Sleeper MX83 build

[BoristheCat 0]

Yep, that's what I did. Shot high build onto doors, hood etc and blocked all of them. Now all surfaces are ready for 050 black sealer. 

 

I've heard prep is incredibly important at this stage. De-greasing, tack clothing, dust removal etc is critical to make a perfect paint job. 

 

I've come this far, not gonna start cutting corners this late in the game

[BoristheCat 0]

Update: If you like autobody and paint, you likely:

Have masochistic tendencies

Enjoy sniffing various volatile fumes for recreational purposes 

Are fucked in the head 

 

 

I'll admit it. I should have bought a shitty 240 or beat up honda hatch for a project car.

I think I'm finally part of the brotherhood. I hate my fucking car.

I no longer enjoy working on it and I've never even driven it since I removed the 7M.

 

Updates to follow

[battleaxe 0]

Keep in mind, you can only do so much.

If using a tack cloth, get it kinda "dirty" first. The first few swipes of a tack clotch always have some kinda residue to it. Can use a microfiber too to grab all the bits. U pretty much can't fuck up until clear. 

 

Base coat just needs good coverage in terms of how many coats.  Put your light all over the base to make sure you got good coverage. If it feels kinda rough after last coat that's likely overspray that settled on top. Once it's flashed off and dry to the touch, you can test an area for a tack cloth of microfiber. If it's not dry enough if will streak.

Clear is medium coat first, and adjust for second coat. Some ppl do a tack coat, so super light, can have an issue not melting as good into the second coat. Read the instructions for the paint manufacturer for flash off times to apply second coat.  When ppl say x coats of clear, that's not an accurate measurements of thickness cause every coat is different in thickness. U can take a paint measure stick if u want to accurately measure but no one will ever care. It's only relevant when wet sanding the clear or cut polishing.

[Gibbs 0]

if doing it in your garage make sure you check your humidity level. i live here in texas where the humidity is bad and painted mine in the garage and got some bad orange peel spots

[battleaxe 0]

23 hours ago, Gibbs said:

if doing it in your garage make sure you check your humidity level. i live here in texas where the humidity is bad and painted mine in the garage and got some bad orange peel spots

Humidity doesn't cause orange peel. Orange peel comes from a variety of sources. Your gun, gun setup, the paint itself and how it flows, speed at which you spray, spraying too light, too far away. Humidity would cause paint defects due to airborne water in the air.

[LUMBERZACK 0]

I saw your comment about hanging your doors from the frames... Don't do that. With the door laying down, spray the inside first, then clear and let cure, then flip over and repeat. The edges will melt together so don't worry about creating a clear "shell". You get WAYYY glassier results on any part you can lay down since the clear is less likely to run. Doors especially are best to take advantage of laying horizontally. everyone loves to see doors with deep glass reflection.

$1000 for base is pretty typical for a quality base with a bit of metallic. That's what I paid for my Champagne.

Great progress so far. Can't wait for the final product, but don't rush it man. Just breathe. I know it's a lot of grueling and tedious work, but do it once, do it right because cutting a corner now will live forever in your paint and you'll be pissed every time, beating yourself up "why did I cut that corner". Just find serenity man. You got this.

[Gibbs 0]

On 8/17/2020 at 12:43 PM, battleaxe said:

Humidity doesn't cause orange peel. Orange peel comes from a variety of sources. Your gun, gun setup, the paint itself and how it flows, speed at which you spray, spraying too light, too far away. Humidity would cause paint defects due to airborne water in the air.

ahh ok im just a shit and need to step my game up then haha

[BoristheCat 0]

Fuck this car. I give up.

After fucking up my sealer the first time, it turned out to be an o-ring inside the gun that I forgot to put back after I cleaned it.  I didn't have enough pressure at the tip due to it leaking out from just ahead of the trigger. It ended up looking like barbecue texture when it landed on the panels. It was rough as shit when I ran my hand over it after it dried.

 

Spent another 30 hours blocking all the sealer back down to where it was before, so there wasn't any rough texture in it.

Finally shot the sealer again today and it's filled with dust.  There's some tiger striping here and there, it has orange peel in it, and it looks like fucking shit.

