[FALL] Dragon Overhaul!! [Pics included]

Make sure you have a good fan venting in some fresh air. I've seen people use tarps and a few fans to make a booth and their cars came out great. Its all in the prep work.

Check out this thread, I think his car turned out pretty good for a DIY project.

Everything in the picture cost me about $800. Not a bad price for a new car.

not bad at all! Any black paint??

There is every color you can imagine.

looks like its coming along nicely. keep up the good work bud. just remember clear is the devil. it runs like a mother. just letting you know this cause its very easy to run the clear. but the nice thing is you can fix it in the end.

awesome! I'll have to pay you to spray a custom box in lay I'm about to make for my sub. It'll be mid winter if you could that is...

Well just a quick update. Had about a 10 hour day in the garage and got quite a bit done. The body kit is 100% done and ready for primer along with the hood, scoop, and vents. Tomorrow I will work the wing, trunk, and rear bumper. Depending on how much time I decided to spend out there I may try and scuff the whole car up and get it ready for paint. So far I am on schedule for the DRAGONS debut July 10th.

Got done much earlier today with my projects. The trunk, wing, and rear bumper are all done and ready for primer. I also sanded and painted the backside of the hood and trunk making them look very sharp.

I am uploading pictures now, but it will take a few minutes. In the picture of the wing when it is painted notice how wavy it is. That is the only reason I took it down as far as I did because it has bugged the crap out of me for years.

All I really have left is to pull the doors and do some fiberglassing on the areas where I had the rivets and start scuffing the paint and masking. Might be ready for primer by next weekend. We will see.

Pictures to follow shortly.

the wing lookz very good!

Updated pictures from tonight. Worked on her for about 4 hours. Didnt get as much done as I would have like, but at least I made some progress. Hoping to have the door and rear drivers quarter done before the end of the week along with all the fiberglassing and bondoing on the lower door section and then I will do the other side this weekend. Might be shooting primer on Sunday.

I also ordered 2 new front fenders as mine were pretty messed up from 21 motor pulls.

your a crazy man mikey. looks like its coming along nicely. what it should be all done tomorrow. painted and all

Well tomorrow I am going to fiberglass and bondo the door sill so the whole drivers side will be ready for primer. Probably going to need more bondo and primer. Gay.

We will start calling you bondo bob before to long. the crappy part is that most of the time you end up sand off half the body filler you put on.

she is going to look great!

Picked up another small container of bondo and an HVLP gun just for shooting primer. I will be shooting this weekend for sure. I will have almost all day tomorrow to get the rest of the car sanded and hopefully be spraying by Saturday.

Today I really did not get too much done. I had to swap my rims back onto the car so I could move it to the middle of the garage. Seems like I should be on schedule for the weekend. Today I also picked up a vinyl remover and another quart of primer. I also ended up getting a painters suit and some thinner to clean the gun after use.

All signs point to primer by tomorrow night.

I will be working on the car all weekend, so if I do not answer any phone calls I am sorry. Need to make sure I have the DRAGON done before July 10th.

Just getting ready to head out to the garage for the weekend. I will be making a very short trip into town this morning, but after that I will be working on getting my car ready for primer.

Almost there ladies and gentlemen. Bird and I spent about 6 hours in the garage yesterday getting about 95% of the sanding done and now all that is left is mirrors and door handles. I have the whole car masked off (except for the motor) and I am ready for primer. Should be a short day in the garage today.

First and foremost this morning I will be finishing the fiberglassing on the holes in the kick panels and then bondoing over that. Looking forward to seeing my car without 100 holes in it.

Frickin' A man.

Did not get as much done as I would have like to this weekend, but all things considered I made alot of progress. Since I have never shot a paint gun before I had kind of a learning curve getting the gun setup and such. Now that I have it all figured out the rest should not really take that long. Going to have to find time during the week to get the whole car primered, but unfortunately one of my fenders did not show up.

Wow lookin good man. body work is a pain in the butt. hope it turns out how you want it. should look sweet.

I am kind of thinking I may not sand the primer. It is an 2 part epoxy primer and goes on very thick making the surface look like truck bed lining. I really like the look and I might just leave it that way and not sand it smooth. What do you think?

well, the way it sounds, it may turn out looking like it has a severe amount of orangepeel, instead of a cool texture, know what i mean?

Kind of hard to explain but there is very small amount of texture, not like orange peel.

i, personally, would try to make it as smooth as possible. but either way, it will turn out good im sure.

A better way of describing it would be small sand particles in the primer. I think it looks really cool.

if it works out keeping the same texture, it will be cool..i would just be worried, after putting on the paint, it may not look as good.

before i spray the car i have a spare fender i am going to spray first.

good idea.

