Classic/Antique Car Repair: What to do, what to do, different types of paint, car enthusiasts

Question
WOW!

The blue car looks awesome!!!!

I'm hoping mine can look like that.

Is color sanding difficult? I'll admit it: I'm a complete novice to this stuff, but I'm willing to put in the hard work if I can get results like that!

Are there websites that can instruct me?

Any info is appreciated.

Am looking at the Imperial pictures now...

Thanks again!
Mark

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Followup To
Question -
Hi, Mr. Benjamin.

I see u burn the midnoght oil like me.

Thanks for the insight. I do not plan to make a profit; I want to enjoy the car and keep it. I looked at the value merely for biggest bang for my buck.

In retrospect, I've always wanted a Chevelle, so I guess I already had made up my mind...lol.  I just didn't know if a 4-door Chevelle wasn't looked upon as good by car enthusiasts, but for me, with two small kids, it makes sense.

Any ideas as to where I could go to see different types of paint jobs for Chevelles? The one I'm looking at is a steel blue in color, with black vinyl interior. It has no rust, so it truly is a remarkable (and affordable) car. I'd like to see how I could play around iwth the color scheme a bit.

Thanks, as always.


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Followup To
Question -
Hi, again, Mr. Benjamin.
I'm teh guy lookin' at a 1968 4-door Chevelle.
You assisted me with an old gas question.

Anywho..am also attracted to old Buick Riverias..like a 1963 witha 401. Looks nice and somewhat bigger than the Chevelle.

Here' smy question: According to NADA, the worth of the Riveria is substantially more than the Chevelle.

If you were going to decide on which car to get, providing they are the same money, would you go iwth teh Chevelle 4-door that has 33K original miles, and needs almost nothing, or the 1963 Riveria that needs some fixing up but in the end is worth almost 3x the Chevelle?

Just an opinion question, before I make a decision.

Any other insight would be helpful as well.

Thanks!
Mark
Answer -
This is a personal decision, I can't help you with that.  One caution, though: I notice that you are thinking about the monetary value of the car; in my opinion, that is not the way to think about an old car purchase.

If you think you are going to buy an old car, enjoy it for a while, and then make a profit on it, you are in for a big surprise.  This is a hobby, an expensive one at that.   You will never buy an old car and sell it at a profit after driving it for a while, if you keep careful track of the money you put into it.

You need to decide whether you want to enjoy the luxury of a high content heavy car, which will be expensive to repair, maintain and operate, but might bring you some feeling of well being to drive, or whether you'd rather have a more common car which will give you many miles of satisfaction for much less cost, but give you less ego gratification.   Low mileage cars are always at a premium, because they have not been messed up by people taking short cuts in trying to keep them going as things wear out.

Good luck, which every you decide.

Dick
Answer -
I happen to be color blind, so I'm the last person you want to ask about color combinations.

I always advise keeping a car original, because that's what I think most car hobby members would rather see.  In fact, unless your car has visible rust showing or some body damage that must be attended to, I think your first action should be to have the car color sanded and buffed - even though you may think or have been told by a pro that the paint is "dead" and will not clean up, my experience is that a really sad looking car will look 1000% better with a color sand and buff job.  

Steel blue is one of the worst colors in that respect, they look terrible when the paint has been neglected.

I bought a car for my wife that is a light metallic blue that had been outside in our Southern California desert sun for almost 20 years, and had whitish haze over the top facing surfaces that made it look absolutely awful.  There was absolutely no gloss anywhere on the car, and the surface felt like sandpaper!  I didn't bother to ask anyone, but I know a paint shop would have told me it was useless to try; I color sanded and buffed that car and it came back to nearly brand new looking, and since it has been kept waxed and covered since, it still looks that good, 5 years later.  

If you want to see the blue car after the color sand and buff, take a look at:

http://users.sdccu.net/dickb/blue%2081%20rf.jpg

and

http://users.sdccu.net/dickb/blue%2081%20rr.jpg

Unfortunately, I didn't keep any pictures of it before my the clean-up, but I assure you it looked terrible!



Showing up at a local "cruise" with an original car with original paint and interior, especially one with only 30,000 miles, is going to make you a celebrity in the local car hobby group!