 

I've done everything right. I wet the garage floor.  Had a fan in, and a fan out.  Got all the dust off of everything.  Degreased everything. Tack ragged everything. Got my mix ratios right.

Now I get to spend another 30 some fucking hours scuffing and blocking every surface for the second time so that the basecoat will adhere to it.

Then the base will likely have dust in it, and so will the clear I'm sure. So what the fuck do I do?  Every step is going to come out looking like fucking ass.

 

Fuck autobody and paint.  I have spent probably 300 hours in bodywork and paint, just to have everything keep going to shit. 

I just want to throw this car out. I fucking hate it. Four years and I haven't even driven it. Over 40k into it now. I want my garage and my life back

[battleaxe 0]

take this time to figure out your gun. your fan, fluid control etc. the dust in a lot of cases will wipe off with a tac rag. spraying base is about consistency so max that fan out and play with the volume. every gun and area is different for gun pressure. should be 15-25psi. 25psi is on the high end.  if its blowing shit back at you, turn it down.

 

take a step back and realize this isnt your day job and theres a reason why paint and body is so expensive. its why i tell ppl to do it last after they drive and enjoy the car, but thats not here nor there. once you realize everything sucks but a coat of paint that one colour will make you happy at the end of the day. i guarantee that coat of base will rejuvenate you. also remember you can spray the base and clear again after all of this if it doesnt turn out great and you can pay someone some day if you want it mint.  focus on one step at a time and take a deep breath now and then.

 

once its one colour you'll be happy to drive it around at least and then worry about perfection later. you'll learn a lot, no matter how much you kick and scream.

[LUMBERZACK 0]

@battleaxe This 100%. 

Yes, seeing that first shot of base will totally reignite the motivation, I promise.

If you’re getting bad results, just focus on spraying sealer on one part that is quick and easy to fix until your settings are solid. For instance, a door. Don’t practice on the most complex canvas with all those curves.

Also when you said 30psi, I immediately thought your pressure is too high. Especially with something as diluted as sealer. Try 20psi.

You’ll get it. 

[BoristheCat 0]

I'm still here.  I don't know how or why, but here I am.

Chris had a good point that I mulled over for quite a while.  I'd probably never forgive myself if I didn't finish this car. 

I've kept super busy with all my vehicles over the past year. Might as well do a life/vehicle update before I get to the good stuff

Here's a few mundane things I did before the paint pic dump

 

Painted the calipers

 

Pressure washed the seatbelts. Huge difference.  No longer greasy and dirty

 

Pulled seatbelt clip assembly things out of a 90's corolla.  I had to replace the annoying auto seatbelts with an alternative.  There's a little bit of a funky gap where the tracks used to be, but it's not too noticeable.  My mom did the stitching on the stock cress seatbelt fabric through the clip-in piece. Should be safe enough.

 

In the meantime, I bought a scabby but clean titled 07 corolla with some fixable body damage with 100k on it for 500 bucks. 

I was able to get more practice painting despite the fact that I still don't really enjoy doing so

Detailed it inside and out, pulled a hood and bumper from the junkyard and replaced the headlights and bob's your uncle. All said and done, I was $1400 into it in total before I sold it for $3700.  Not bad for a weekend or two worth of work

 

I also repainted and tuned my 03 R6.  Again, more paint practice.  All went well except for the clear.  Thankfully the guy who cut and buffed it did a great job saving it. Dyno'd somewhere around 130 crank. More hp than my truck lol

 

Also bought a 1942 Harley.  It's mostly restored.  Needs a little bit of TLC before its rideable.  It has a 3 speed with a suicide shifter. I might never ride it to be honest, I'd be too scared to dump it.  You'd have to have pretty large testicles to ride this thing on the street.  All the controls are reversed. Still glad I own it though.  Got a killer deal on it and couldn't say no

 

Finally tracked down a 97+ front bumper for the Lexus.  Took forever to find.  I knew that putting brand new paint on a 30 year old vehicle wouldn't match for shit, but I did it anyway.  I eventually plan to repaint the whole car at some point, so fuck it

Before:

 

After:

 

 

Also, pics are ginormous again.  No idea how to size them down.  Imgur is always adjusting and reformatting their editing and controls, so the big pics are here until I find out how to reformat them, if I do that at all

[BoristheCat 0]

My autobody/painter buddy agreed to help me paint the car.  He has a wealth of knowledge that was invaluable. No more stumbling around in the dark when I have a friend who can help me through the process.  His life has been busy and chaotic over the past year or two, but he still found the time to help me.  I owe him big time.