If you think it'll look cool then go for it Mikey. You buff after you clear anyway so it'll still be smooth in the finish

I personally don't find anything sexier than a perfect reflection paint job though

i prefer the same Todd.

Well fellas I can tell you it will not be a perfect show car, that is for sure. First time painting a car, I am going to be happy if it even looks correct.

Mike you are a wild man.... I would not have the patience to take the pictures and upload them let alone be doing all the sanding and painting. Hopefully you are happy with the end result.

make sure you atleast hit the primer with some 500-600 wet, dont put paint ontop of non sanded primer unless you want it to end up on the floor .... looks like our weekends consisted of the same thing, i primed and single staged a 1973 chevy vega over the last couple days! what speed reducer did you pick up? what brand of primer?

also, make sure the air lines are dry! inline filter if possible.. water can ruin a hvlp paint gun..
and also, if your building a makeshift booth, if you can fans pulling in... FILTERS!!! you can buy pretty decent plastic in sheets at home depot for relatively cheep.. my buddy built this one using tape, plastic, and automotive wire

Quote :

make sure you atleast hit the primer with some 500-600 wet, dont put paint ontop of non sanded primer unless you want it to end up on the floor

I totally agree with jdm, i have done painting commercially, and primer always gets sanded. If you were going for a texture, it should always be applied on the paint step ( i.e. saran wrap lines and other common car paint 'textures'). Unsanded primer can flake (even through the clear!), run very easily, statically attract dust and other floaties you wouldnt want in your paint. Also, another reason to sand the primer is that your initial smooth paint look comes from the primer. If the primer is rough, the paint will look rough. even if it feels smooth. And not in a good way....usually.

Kind of bummed out right now. Went down to NCS this morning and described to them what happened with the primer and they were baffled. Told them how I had it all set up and I did everything correct, but for some reason the primer failed. I am going back in there tomorrow with some of my primer and a couple pieces of my car. They said it may have been a bad activator.

I will definitely be sanding with a 600 before I paint. I am not that retarded.....

I can't wait to see it when it's done.


Uh.... why didn't you wait to do this in the winter?

What do you mean the primer failed?? Like....it just fell off?

DoodieHead [ADMIN] wrote:

Kind of bummed out right now. Went down to NCS this morning and described to them what happened with the primer and they were baffled. Told them how I had it all set up and I did everything correct, but for some reason the primer failed. I am going back in there tomorrow with some of my primer and a couple pieces of my car. They said it may have been a bad activator.

I will definitely be sanding with a 600 before I paint. I am not that retarded.....

well i just said that because a few lines up you said you were not going to sand the primer..

pictures of the failed primer? what did you prep the panels with grit wise? what brand of primer? what speed of reducer?

I just meant that I was not going to sand it down to smooth, not leave it (I should have been more clear). I finished with a scotch brite before I primed and it was plenty rough. The primer is a Omini and it does not have a reducer, it uses an activator. You are thinking paint, and for that a have medium as my garage is about 70 to 80 deg.

I will grab a quick shot of one of my panels and post it.

You can really notice the texture in the upper left of the picture. I also tried my other paint gun tonight and the results were the same. I will be heading down to NCS tomorrow morning to hopefully figure this out. One thing I did notice is that my air tank had quite a bit of water in it. Drained it out so I guess tomorrow we will see what happens. Might just have a textured car.

so once again, how exactly did the primer fail? What about it didn't work?

DoodieHead [ADMIN] wrote:

I just meant that I was not going to sand it down to smooth, not leave it (I should have been more clear). I finished with a scotch brite before I primed and it was plenty rough. The primer is a Omini and it does not have a reducer, it uses an activator. You are thinking paint, and for that a have medium as my garage is about 70 to 80 deg.

i see, well i was just wondering.. and i wasnt just thinking paint, some primers use a hardener and a reducer, such as epoxy primers. omni isa decent primer.. what did you prep with before laying the primer?

and i would recommend getting an inline filter for your air system... harbor freight sells decent ones! you can just use toilet paper rolls for filers in it also! what air pressure did you spray at? hvlp is a 27-29 max at inlet pressure to the gun.. did you run an inline gauge attached to the gun?

My gun is 45psi and I have a bead filter with an air pressure gauge.

Went to NCS today and picked up a urethane primer and it seems to work much better. Lays down much smoother, plus I can actually sand this one. I have re-sprayed all of the previous stuff and I am almost ready to start to lay color. Tomorrow I will be sanding with a 600 on all of the stuff I sprayed today. Color by the weekend is looking better and better.