Rattle Can Paintjob

The Director

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My '88 Fifth Avenue is decent in shape, except for the paint. (I was selling it before, but I decided to keep it, so some of you may have seen it on Craigslist before.)

The hood is the worst, followed by the roof, and then the tops of the front fenders. It's still on the original paint, and 30 years of weathering took its toll. I'm not looking to spend much, and since there's a nice day tomorrow, I'm going to grab some primer, black spray paint, and 2k clear coat, and see what I can do.

It won't look like showroom, but it will definitely look better than before. I'm going to start with the hood, and if I yield decent results, I'll do the same exact process through the other parts of the car. The doors will give me an issue, since I noticed a tad of rust on the bottom corner of the front doors, and I need to do something about that before it becomes a real problem.
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This photo was from a Halloween car show, and you can get a good view of the bad hood.

I'll make updates when this gets done, hopefully with a decent or at least semi decent result.
 

BudW

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The paint on my '86 Fifth Ave was about 95-97% nice when I got the car, over a decade ago. Sun/weather and a lack of waxing the car, is now showing its toll. I have the same problem from the clearcoat coming off the top surfaces and it looks about the same as yours. The sides look decent, though.

I would think that keeping the car waxed would have kept the paint from failing – but 100% sure that is the case.


No matter what kind of paint you use and for what I hear, the biggest thing to a decent job is prep, prep and more prep. Sense paint is not my specialty it might be best to let the pros talk more about this.
BudW
 

Aspen500

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My '96 Dakota has been waxed regularly with top quality products since 1998 when I bought it, probably way more than it really needed, including spray wax between "real" waxings and,,,,,,,the roof is almost white, except where the clear coat is completely missing. Tops of the doors, upper part of the bed sides and the cowl vent panel all were fairly bad also. In other words, even with wax, clear still turns chalky eventually.
 

Oldiron440

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A couple things, first you need to remove what your going to paint over, next spray bomb paint is too thin after three cotes to do any good. The paint will burn back off from the sun.
 

The Director

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Honestly, I don't know if waxing does as much as they say, since I know of a guy that has a Ferrari, and won't wax it. He'll polish it, but won't wax it because the paint can't "breathe." Almost sounds credible, and his paint is still great after all those years (it's an 87 or something like that.)

I did a decent bit of prep work, but my conditions became less than ideal, and since I was trying to get this job done today (no more days for the foreseeable future of decent weather), I kept working in the dark, under a streetlight. It didn't come out horrid, but it wasn't actually good. Whichever way, it accomplishes my task of rust prevention, and it looks better as one solid colour, instead of having those patches.

I'm going to do this again probably in a few weeks, or a few months, when I get some consistently good weather, and I'm going to just start at like 7AM, and do it all the 100% proper way.

The first picture below was the first night that I got it into the garage. The 2nd and third are my pictures of it today. Next time I do this car, I'll be doing it with factory code paint, and I'll get myself a paint gun, and do it the right way. I'll also sand the hell out of it with a sanding machine to. (I sanded this today by hand, not impossible, but gets tiring.) Looks better than before, but not necessarily that great. What do you guys think? (If it looks like trash, don't be afraid to say it.)

GinaInGarage1stNight.jpg
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Oldiron440

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I did paint and bodywork for over forty years and the only thing I use wax for is a release agent when molding fiberglass parts.
I use a petroleum based polish on paint.
 

kkritsilas

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modern paints, or any paints, don't "breathe", they dry. once completely dry, they are dry, no breathing involved. in the process of drying, paint will off gas, which can result in a hazy clear coat if the car is waxed/sealed/coated before paint is completely dry.

one of the things that usually is not considered when clear coat failure happens is that clear coats come in two parts, the clear paint, and hardener (catalyzer required to get the clear coat to harden). If there is too much hardener, it can cause clear coat failure earlier than it would if the perfect amount were used. the factories usually get it right; occasionally, body shops don't.

Another thing to keep in mind is that clear coats are more delicate than many people believe. Clear coat doesn't have any pigments in it (duh), and the pigments actually make the paint more durable. Earlier clear coats (like on our cars) were less able to stand up to UV/Sunlight than more recent clear coats.
 

MotorHoggGears

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Not horrible but you can see the imperfections of the last paint . What I would have done is sand with a 400 grit then sprayed primer like a filler wet/dry with a 600 then spray paint in the black and clear
 

The Director

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Yeah, the last paintjob had all these burns, and then some guy must've had a can of something on the car for a long time, because there was this ring mark on the hood - and that made me so confused.