 

We made a pretty dope booth setup.  Four drywall dust poles for the corner, plus a goofy saran wrap window that I could film through

 

We set up two fans for the intake and two for exhaust.  We discovered that having positive pressure in the booth is the best setup.  Having negative pressure in the booth sucked dust in, so throughout all our spray sessions, we had the intake fans set on medium or high and the exhaust fans set on low.

Most parts ended up with very minimal dust and dirt nibs.  Usually only one or two on the large parts like doors and bumpers.

 

I'm too lazy to upload every spray sesh to YouTube, so here's our first shoot

 

However, the hood and fenders kept getting tons of dust on them, which was frustrating.  A coworker who used to work in a hot rod shop suggested getting an old appliance cord and using it to ground the panels.  I dead-ended the positive and neutral wires.  I then put two lugs on the end of the ground wire.  When the panels were being wiped down with cleaner and degreaser right before paint, static electricity would build up on them which would attract dust like flies on shit.

I would plug in the ground right after he finished wiping the panels down, and what a massive difference it made.  Only one nib in the hood and one or two in the fenders.  I highly recommend using a ground to anyone who decides to paint stuff using a home setup.

 

In no particular order, here's pics of some of the parts.  We freshened up the trim paint on the bumpers as well.  There were a few shoots that were a bust, namely due to either too many dirt nibs or sags/runs in the clear.  We did have to rework a few things and it took some trial and error, but we got everything dialed in and every panel painted

 

Here they are in all their glory.  The parts on the ground were given an opportunity to cure on the stands over several months in a 90 degree room before being set on the ground

 

The color combo is absolutely wild.  I feel like Japanese cars of this era played it pretty safe when it came to interior and exterior color combinations.  I didn't know if dark blue on dark red would work, but I fucking love it.  In my opinion, having such an aggressive contrasting color combo was a bit of a risk, but I'm very happy with it.  I totally understand if my color choices aren't for everyone, but I don't care.  It makes me happy

 

I reassembled the mirrors and the doors and put them all back together.  Trying to remember how to do so after years of them being apart was a challenge, but I did it.  Door locks, mirrors, lights and handles all work.

 

I bought four car dollies to move the car around in the garage.  They should be here within the next week or so.  On the to do list is finishing the rear arches to a point that I'm happy with them.  I considered buying some metal fender flares for the rear, but a few knowledgeable people recommended against them. They said that putting really round arches on a squareish car would likely mess with the body lines too much, which I agree with.  They said welding flares on the rear would pretty much make reworking the rear doors unavoidable, which I really am not interested in doing anyway. A little more bondo work and primer and the chassis should be ready to shoot

[LUMBERZACK 0]

Hell yeah dude! Glad you found the inspiration to get through this part. Imo quality paint and body is more involved, stressful, and character testing than any other aspect of car modification.

[BoristheCat 0]

I completely agree Zack. Even though I'm very slowly getting better at it, I still don't really enjoy it. I almost feel like I have to do it because paying someone is such an expensive alternative. 

For somebody who hates autobody and paint, I've sure been painting a lot of shit lately lol. I end up buying cars and bikes that require a little bit of work mechanically but need a bunch of bodywork. Oh well. I've made it work so far

[Gibbs 0]

i also just painted mine midnight blue pearl lol

[BoristheCat 0]

Sick. The boys in blue

[tuner4life 0]

Dude! You are really putting in work! All this paint work is looking nice! Glad you found the motivation to keep going.

[BoristheCat 0]

Thank you man. I appreciate it. Life hasn't been easy for me over the past year or two. I'm kinda surprised that I've been able to hang in there and keep chipping away at this car.

 

In an exciting new development, I'm bagging the SC on a fancy accuair system. Gonna start ordering parts on Thursday hopefully. 

 

My car hobby never fails to keep me in a cycle of frustration and an empty wallet. At the end of the day though, I'm always happy with the results, so I'm gonna keep grinding at it. Sick old Toyotas or die