DIY: $50 Paint Job

[Matt Timion]

Many of you are in the same boat as my wife and I. You have a $1000 car (or in our case a $700 car) and you can't justify spending the money on a good paint job.

I'm sure that you've seen this before, but a while ago someone on the internet mentioned how do a $50 paint job using rustoleum paint. The results were very good.

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/...fpart=1&v c=1

Considering the long weekend, I took it upon myself to test this method first hand on my wife's 1987 Honda CRX Si.

The BEFORE shot:

This isn't the same angle, and it's kind of a crappy picture. I was taking a picture of my Honda Fit and the CRX was behind it. Either way, it will give you an idea of the color scheme before the paint.

I should also mention that I recently replaced the front plastic piece (in front of the hood) with a red one prior to the paintjob.



Here is the progress:

After coat 1:


After coat 2:


At this point I wet-sanded it with 400 grit sandpaper (couldn't find 600 grit)

After coat 3:


After coat 4:


In the morning I'll wet-sand it with 800 grit sandpaper and put on two more coats. With any luck there will be enough time tomorrow for sanding with 1000 grit and maybe polishing the paint.

[Matt Timion]

I should mention that I plan on doing 6-10 coats, depending on what is needed to adequately cover the previous black paint (hood, etc.)

After the paint is done I will be repainting the trim and replacing the emblems as I was lazy and didn't remove them prior to painting.

[Red]

Rattle can all the way

[rh77]

Yeah -- no need to spend a lot of money on a paint job if you're willing to take the time yourself.

I have an older 2nd Cousin who modestly painted his AMC Eagle with a brush back in the day! It didn't look so good

RH77

[Ryland]

if you look in my garage photos, you will see my vx, I replaced the front bumper cover with a new one after it was backed in to for the 2nd time in it's life, while parked (once befor I got it, and once about a year ago) so the bumper was defently in need of replacement as it was in a number of pieces.
After driving it with a grey primered front bumper for a few weeks, I went down to the auto parts store, gave them the paint code on the door jam, and a little while latter they handed me a spray can with the exact same color of teal with metal flake, I think it set me back about $12 for a custum color like that, and another $5 or so for clear coat, and it's a really good match in color.

[UfoTofU]

Looks great so far!

I've been thinking about doing this on the roof of my CRX. The previous owner had mounted a roof rack by drilling a total of 8 holes through the roof. I have since filled them in but have not yet finished it.

I was waiting for winter to come and go to see if they were going to possibly leak or not, *knock on wood* no leaks yet.

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by Red

Rattle can all the way

No way man... you apply rustoleum with a roller. It's awesome.

[CO ZX2]

Originally Posted by Matt Timion

No way man... you apply rustoleum with a roller. It's awesome.

Matt, I am damn proud of you. You took the bull by the horns and did it without agonizing over it forever. Just imagine all the crap advice you could and would have gotten if you had opened yourself up to it. Many, including me, should learn a good lesson from you.

Looks great now and will surely be spectacular when finished. I will be sending your article and pics to my brother who was telling me a while back of a car he once spray-gunned with Rustoleum. I kept razzing him about it telling him his idea of 'looked good' might not agree with mine. Appears I probably,(no definitely), will be eating my words. Maybe even today. CO ZX2

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by CO ZX2

Matt, I am damn proud of you. You took the bull by the horns and did it without agonizing over it forever. Just imagine all the crap advice you could and would have gotten if you had opened yourself up to it. Many, including me, should learn a good lesson from you.

Looks great now and will surely be spectacular when finished. I will be sending your article and pics to my brother who was telling me a while back of a car he once spray-gunned with Rustoleum. I kept razzing him about it telling him his idea of 'looked good' might not agree with mine. Appears I probably,(no definitely), will be eating my words. Maybe even today. CO ZX2

Thanks..

The benefit to using this type of paint is that it dries as a hard protective shell on the car. It's an enamel, so it will really protect the car.

Due to the nature of the paint though, you need to dilute it and put on many many many thin coats. You also need to wetsand between every two coats to reduce orangepeel.

End the end I'll wetsand with 1000 grit sandpaper, buff it, and polish it. These steps alone will give it a really nice shine.

Definately worth it if you have lots of time but not lots of money.

[Peakster]

Looks awesome! Rollers are a wonderful thing when painting (especially the spongy ones).

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Ack! It looks so clean you have me wanting to paint my bunny. I'm thinking tractor yellow, with a student driver sign on the back for low speed glides. Great job!

[kps]

I roller-painted my previous car. After several coats I got tired of sanding orange peel and let it stand as a rust-remission exercise.

[Matt Timion]

Woke up yesterday ready to apply two more coats of paint. I found this instead:



I was able to wetsand later that day, but not able to paint. It was WAY too cold for me.

