Shine on

We painted the Cobra yesterday. After quite a bit of work in fixing the body, it was finally time to lay down some color. Paul started by spraying a full coat of urethane sealer. That was followed by several coat of white base coat. That was followed by 2 coats high solids PPG clear. As you can see, it turned out pretty good. We spent today sanding and prepping the bumpers and a few other parts that will get painted tomorrow. Once all these parts are sprayed, we will start the reassembly process probably first of the week.

Its clear

This is a close up look at our head light restoration process. As you can see the head light in the Suzuki is looking pretty bad. First thing we do is remove the light. Next we sand the light to remove all of the old yellow dead plastic. Once the sanding is complete, we make sure all the edges are sanded by using a scuff pad and a cleaner on the light. When its dry, we set it up in the booth and prep it for paint. We mask off the areas that dont get painted to do a neat and clean job. We have a special process we perform with proper materials to ensure the clear coat sticks to the plastic.  Once that step is complete, we use high quality clear coat on the lights to bring the clear look back. Once the clear is dry, we reinstall the lights into the car. This is the best method I have seen to restore these plastic lights. There are other methods that work, but they must be performed several times a year to stay on top of it. Once this process is done, you can expect years and years of service out of them.

Etching the Mustang

The Mustang has under gone some transformations today. We had to strip all the paint off the door and quarter because of a previous repair that failed. So to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, we properly treated the metal with an etching primer followed by a urethane primer. The etching primer bites into the metal and the urethane primer bites to the etching primer. The urethane primer offers us a nice sandable finish to apply our sealers and paints that will come next week. While we were priming, Paul also sprayed some primer on the repaired dented areas as well. Tomorrow we plan on sanding this one and getting it washed up and ready for paint.

Head light restoration that works

  A little head light restoration today. The lights on this Camry have seen better days. We started by removing the lights and prepping them. This involves sanding off all of the yellow caused by the sun. The yellow is actually the plastic rotting from the UV rays from the sun. We must remove all of that to make sure we get a great repair. We then use special products to make a chemical bond between the plastic and the clear coat. Once they have been cleared and dry, they are ready to go back into the car. As you can see, the difference is clear. This makes a major improvement in night driving. I have seen lights so bad, they won’t pass inspection. So after you have tried all the home remedies like tooth paste, bug spray and cooking spray, bring your car to us so we can do it properly with lasting results.

Primed cab

Here are the finished pictures from yesterdays post on priming the cab. Once this sets up for a few days, we will start blocking it out to ensure super smooth and flat panels then a final prime. Then we will be ready for paint.

Make over Sally

The Mustang is moving along. Today Paul finished stripping off the bad paint thats on the left quarter and left door. He also fixed a few dents and sanded the body all over. Tomorrow we will have to remove the side scoops and quarter sail panel covers. Once that is all done, we will put it in the booth to get some quality primer on the bare metal parts. We will take the necessary steps to ensure that this does not happen with our repair. A few more days with this kind of progress and Sally will be back on the streets again, but looking a whole lot younger.

Uh oh

This Cobra is in the shop to get a fresh new paint job. Unfortunately, the left quarter, left door and rear bumper  have been repaired before. As you can see the quality of work is bad. For some reason, who ever repaired it, stripped the paint off of the panels. Im not sure why this was done because the paint on the rest of the car is in great shape. Also, this wouldnt have been a problem had they taken the proper steps on priming the bare metal before they painted it. So this means we will have to remove all of the paint on these panels to ensure a quality job. Here you can see that most of the paint was scrapped off with a razor scraper and the paint on the bumper came off with a blower. Most of the car is disassembled now and the paint is off of these panels completely now. We will continue to work on this one as the week goes on and hopefully get it back white next week.

’52 Cabbie

For the past few days, we have been working on the cab to the ’52 Ford. We have the body work pretty well wrapped up. Here you can see we slid it into the booth for primer. We masked off the dash, we will use a different primer on that area later this week. Once this primer is set up and dried, we will block it out and re-prime the whole cab with our finishing primer. Once that happens, the next step is more RED paint.

14 carat gold

The Lexus has had its day in the booth and the results are fantastic. Once the areas that needed repair were primed in and sanded, the entire car was washed before entering the booth. We masked off the areas that did not get painted, then Paul went to work laying down a few coats of color followed by 2 coats of clear. Tomorrow we will put the bumpers in and Paul will get those painted while Chris and I reassemble the rest of the car. Once the bumpers are dry, they will be installed and back to the owner just in time for the weekend.

Cadi’s done

Here is the finished product on the Cadillac we painted last week. The owner picked up yesterday and was very happy with her new paint job. She should get many more years of service out of this beauty and do it in style.