Hi guys, I got here from sccoa.com, I am president of Super Coupe Club of Ontario and my ride needs paint job badly. I was quoted over 3000 for one, but hard to dish so much money out.
I was very excited to find this thread and followed it for a long time. But before painting my car, I decided to start with the trailer first. Not your average trailer thought) It's a minime Thunderbird SC!
I had a hard time looking for the real orange paint, (red and yellow have been discontinued two years ago). Finally found two gallons in one of the Canadian Tires. By the time, I was in expert in Tremclad, was telling those guys where to look, how to mix and so on. Funny.
I spent about a week doing body work on the trailer, sending and getting all the equipment.
Today I finally sprayed primer and first coat goes on tomorrow!

Here's how it started:


one month after cutting, measuring and welding:


here's where I am now at:

O.k. I need advice. Ran into a problem. I had a lot of runs spraying Tremclad. Does it meat I put too much paint? Should I mix it more? Or move faster? Or increase air pressure (currently 2.0 bar)??
Tomorrow I am going to sand all those runs flat and spray another coat.
Thanks

this may be the most interesting project on here!

Thanks bro. Appreciate the compliments. Any idea what am I doing wrong to cause runs in the paint?

I think it depends on how thick the runs are. If theres a bunch of tiny runs then your paint is to thinned, but if theres only a few big globs then your probably holding the spray gun to close for to long. Hope this helps

Thanks for the advice. I got it figured out today, you were right, I thinned it too much.
oh, well, just more work)))

hope to see some pics of it soon

Well. I've done two coats so far, tomorrow going to wet send with 600 and maybe will shoot few pictures. Then another coat. Should be done painting this week end.

Hi Martin, glad to see that you are still around) Since you and I are in Toronto, do you think we can meet up for a few minutes. I am dying to see your car and got few questions to ask you. Let me know please!

Made some progress over last few days, but weather wasn't cooperation, other wise I would be done by now. I am really glad I started with the trailer not my car))) Made few silly mistakes that took me some time and foul language to fix. I am painting with the roller one of the panels that will go on top as a roof. Apparently it comes out nicer with the roller. Maybe because rolling is a second nature for me, been painting for about three years, one of the duties of my job

Well, tomorrow I am going to wetsand it and apply last coat and let it sit few days before I do any polishing and waxing.

P.S. I really wish I did better job prepping the car before paint. But I was getting tired and frustrated. Maybe some time later I will find time to fix all the imperfections.

I litteraly spent a year getting all of the body work exactly perfect on my car, its no fun at all and definetly the most tedious thing I've ever had to do, but I learned a lot and all of it came out fantastic.

thank you, compliments were really the fuel that kept me going

So what are people adding for hardners to rustolum to make it not so soft and harden up more. Also what's a good amount to ruduce to be able to spray it out with a gun?

a couple of pictures courtasy of a friend of mine, high quality to!

Beautiful job. Can't even tell it's rusto. Body work turned out really nice, just get that interior put together! Also, does that top thing compromise the structural integrity of the car? Just curious as I've seen the tops of cars become distorted when the frame shifts and I'd hate to think of what would happen if the top couldn't absorb any torque.

thank you!

and as far as I can tell the thick meaty aluminum frame has acctualy made the roof stronger, these cars acctualy came with fold back sunroofs at one time stock. Since I had many dents in the roof that I didn't feel like fixing I thought this was an appropriate option

Indeed, a soft top would make that alot easier. Dents in the roof are a pain to get right. I just know that my convertible has underbody and pillar reinforcements in case I roll or flex and it wouldn't pass inspection otherwise, I was just curious to see if cutting a large section out of the roof would compromise the structural integrity, although with a bug it's so compact I doubt it matters and if it came stock it must be a-okay!

What size of polisher everyone's using? I am thinking of buying a 8" Random Orbit Polisher from Simoniz...is it too big?

your best bet would be the Porter Cable Plolisher from Harbor freight, that seems to have given the best results with everyone here