I noticed a few postings recently regarding painting a car. Something I have never done, but thought I might like to try. Well I still haven't painted a car, just 1/4 of a car. A few weeks back, some youg lady in a Range Rover ran into, actually over, the back of my daughter's Saturn. Luckily no one was injured, however my daughter was able to drive away from the scene and the Rover had to be towed. Repair included replacement of the trunk lid and hinges, left quarter panel and tailight, and rework of the bumper cover. All the parts cost about $125 at U-wrench-it. By the way, the Insurance Co. totaled the car.

On a recommendation from one of my co-workers, I called a local Sherwin Williams store and I can't tell you how helpfull they were. They have a great web site that deserves a visit even if you choose another paint system. They recommended that I use a three part urethane paint and I can say it worked quite well. Three parts = paint, reducer and hardener. This stuff is expensive. The paint was about $20 for a quart and I had one of the least expensive colors, black. The reducer was about $7 per quart. The hardener is the expensive stuff. $30+ for a pint. I only needed a little, but this is the smallest container. The mix ratio for the system I used is 8:4:1. So one pint is enough to mix 1 gallon of paint.

Tip number one: Get a good spray gun. High Volume Low Pressure, HVLP seems to be the recommendation of most books and aticles I read. I purchassed the DeVilbiss Finish Line 3 based on many articles on the web, and I can say that I believe it to be a good choice for the amature. I purchased it from Sherwin Williams for about $125. It can be had a little cheaper on-line. Note, any spray gun will use quite a bit of air, so you will need a compressor large enough. I have a sears 30 gallon, 5 Hp whatever that means. It kept up, but just barely. By the way, fully open the paint realy comes out quickly. More than I expected, but my only prior experience spraying paint was with rattlecans. You should also have a paint gun stand with the upper ring to hold the paint filter above the cup while you pour the paint. $7.00 at Harbor Freight.

Tip number two: Don't even think you can paint without a respirator. For less than $20 I purchased a respirator that is supposed to last for 30 hours. I also bought a tyvec jump suit. While it isn't absolutely necessary, it did come in handy. Nytrile gloves are recommended for use with the urethane paint also. Wish I had purchased some ear plugs with that noisy compressor running almost non-stop.

Tip number three: Clean, clean, clean. I painted the panels off the car, set up on saw horses and such. I moved everything out of the garage that I thought was in the way. I swept the floor and used an air gun to blow out all residual dust that I could. Then I hosed out the whole garage. I left the floor wet to keep dust down, but as the painting progressed, it dried and now I am not sure what to do about the overspray, maybe it will come up. I sprayed the first coat with the garage door fully closed. Big Mistake. There was nowhere for the fumes to go. After this 'discovery', I opened the door about 15" and placed a small fan at floor level blowing out. Boy am I glad it wasn't a windy day.

Tip number four: Have plenty of light. I failed on this one and there is one edge on the bumper cover I need to repaint because the paint is too thin.

Tip number five: Don't take off your rubber gloves near a freshly painted surface. I didn't realize how much my hands had perspired while wearing the rubber gloves for about 1 1/2 hours. Anyway, when I removed the first glove, some perspiration splashed on one surface and as a result, there are a couple of voids in the paint. Live and learn. You get to learn from my mistake.

Did it turn out perfect? No but very satisfactory. In addition to the faults I noted above, I got a couple of sags, but they are small so maybe they will sand out. I'll see tomorrow evening or Sunday morning. The paint must dry to completion before sanding and this takes about 24 hours. If you wait too long, it gets very hard to sand and rub out with polishing compound. I also experienced a small amount of orange peel here and there, but not too bad, and I am waiting to see what polishing does for this. I feel pretty good considering this was my first effort.

Final summation. It was worth the effort and for about what I would have paid Maaco for this paint job, I now have the equipment for future efforts like repairing a couple of dings in the '89 760T. (Had to get some Volvo content in here.)

If I were painting a whole car, I would want a second person to help manage the hose and ligting. With a job that big, you might need someone to keep up with mixing the paint as you go. Don't know, maybe the pros mix it all up before stating.

I should have mentioned first that it is a good idea to read as much as you can before starting. I think that minor bodywork and painting is a skill that many of us can add to our bag of tricks for keeping the old bricks and such on the road.

Dan