Just put on coat number 5:




Will put on coat 6 later.

[Matt Timion]

after coat 6:

[UfoTofU]

Looking good. That is a nice little CRX, why no garage entry for it?

[UfoTofU]

This is definitely working on convincing me to paint my room when the snow starts to go away.

[SVOboy]

I want a first gen, *cries*

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by UfoTofU

Looking good. That is a nice little CRX, why no garage entry for it?

There is..

http://www.gassavers.org/garage/view/99

It's my wife's car, not mine.

[Matt Timion]

tomorrow I will be wetsanding with 1000 grit sandpaper, and then buffing/polishing.

Then it will be time to paint the trim black again. With any luck i'll be done tomorrow.

[kwtorbe]

I love moparts.com. Gassavers.org and moparts.com are the best sites on the internet for me! Clubcivic.com is okay for parts but everybodies so gansta' and mean about wanting to improve FE...

[occupant]

From what I understand from that thread, which has been posted on darn near every car board I'm on, the trick is to use a LOT of paint thinner, put on MANY thin coats of paint, and do LOTS of wet sanding and polishing. I don't see any reason why this couldn't also have a coat or three of clearcoat on top of the many layers of rolled-on-paint.

[brelandt]

What ratio of paint to mineral spirts did you use?

I work at a hardware/lumber yard and can get all of the materials for this project cheap. Not that it isn't already cheap enough!

I have been thinking about doing this for awhile now, but I have a LOT of body work to do first. The front has been hit. The rear has been hit and the passengerside door is crushed in, but still works. Might just replace it with one from a junkyard.

At the moment I haved repainted the front bumper and trying to do the grill. However the aircraft striper did not do a good job at removing the paint off of the grill. Applied and rinsed at least 5 times but it left the paint cracked instead. Got a paint remover disc wheel for my drill but it's so course that it is tearing the plastic up!

I'm using Bulldog and Krylons plastic paint. All from a spray can.

The bumper looks great. But the grill? It's trashed.

[Matt Timion]

Wetsanded with 1000 grit sandpaper:



Buffed:



Polished:



Then we took the car to the carwash. We both began masking the trim, which also needed badly to be repainted. After much masking, we used Trim Paint from Autozone.

The majority of it is done in this picture. I need to get more paint to finish the back bumper and the sunroof.



I'd say that overall it's a pretty good paintjob for such a small amount of money.

Oh yeah, I probably only used a quart of paint too. I think that might mean that I should use more paint next time. I think that might not be a bad idea.

[Matt Timion]

For anyone planning to do the same thing, I recommend that you take the time and mask before doing this paintjob. I thought I wouldnt need to because i wasn't spraying the paint. I still got paint everywhere.

I would also recommend removing the emblems for the same reason. I am going to go to the junkyard tomorrow in hopes of finding new emblems.

[red91sit]

God zooks!!! Paint those windshield wipers lol. Sorry but this is my biggest pet peeves.

anyways. I've found the miracle of roll on paint a long time ago. I'm shocked by how quickly and widely this trend has spread!! It does work very well though. I'm currently painting both my vehicles this way. The civic is 1/2 blue right now. And eventually the lincoln will be Gray, or black with gold flake :-)

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by red91sit

God zooks!!! Paint those windshield wipers lol. Sorry but this is my biggest pet peeves.

Good call. I am planning on doing that this weekend. I am thinking of using some black engine enamel that I have left over from painting my valve cover.

I'm actually considering painting my n600 this way in the summer. Do you have any idea if you can get rustoleum color matched?

[ELF]

Very nice Matt!! Did that rustoleum red match your car that well??

[Peakster]

I wonder if Goo-Gone would work to remove the paint on the headlamps, etc? Either way, it looks AMAZING!

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by ELF

Very nice Matt!! Did that rustoleum red match your car that well??

Eh, it doesn't match too well... but we actually found a few spots of paint that were unaffected by 20 years of weather, and it does match THAT paint fairly well.

Originally Posted by Peakster

I wonder if Goo-Gone would work to remove the paint on the headlamps, etc? Either way, it looks AMAZING!

I hope that goo-gone works, as I'm planning on using it. I will also use a razor blade Between the two, something will work.

[red91sit]

Originally Posted by Matt Timion

Eh, it doesn't match too well... but we actually found a few spots of paint that were unaffected by 20 years of weather, and it does match THAT paint fairly well.



I hope that goo-gone works, as I'm planning on using it. I will also use a razor blade Between the two, something will work.

Just use the thinner you mixed the enamel with (Y), unless it will cloud the plastic?

::EDIT:: HOT diggity! they have glow in the dark paint (under industrial section)

They DO have custom tinting. I'm not sure if they match it to a paint chip or what, but they do it!