I have a 'Cuda hood in, what my non-professional body guy opinion, is in pretty sound condition . It could certainly use some smoothing out, but it would not take a ton of work to get it in paintable shape.

I've been pondering about having it painted and was wondering what some of you would consider a fair price to prime > sand > shoot it? And maybe also just the shoot it part if I attempted the prime > sand stage of it as a little project to get my feet wet in body work. It wouldn't be detrimental if my body work didn't come out perfect, the entire car will get worked over in ~2-3 years...redoing the hood wouldn't be a big deal.



Thanks

Borrow a gun/water trap and do it yourself.........very easy to do.....if you mess up...sand and redo......very easy....

prep, prime, sand, base-clear, cut and buff. $500 easy

I agree with Adam, for a decent job be prepared to spend at the least $500. If you do all prep work, you might be able to find someone to shoot it for couple hundred bucks,but also keep in mind the cost of materials,some colors can get very pricey.

had mine done for $250, required some small finishing work, included the black-out but not the 440 call outs.

yup, it's all time and materials, and materials ain't cheap!

so buy good materials, and do the time yourself.

I dabbled into some paint and body on my Dakota, spent $250 in materials (the intense blue paint was $130 a quart alone, plus primers, little bondo, clear coat, thinners, etc.)

sure, I've got some dirt in the paint because I'm not a pro body shop, and my metal working skills were not quite perfect, but overall, the results came out pretty good, and most people don't even notice the flaws until I point them out to them.

Primer it and start sanding. For small imperfections you can use http://www.eastwood.com/metal-glaze-30oz-pump-bottle.html

that's what I did. so what if the truck didn't turn out "perfect" it's not a show truck, and since it's one of about 15 million Dakota's on the road, it's never going to be "desirable" either.

When guys say "it's all in the prep work" it's true. if you can't get a coat of primer to lay down nice and flat without peeling up from contaminates, or you can see/feel waves, dimples, etc. then keep working on it. you can NOT "fill" imperfections with paint.

If I can do it, anybody can!

Like I said, this is my first real attempt at doing my own paint/body work.

when I bought the truck it did not have fender flares on it, and the passenger fender had some light damage to it. I also had a dent on the low rear corner from a parking lot sign, and then I removed the goofy wing off the bed cover and filled the holes in.

then decided to add some "bling" and color matched the mirrors, handles, upper trim on the cab roof, antenna base, and trimmed out the tail lights in body color.

I used my cheap, 30 gallon HF air compressor runs on 110v, and really not big enough, but I took breaks while spraying to let the compressor catch up, and borrowed my dad's ancient siphon feed paint gun.









(oh yea, and the truck had one of those silly billet fuel cap things that I really didn't care for, so I grabbed a fuel door out of the junk yard and repainted it as well)





and after:









here's some pics after it's all cleaned up and washed. I think these pics are from about 4 months after I did the paint





(note, I also had to paint the fender flares, they came off a silver truck)



And here you can see the color matched trim around the tail lights.




let those pictures motivate you. like I said, I think they came out fairly decent for a first timer, and I've not had any body work classes or training, just from reading stuff on here, and watching "power block TV" on spike and other similar type shows where they show painters doing their work.

Tips: sand it again. block it out again. if you think it's perfect, then do it one more time just to be sure. use guide coats, changing the color of the primer can help to see other imperfections you missed. the color is just that. color. aim for a nice even smooth coverage. clear is for shine. spray it heavier so it flows out, and do a couple of coats, gives you something to work with when it's time to wetsand/buff. my paint above is a metallic paint, so I didn't color sand, I went from sanding primer, wiped it down, shot color, then mixed the clear up so it could "catalyze" while I cleaned the gun, and then shot the clear, waited about 20 minutes and shot the clear again.

let it sit a week, then I wet sanded and buffed, and let it sit till carlisle (about 4 weeks) before I washed/waxed it


Good luck and Have fun! Oh and buy a mask! fumes are no good!

congrats for keeping the flat hood so long, it really looks good. I did the same thing with my Barracuda, couldn't resist putting on the rasin bran hood.

Things I wish I did differently...


on the bed cover, I shot clear right up to the mask line, and felt that I could sand the line away since there was clear on both sides of it, but after lots and lots of sanding in one spot, I stopped, for fear of burning through the clear. If I had it to do again, I would move the mask line up about a foot, and then "fan" up to it so there's a gradual transition. sure, that gradual transition will leave a lot of orange peel in it, but it'll be a lot easier to sand and buff out, since it's really just new clear over original clear at that point.

I wish I painted my grille too. it had some rock chips in it and is nearly as bad as the bumper was, but I didn't notice it as much until after I painted the bumper.

I wish I started with a new bumper. I kept sanding and sanding on the original paint, and could not get a smooth transition, it kept lifting and flaking, so then I tried using filler primer to fill it in and sand it smooth that way, but then the solvents in the primer were reacting with the bare plastic, and kept wrinkling and lifting. I finally gave up and left it "as-is" because I might just end up with an aftermarket bumper in the future anyway.

Keep in mind that certain primers and paint don't get along and can create problems.If you choose to DIY,go to a supply house to buy ALL your paints and pick thier brains alittle.

I am not a bodyman,but I stayed in a holiday inn express once

Thanks for the tips! Very nice work, I certainly have time and it'd probably be a little therapeutic for me to sand on something for a bit in-between exams

Suggestions on preserving the sharp body lines in the hood during sanding? Tape over them? There is absolutely nothing wrong with those lines and would rather not have self-induced waves in them.

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congrats for keeping the flat hood so long, it really looks good. I did the same thing with my Barracuda, couldn't resist putting on the rasin bran hood.

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It's inevitable, for such a loud color the raisin bran thats been in the garage for four years and another couple years before I can really work on the car extensively is starting to eat at me.

Do it yourself...you will be surprised at the results you can get.......$500 to paint a hood? I painted the wagon in this picture..backyard job, base/clear, materials were $450....

perfect...NO.....look good...yes........was it $5000...NO! Spraying was the easy part! And we did NO wetsanding or buffing....

Go buy a matching kit....a quart should do it.........