Poor Man's $50 Paint Job

peckinpah · 09-06-2009, 04:19 PM

I did one of these on my '91 PU, and while it was a lot of work and took a lot of patience, am happy with the the final result, and especially the price. I had a ton of oxidation on the bed of my truck and so really had no choice but to do something about it. I'm glad I took the cheap route.

I used rollers on my paint job, while this guy in the link below used brushes. He's got a video showing his brushing technique.

http://www.stylusscustoms.com/poormanspaintjob.html

And here is his end result:

Here is a link to a thread on the Mopar board:

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/...fpart=1&v c=1

Here is the Mopar guy's finished result:

It's a very long thread, but you should get all the pertinent info in the first few pages. The basic idea is to sand down the factory clearcoat, do and any body work you need to do, then wash the car and wipe it down with mineral spirits. Sand off any rust that forms on bare metal areas. Remove door handles and any rubber parts you can before sanding.

Then thin your paint out about 50-50 mineral spirits to paint, and lay down a coat, let it dry to the touch and lay down a second coat. Don't let it drip. Then wait for the paint to completely dry (may take several days) wet sand perfectly smooth with 600 grit wet /dry paper and wipe down with mineral spirits. Lay down two more coats, allow to dry completely and wet sand smooth with 800 and wipe down with mineral spirits. Two more coats, let dry completely and wet sand with 1000 wipe with mineral spirits. Then let paint completely cure for several weeks ( you can drive it around if you want) and buff with Turtle Wax polishing compound and an electric buffer and then wax.

I actually did about 10 coats on my truck, because the paint was not laying down smoothly and I had to do a lot of wet sanding, which resulted in me sanding off much more paint to get a smooth surface than I would have otherwise. Also, I was going from a metallic blue to white, and so the factory paint kept showing through. Also, I stupidly allowed the paint to drip while laying down early coats, and these drips were very difficult to smooth out and I wound up sanding off the paint around the drips all the way down to the factory coat. DO NOT ALLOW DRIPS, you'll be very sorry if you do.

I would suggest avoiding very dark colors too, since any imperfections like drips will be very easy to see. I used white, and have many rough spots, but white seems to be pretty forgiving in that regard.

But I think for a Toyota truck, this method is more than adequate, but be prepared to spend a lot of hours and plan on not to be able to drive the truck for at least a week, unless you want to take off the masking tape and reapply it again.

I like the fact that I can easily do touch ups now with paint right off the shelf. And I have some rough areas I may ultimately sand down and repaint, which I may do later if I feel the inclination.

I think I was way too much of a perfectionist with this method and in hindsight, I probably should have gotten my 6-8 initial coats down with full coverage, taken the masking off and reassembled everything, and then did my touch up later on, rather than holding up the whole project trying to fix problem areas. Also, I would have taken the door handles off and maybe even removed the windshields. That would have prevented a lot of grief.

I still gotta finish cleaning up the truck before I can post any pictures though. And I think I spent more than $50 on mine, closer to $100 mostly because of all the sandpaper I went through (that stuff is expensive).

***Jayota*** · 09-07-2009, 12:56 AM

Im going to do the same thing, hopfally next year!

Lets see some pictures!

hobbleknee · 09-07-2009, 02:11 AM

This is brilliant! I'd like to see some close-ups too.

peckinpah · 09-07-2009, 01:11 PM

Here is how my truck turned out:

I'm not really trying to impress anyone (obviously) I'm more just letting people know the process works, and ends up looking substantially better than a $300 cheapo paint job, or a rattle can touch up, which I have seen plenty of since I started paying more attention to other people's paint jobs. I mean let's face it, for a $3000 truck it's more than adequate.

I think if you know what you're doing, and are patient, the sky's the limit on how good the results could be. I made a few mistakes along the way (you will too) like using primer and not sanding it perfectly smooth, and so as a result I have places where you can see where I've sanded through to my primer coat, which is slightly darker. I would advise against using any primer at all, I don't think it's needed with this paint. However you will need to sand off your factory clearcoat and have a nice, roughed up, stable surface for the paint to stick properly.

Also, I should have taken off my door handles and rubber window seals. Leaving the grill on was not a problem since it was easy to mask off with tape and newspaper, and I also left the bumper on and simply lowered it out of the way.

I also allowed way too many drips, which are a nightmare to try to sand out. No matter how much you sand, it seems like drips never seem go away completely. So if you get any while painting, don't be an idiot like i was and tell yourself, "Oh, I'll just sand those down after the paint dries." Very bad idea.

That said, I was very impressed at shiny this paint gets when you buff it out with a buffing wheel. And now that it's all waxed up, it's a joy to wash, considering how bad my old paint was looking. And it's also very nice to be rid of every scratch I've been staring at for the past 15 years. I even bondo'ed out a few parking lot dents, which was fun and hardly any work at all.

So all in all, I'm satisfied with the end result, but I did put over 100 hours into this thing so be prepared to spend some time. Of course, now that i know what I'm doing I could do the same job in probably 20-30 hours with better results, but live and learn.

I also had some problems with the paint not going on as smooth as it should have:

I was able to sand down most of the rough spots, but it did create a lot of extra work for me, and i never did figure out the exact reason why it was happening. None of the other people I talked to had this problem, so I think it's a fairly rare phenomenon.

peckinpah · 09-17-2009, 11:13 AM

Another Rustoleum success story:

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/...part=69& vc=1

Ajones1165 · 09-17-2009, 02:23 PM

This still amazes me haha. awesome info

yuriy · 09-17-2009, 02:42 PM

Nice info.

***Jayota*** · 09-18-2009, 01:33 AM

Gotta love it! I can't wait to do mine.

I plan on using interlux brightside boat paint though

peckinpah · 09-18-2009, 08:07 AM

Where do you buy this Brightside paint anyway? I know Rustoleum is sold pretty much anywhere that sells paint, but I have not seem Brightside paint anywhere.

Hopefully their color selection is better than Rustoleum, because Rusto only has maybe 7-8 basic colors to choose from in gloss, though some people mix up their own custom color. I might try this when I paint my car, but I'm gonna be sure to mix up an entire gallon all at once. Even though my truck took less than 3 quarts, I'd hate to run out of a custom color and have to try to re-match it.

From reading the thread, I know Rustoleum is sold under other names in various countries. It's called Tremclad in Canada, and I believe it's sold in the UK too, but I don't know what they call it there. A lot of people have apparently had very good results with the Brightside paint. You know it's gotta be tough if it's designed for use on boats floating around in salt water.

Ajones1165 · 09-18-2009, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peckinpah

A lot of people have apparently had very good results with the Brightside paint. You know it's gotta be tough if it's designed for use on boats floating around in salt water.

Exactly^^^