I initially used 80 grit to get as much as I could off, and then I did 150. After that, I did 220. Then I did the primer. After the primer, I did one more sanding, with 220. Then, I applied 3 gloss coats, and 2 clear coats. (I did 3 or 4 primer coats.... hard to remember at the moment.) I probably shouldn't have used black primer either, since I was painting black, and I couldn't really see exactly how much spray was being put down onto the hood with each pass. That, on top of having a daylight shortage, just lead this to be doomed.

I'll probably do this again one day, but I'll try to get my hands on the correct coded chrysler black, and I'll make sure the whole thing is 100% smooth beforehand. One thing I noticed, was that there is a bit of body line in the middle of the hood, and I don't believe that goes far up, but I was doing my best to sand on each half, instead of going over it much, since I was afraid the sandpaper would take out the shape of the metal, but I don't know if sandpaper actually takes off layers of real metal. I know that I didn't get through every last layer of paint, but it was something going through my mind as I was doing the job.

And if clear coats are less durable, I might consider applying a coat or two more of the stuff next time.
 

BudW

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I’ve heard the clear coat made today is far superior of the clear coats made back then – but might want to hear from someone in that field to get a better answer.
Now, as far as rattle can paint vs. professionally applied paint – there is little comparison.
BudW
 

MotorHoggGears

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That is true the paints of now days are better!! And for rattle can for best performance there's a 2k clear spray Max's that sprays like a gun. Best spray can on the market , but is $20 and some tax a can. Sucks but is the best thing for any car out of a spray can.
 

The Director

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Just curious, where would you try going about to find 2k clear spray? I tried going to all the stores in my area that I know of which sell spray paint, and none had it. But, I'll probably get a real spray gun, and try to do this better if I do it again. I'm even noticing small pieces of rust beginning to form on my fenders, and a tad of surface rust just under my frame, and I need to stop that before it spreads anywhere. Hmmm.... thinking of my options to do it properly, and not some jerry rigged job.
 

MotorHoggGears

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For the rust spot the cheapest way is to get some 80 grit only on the rust spots to prevent from deep scratches everywhere and then spray with some rustoleom rust reformer on it and then sand with 200 to 400 grit then the rest of the process prime, sand, base coat then clear
 

MotorHoggGears

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Just curious, where would you try going about to find 2k clear spray? I tried going to all the stores in my area that I know of which sell spray paint, and none had it. But, I'll probably get a real spray gun, and try to do this better if I do it again. I'm even noticing small pieces of rust beginning to form on my fenders, and a tad of surface rust just under my frame, and I need to stop that before it spreads anywhere. Hmmm.... thinking of my options to do it properly, and not some jerry rigged job.
 

Ele115

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One of the fallacies I keep seeing is that the paint (and clearcoat now) is so much better. The bad news is, it is NOT. Not unless you pay an exorbitant price for the top stuff. Over the last few decades the EPA has required that the deadly stuff, like isocyanates and some members of the cyanide family be left out of these chemicals. Mainly they resided in the hardeners/activators and that is when they entered your body. You had a mask and suit on when you were painting, but you didn't when you were mixing paint and refilling your gun. When you took the lid off the hardner and poured it you got a big old whiff of the deadly stuff. How many times a week? 50? This stuff is what made a paint job stay together and last. It's also what killed people and gave them cancer, it led to a lot of widows filing lawsuits. It HAD to go, for obvious reasons, but they CAN still make good chemicals..... but it's a LOT more expensive than it was so many just don't. They figure you won't keep the car that long. The Paint companies leave other important things out to save money and pad their sheet. They cut corners with their binders and resins. They use crappy synthetic pigments. Do you ever notice how muddy and blah the colours look these days? The pigments. They use crushed plastic, ink(!), charcoal etc. If you want a paint job that will hold up you will pay. And the prep is crucial. Mixing stuff by eye like Chemical Ali and guessing will lead to de-lam and any number of other problems. Anyone can go downtown and buy the stuff that's "on sale" and sand and spray. What the car looks like in 5 years is what matters. I see 3 year old cars with the clear burnt off. DAILY. That used to be considered an outrage. Now most companies won't even cover it under warranty, the customer gets pissed and trades it in. These are factory paint jobs on $55,000 cars. It's how it is now. The old enamel paint and the early BC/CC coatings would last 20 years if you took care of them.
 

MotorHoggGears

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You are completely right. Just like back in the day laquer paint job came out spectacular from factory with a cut and buff
 

Mikes5thAve

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If it is just the clearcoat that is bad you might be able to get away with sanding it off and re-shooting it.
If it's black you can try tremclad or rustoleum on the door rust. I've done that for years with white cars. Especially on these cars when there's rust on the door bottoms unless it started because something scratched thru the paint it's rusting from the inside and it'll come back. Easier to sand it off and cover it with glossy paint then go thru they joys of body work only to see it reappear again.
 
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