Question... my father has a Nissan Sentra from the 90s that has the paint peeling problem. It's not down to metal so it may be able to be restored with some heavy polishing, but if not... I saw cheap Duplicolor Clearcoat Laquer "ready to spray" at Pep Boys. Would this be compatible with OEM paint if I rolled it on to bring back a shine?

yes Silver they came with VW styled engines in them <in fact if you look at an 80's rabbit and an 80's omni they are almost identical>.

As for the paint fading is it fading or is the clear they used peeling much like it does on the early 90 ford car's/truck? if it's the second one you be better off sanding it down and just repainting it as the clear will keep peeling off and take any new stuff you put on it. not too sure if its faded if you can buff it out though never really dealt with that personally. I figure if you have the time and/or an extra car try your hand at rolling it too see it looks better.

as for my lil project it might be awhile before I can get to it....money is always the one bad spot, but trying to find an omni/horizon without tons of rust is bad in this area now.

I believe it's the clear peeling... thanks for the info.

Well this is paint job on a budget. I know that this is been heavily geared toward rustoleum/tremclad/brightside. I have seen some posts where someone has sprayed the rustoleum through an HVLP gun. I was convinced that I would be rolling the Rustoleum regal red, but I have been farting around re-aligning doors fenders and I still have to get the hood right before I do any sort of painting. Oh I forgot, I also have to make the roof look like it wasn't tap danced on.

I was getting some sanding supplies for the Mustang at a local pep boys, when I saw the Dupli-color paint shop product. Ready to mix Lacquer stuff that Tett mentioned a couple of posts prior. I know all the "pros" are dogging it which is kind of the reason why I'm considering it.

Does anyone have any thoughts on it. I know Lacquer is a short lived shine, but hey some of the nicest muscle cars that I have seen at car shows about 10 or so years back were painted with Lacquer. I'm going to garage it most of the time anyway. Is this something anyone out there has tried. I easily have a week if not longer before I start putting on any sort of paint.

Feel free to throw in your 2 cents.

First I would just like to thank everyone who put the time into this thread. Before I read this a few months ago I was just going to spray bomb my car flat black!

Background: I have owned this car for nearly four years now. The previous owner had cheaply resprayed over the factory paint. Over years of sitting outside in the sun the paint began to peel off and scatches became more severe. It looked terrible! I had some free time and needed to repaint the car on a poor college student budget.

My steps and method I used:
Prepping:
*Sanded entire car with 120 grit sandpaper with random orbital sander, long block sander, and by hand until car was even to the touch. On extremely bad areas i used 50 grit sand paper, then used 120 grit to even it out.
*Next used Bondo fix a rust bubble and any obvious dents. Sprayed the dried Bondo with 3 coats of Rustoleum Automotive spray primer.
*I did a basic job of masking off lights, door handles, trim, and glass instead of removing them.
*Washed entire car with dishsoap and water. Once completely dry, wiped car down with tack cloth.

Painting:
*Thinned Rustoleum Professional Smoke Gray to just slightly thicker than water using 100% Mineral Spirits (not the odorless kind).
*Sprayed car lightly using Black and Decker Pro paint sprayer and wiggly thing attachment. (1st coat was extremely light and careful to avoid and dripping. In a few instances there was slight dripping which could be lightly smudged out, once paint leveled it was nearly unnoticeable.)
*After a night of drying, I wetsanded the car using 400 grit sand paper to remove any orange peel.
*Applied a second coat of paint using same method.
*Let dry another night, wetsanded using 600 grit sand paper to smooth remaining orange peel.
*Applied a third coat of paint extremely thin and fine.
*Another night of drying, then carefully wetsanded the car using 1500 grit sand paper, then 2000 grit sand paper.

After the final wetsanding, I polished the car using Turtle Wax polishing compound and a cheap orbital buffer.

Results were 1000% better than the car looked before. There is some areas where light orange peel is still noticeable and you can tell we messed up in the painting process. But overall I am extremely satisfied with the outcome!

Total Cost: Around 200 dollars (after many trips to the Ace I stopped keeping count of small expenses) including everything mentioned except the Black and Decker paint sprayer, which I got for free in a promotion.

My initial plan was to roller the car, but after I got the sprayer i decided to experiment a little after doing some reading here and on the Honda forum.






After one week the paint is hard and survived a 200 mile road trip with no unobservable issues or flaws. The paint still has a slight paint smell if you put your nose to it, but I suspect that will go away as the paint continues to harden.

Once again, big thanks to those who pioneered the way and gave me the confidence to do this crazy scheme in my driveway!

oh and sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes, its late lol

Edit* I had planned to show pictures from various stages of the project, but until i re-gain my old knowledge of BB code one finished picture is all i got:

I just re-read the article in hot rod about this process. Has anyone rollered fiberglass?I have a fiberglass hood with a 3 inch cowl I'd like to try.

Just thought I'd post a pic of my 79 MGB I just finished rolling. Six or seven coats of Canvas White Rustoleum. [image]http://st73.startlogic.com/~pokerisb/pics.html[/image]

For the benefit of everyone...

I happened by Stephen Hull's site and posed an inquiry into whether the U.S. had coach paint or something similar. He replied that he had never worked with any, but he provided a link to something that looked similar, even though he couldn't vouch for it. I just offer this as information... I used Rustoleum on my test piece and it worked fine. So I don't suppose we need any new paints, per se, but I would be interested in a good self-leveling paint with long open time just to make it easier and smoother so the wet-sanding goes more smoothly. Here's the link...

http://www.californiapaints.com/products/rustinhibit/lametal.asp

i demand more pics....

also i plan on starting my test job this weekend to see if i can get this done... does anyone know if it would be ok to use a electric paint sprayer (used for paiting walls and such) to apply the paint? thanks everyone for all the help

Electric roller, not even necessary. Follow the process as is, time tested and proven to work. No sense trying to re-invent the wheel.

question when mixing the mineral spirits do i mix in paint can or pour both into a seperate container and mix...

also around how many rollers do i need? 1 per coat so they dont dry out or what?

thanks again... i plan on using ace rust stop safety orange (i think its the same as rustoleum) for my job on the cav. gonna do it one panel at a time, first im going to do the front bumper and rear first (cause its a new body kit so why not) then the side skirts... followed by the body. i might have to paint outside and i live on a gravel driveway (not a good thing) so i might get my friends dads garage.

anything else i need to know... i just bought the 10 pack of shurline rollers 4" on ebay. and am planning on getting the paint sometime this week.

i got some body work to do before i paint the body though... bondo to fill the dents i guess. and sand the whole body down with 320....

sound good?

like a lot of others i have read most of this whole saga. I am here from a jeep site, i am a jeep guy.

my question, I need to be able to drive my jeep while in the process of this paint job. I can stop for a day or 2, but not long enough to do the whole thing start to finish. is that possible?

what would it take different doing it this way?
thanks for the help
catfish

You can roll and drive at the same time with a few minor considerations. Any saftey related trim that you remove, like side mirrors will make it tough to drive.

I did my car over a 3 month period of on and off painting and I found that what I learned during the first two or three coats, I'd forgotten during the time that lapsed between them and coat 4.

Other than these issues I don't see why you couldn't drive it and paint it at the same time.