How did you strip the paint off your car?

[jackboxxx]

John;

First question again as always is why are you stripping the paint? How much time and money are you looking at putting into this project. What are you building? A driver, a show car someplace in the middle. Is the car solid, what kind of rust repair needs to be done. Is the paint on it now sound, checked, or cracked?

Stripping the paint off is not always the best answer. If you remove it by using a DA sander you can see where the little damaged spots are that will need further attention later. Another plus is you get some of the lows to fill as you sand the paint off. You then can either leave the solid paint seal it and paint over it or continue to remove the rest of the paint after noting the lows and highs.

By the way the paint on mine had all the above listed conditions some place on it. Oh yeah i am just building a daily driver.

you are correct, stripping is not always the answer...true a lot of older cars we work on need a portion of the vehicle stripped, (being in CA.) we mostly see roofs, hoods, fender tops, and trunks needing this from sun and smog damage. usually the sides of the car can be taken care of with a DA sander.

[EScanlon]

Lance:

Excellent! 1 minute after I posted, you did.

Blue Leaf; I hope you understand that you're getting advice from not only the professional end (JackBoxx) but also from those of us hobbyists who have been painting cars for over 20 years.

The old "rule of thumb" that states that you must strip a car to metal for a really ~good~ paint job is probably more than 50 years old as I only recall a painter referencing it when cars were repaired with LEAD instead of bondo.

But again, that's just MY 2¢

E

[BD240Z]

Per the picture below, I used stripper on the left side and a razor blade on the right. The orange paint will come right off with either method but the underlying layers seem much more solid. The original factory paint was removed at some point in the past so I don't know what's underneath the orange.

In reading the above threads it seems I can save myself some time by not going down to bare metal on the whole car. Some spots I won't have a choice though.

Since I'm going to skim-coat a good 90% of the car, can I just remove the orange paint, block sand the surface, apply a sealer and then begin my bodywork? Do I even need to apply a sealer? Can I apply a sealer/primer after I complete the bodywork?

Thanks in advance for the expert advice!

[theianmonster]

You can do the primer after the body work, exactly what I did.

[EScanlon]

BD280Z:

Your main intent in removing the previous paint job should be, IMO, to SMOOTH the body surfaces to .... as close to perfect as possible.

To that end, I would recommend you use a D/A Sander using at least 180 or even 80 grit paper to remove the bulk of the paint. This may seem (and is) escessively coarse to Jackboxx and others, but this way you will have removed the bulk of the paint on the car.

This presumes that the current paint on the car is ... SHOT.... and needs to be removed at least to the primer base / metal.

What amount of paint you leave behind will be because of imperfections in the metal that need to be filled in order to produce that blemish free "mirror" surface that a beautiful paint job requires. That you're using the "old" paint is really not important...AS LONG AS IT'S STILL ADHERING PROPERLY. If it isn't, then you DO need to remove it.

Afterwards, since you are not completely sure of the composition of the various coats, I would heartily endorse the use of a Sealer coat. It's purpose is to seal/encapsulate the previous finishes from your final coat so that they don't interact unfavorably....that is checks, crazing, lifting, fish-eye etc.

You could use Epoxy Primer as a Base or a Sealer, and it would be an excellent idea in case you sand down to bare metal, but if you only use it for the metal you expose then definitely use Sealer over the whole car. The intent is to have a uniform base over the whole car to ensure uniformity in the paint color, sheen, etc.

Between a Sealer and a Sealer/Primer and Epoxy...well this is where you'll find variations based on opinion.

Personally, I prefer Epoxy over any bare metal, then your body work (although body work THEN epoxy used to be the "rule of thumb"), followed by one or more coats of Primer (or even High-Fill Primer), sanded down to perfect smoothness, THEN coated with Sealer and followed by your Paint Color and Clear (although single stage paints can produce beautiful results WITHOUT clear). Different paints may require different preparatory bases, as well as colors of primer or sealer or base paint.

But that's why paint jobs are a true ART, even when they're just a "plain" paint job.

JMO

Enrique

[beandip]

I would like to bring up a point that was touched on . Bondo/body filler. When you are sanding/preping the car with a DA , and you come across body filler . If you are confident that it was applied properly , just continue on . However if there is ANY question in your mind as to the condition of the panel. Or if the filler may have been used to fill a HOLE/HOLES drilled through the metal to pull out a dent. Take the filler off and see what you have under it. Body filler will wick moisture in from the back of the panel and will allow rust to start and continue under it on the front side. Holes must be either Braised , leaded, welded or soldered , to seal them . Then the filler can be applied over a roughened surface that allows the filler a grip on the metal. Do not sand the bare metal smooth before filler/bondo. That lessens the ability for it to adhere to the metal . When we worked on my Z preping it for paint , I found a thick layer of bondo on the rear valance . I had removed the tank so I looked up under the valance . It looked like spaghetti sticking out of the metal . All total there were about 30 small holes drilled in the panel . Who ever did this then pushed the bondo through to fill the holes and finished the panel. I found rust all along the line of holes , every one and about 3'' wide , after I DA'd the bondo off.

[shamus11]

I'm half way thru stripping mine, some parts of it have at least 10 layers of paint/primer that I can count! Every color under the sun... twice!

I'd love to know what my car has seen in it's day. I reckon at one stage it was in a painters shed and must have been used as the thing to set the spray patern on the paint gun with.

So far better than expected underneath it all. Problem is I'm using about 5-6 applications of paint stripper on the thick places to get it down to metal.

[ilikemyz]

I am in the process right now, and was thinking of media blasting, but, now I like bean dips point that if you are sanding, you can save alot of work by not taking the whole car down to bare metal, just where you need to, plus I don’t have a sandblaster, I will use a stripper on my hood, so the hood is nice and smooth, I have patchy surface rust on the hood, and doors. I was using a palm sander with a 4 inch square sheet, and it is working great, not too fast, nor too slow, like when I was sanding by hand

[JimmyZ]

Here's a link which might help.

http://warbuddies.homestead.com/RestoHelp.html

Jim

[e_racer1999]

i haven't stripped my car yet, but i think i might try DMSO.... heard it actually works pretty good.

[troubledz]

Hey John,

You will get a high quality finish with out stripping the car to bare metal. Seems like alot of work to do if it does not need to be done, a good prep (sanding and blocking) job on the old paint will give you a really good finish.

Thats the way I have done my cars in the past!

just my 2 cents