OK, I am not usualy someone to just post what the hell I have done, but it's 1:30 in the morning and I just spend 12 hours painting my Z.

I was supposed to have the car painted today in my garage by a pro painter from the body shop my best friend works at, but he was busy with shop stuff and said he couldn't get it done today or tomorrow. (this is the second weekend in a row he has done this to me )

So, since the car needs to come together soon so I can finally move from my current house and to that of me and my fiance I said "What the hell" and decided to paint it myself.

Now I am not a new-bie in the paintig relm, but I am not far from it. I just took my time and had some nice help from my best friend and it turned out not that bad. In fact I am damn impressed with myself. The car just needs the clearcoat wetsanded and then it will look stupid nice, not a #1 show car or trailor queen, but great to me.

Ok, it's late and I need to get some sleep. Wait, it's daylight savings and since it's almost 2am (which will be come 3am) I REALLY need to get to sleep :lick:

I will have more photos to post later tomorrow or monday and much more once i put the hood, hatch, doors, airdam, spoiler and other parts on and then polish them all.

Well whenever you wake up and read this You will know that i think it looks cool. But you need more pics

Way to go Gregg, Bills right get it wet sanded and post some more pics

Way to go Gregg, Bills right get it wet sanded and post some more pics

I will be wetsanding it tonight, so pics to come soon enough. The clearcoat is still needing some time to dry fully before I can get to it. The clear coat didn't go on as smooth as I would have liked. so I am going to have to spend some nice time wetsanding it smooth. I just couldn't get the paint gun to spray it just right. That is why I am not a pro and wanted someone with experince to do it. But then agian EVERYTHING done on the restoration of the car so far has been myself (with the exception of mechanical work on the clutch and fuel injectors).

Some pics of the car during the painting, more of the complete job to come.

PS: Has anyone else noticed that putting on a new paint color is like takeing off a hot girls painties ... you just can't wait to see what's going to be there

The photos:

02 - The rig I made for painting the larger loose parts

03 - The car with it's primer coats. 4 coats of Epoxy to REALLY protect it

04 - My best friend Tyler, 11 hours of work for some Pizza, Beer, cola and a handshake

05 - The car before all the painting with it masked off. The roof has some BAD waves in it that I hade to use about one and half cans of body filler after pushing up the low spots and banging down the high spots.

Yeah, better get on that wetsanding. I can see some orange peel in the first picture.

If your clearcoat finish is rough, you might want to try hitting it again with more clearcoat. To get the smoothest finish, you should lay the clearcoat on pretty wet so it has a chance to self-level.

If your clearcoat finish is rough, you might want to try hitting it again with more clearcoat. To get the smoothest finish, you should lay the clearcoat on pretty wet so it has a chance to self-level.

I ended up sanding down the clear coat (I put it on wrong :stupid:) So I had the pro painter come out and lay down two quick base coats and a boat load of clear (just under 3 quarts)

As promised, some photos of the results: Some more to come once everything is put back on the car and the clear is sanded smooth and buffed.

I can't wait to get to that point. I'm sure I'll be sending you plenty of questions...Nice job.

PS: Has anyone else noticed that putting on a new paint color is like takeing off a hot girls painties ... you just can't wait to see what's going to be there

I don't really have a response or anything constructive to add

I just could'nt wait to use that quote.

Ok, I finally got around to pulling the photos off my digital camera.

The photos I took are with the car not fully together, but show the paint pretty well. There are some spots that aren't perfect, but that is ok, as the paint has already been chipped in a some spots from putting the car back together. It's going to be a daily driver, so the paint won't stay perfect. Anyways, I have enough left over that I can repaint it in two years after I have enjoyed it and had some chips and scratches. Plus I don't have to take off all the body panels either the next time!

The paint color is Black Metallic from the special edition 78 model. I really like it and am very glad I went with it. you can see the small dents and dings, but it's not nearly as bad as people said it would be. I also went with a painting the grill (not installed), the horns, and the back tailight covers (installed and visiable in the second photo) in while. I really like how this gives the car something extra and doesn't make the rear end blend all together had I left it matte black as it was stock.

Looking good! I painted my Z in the garage much like you did. The pics showing the plastic sheeting in your garage brings back memories...

I found that the actual painting went pretty well and pretty quick. I spent about 80% of the time sanding everything in preparation for the paint, followed by all the wetsanding afterwards. I got a nice, smooth shiny orange car for my efforts!

nice job!

it looks great imho