco respray the PO did. It’s a metallic done single stage and it’s peeling wherever they didn’t properly prep. |
I feel for you on the amount of work you've done and how it ended up with paint that shames your efforts.
My project started as two cars. A white 84SD and a black 85SE. Now I have a black 85SD after swapping engines, wiring, rebuilding everything rebuildable on the project except a fine running om617 and the transmission attached to it. I learned how to learn again.
It's a long term project. I removed a windshield which had the frosting in the lower corners and installed one from a 91 SE which was pristine using the rope method and a new MB brand seal. I paid 135 bucks for it, followed the directions and installed this with great prejudice. I'm not cutting anything.
I decided to sand the coating off the alum trim and buff all the trim and didn't do such a good job on the rear windshield trim because it was in place. This, imo, is a chance to make it look like it should. I will work that inside lip starting at the top until I get this glass out without damaging the seal.
I use some jackleg primer on a bit of surface rust under the seal too. It's what everyone here swears by but it's not a 2K primer so that can be rectified while I'm in there.
I'm looking for a garage to get started on this today.