Triumph Repair: Car painting

Question
Hi I have just done some body repairs on my spitfire and as the paintwork is faded I wanted to know if I could wet flat over the whole body and spray a light topcoat straight on the old paint. The car had a complete respray 15 years ago using 2 PK . Can I respray on top of old paint using 2 PK without having to use a primer first?  I have got all the safety spraying equipment, like air fed mask and proper ventilation.
Kind regards
Peter

Answer
Hi Peter,

I am not a painter and found out that being a mechanic does not qualify someone as a paint and body man. I found this by trying to do body work on my own show car (MGB-GT). I can do the metal work ok but I found that paint and body work is a skill that most mechanics don't have.

Over the years I did learn that original paint on the MG's and Triumph's was enamel and some colors faded faster then others. Like red faded in just a few years.

At most every dealership I worked at we didn't have a paint and body shop so we sublet all that kind of work to body shops even warranty work on paint.

I have seen some nice work of painting over an existing paint but talking to the body shops they always have to know what kind of paint is on the car to determine if they can paint over a paint. The best here now is to strip off all the paint and start from scratch with a primer, base coat and clear coat. But that is more expensive to do.

It depends on what you want to do with the car. If it is just a so called "Driver" subject to weather and traffic a good body shop can just paint over the existing paint and get a good finish. But if it is a really nice car and kept in a garage and only driven at time and is a show car or close to being a show car it would be better to go for a "Down to the metal paint job".

If you choose to just paint over the existing paint be sure they know how to "sand and prep" the surface to paint over the existing paint. If the car has ever had Silicone based wax put on the paint that is very difficult to get out of the paint and we often had to strip and sand down to metal to get it out.

Howard