Another factor is, changing the color of a car is a much more involved thing to do than you probably realize.  Most take short cuts, of course, but to make it look right, you have to totally disassemble the car to get the new color into ALL the places that the factory original paint was, to make it look right. This means under the hood, under the trunk lid, inside the doors, under the carpets, the dashboard and on and on.  

I have just finished doing another car, changing it from white to black, and I took the car completely apart, removed the total interior, all the glass, every fender, hood, trunk lid, dashboard, engine etc. to do it right.  This is a car that had to be painted anyway due to rust problems around the vinyl top and some bad scrapes along the passenger side.  This was also a 30,000 mile plus car, about the same age and mileage as yours, as a coincidence.

If you'd like to look at this job to see what is involved in doing it right, go to:

http://www.imperialclub.com/Yr/1967/DickBsRefurb/index.htm

This saga isn't over yet, but you can see how the paint work came out if you scroll all the way to the bottom.

Dick.  

Answer
I don't know of a web site that would give you instructions, but the process is quite simple.  Get some "wet or dry" type sandpaper from an auto paint supply house, they will know what you need.  I'd use 1200 or 1500 grit, this will be black in color and very, very fine.  

Wash the car first, to get all the dirt off it. To wash a car use cold water and a plain turkish towel.  You don't need any soap, just plain water.  If it offends you to wash without suds, get some car wash soap;  don't EVER use household detergent or soap, it is much too harsh!  Then dry it thoroughly to prevent water spotting.

Then, get a pail of cool water, dip the paper into the water, and just go over the whole car painted surfaces (being careful to not touch the glass or chrome.  Don't rub hard, and don't stay in one place too long, else you might burn through the paint.  Keep the paper wet - you'll get a sticky residue on the paper, you need to keep rinsing it off to keep it cutting.   You'll also need to keep dipping a turkish towel in the bucket of water to rinse off the loose oxidized paint you have removed.  You'll see the color come back to new looking quite quickly. Be careful to stop immediately if you begin to see an undercoat showing through.  Do the whole car this way, then take it to a detailing shop and have them buff it out using a machine adn rubbing compound.  Tell them the paint is thin, so they will be careful not to burn through the paint.

To clean up the chrome plated parts, use grade 0000 steel wool and water - this will not scratch, and will remove all the crud and rust spots from the chrome.  Be sure you are using it only on chrome plated metal parts - stainless steel and chrome plated plastic parts can't take this treatment - you'll need plain polish for those parts.  I use "Mother's" metal polish for stainless steel trim, aluminum etc.  Mother's also works well to take accumulated crud off glass.

You can buff the paint out yourself after you color sand it, but you need training, practice and experience to do this without damaging the paint, and very good equipment.  Since I assume you don't have these resouces or time, so let the pros do it for you.

On the other hand, if you are a glutton for punishment and have a lot of stamina, you can buff it out yourself by hand, but it is HARD work!  Use a hand compound such as DRX-25 (from the auto paint supply house again) if you do it by hand - and again, don't rub too hard or long in one place.

After the car is buffed, it needs a coat of wax - I use old fashioned Simonize paste wax, but that is just personal choice.  This step is also a lot of work if you use paste wax.   Zymol makes a good liquid wax, and it is easy to use.  Most auto parts stores carry it.

Some tips on cleaning the car: use toweling to wash and rinse the car; to polish the car use old cloth diapers or tee shirts - good absorbent cotton cloth. Make sure your cloth has not been washed or dried using "fabric softener", this ruins it for polishing or washing purposes.

Once you have done this one time, you'll be in much demand from your friends wanting the same thing done to their cars - you've got yourself a weekend business!

One caution:  This process is only useful on older cars that do not have a "clear coat" on the paint.  It is safe to assume that any car built before about 1980 is not going to have "clear coat" unless it has been repainted since then.  If you were to color sand a car with clear coat, you'd very likely go through the "clear", and the car would lose it's gloss until it is re-cleared.  The modern clear coat paints are a new process where the color on the car is provided by a base coat, which generally has little or no gloss to its surface, then the car is coated with a clear overcoat to provide the gloss.  Older cars had a gloss without the clear coat, that is what you are going back to with the color sanding process.

Have fun!

Dick