Hey guys, Need a quick answer here. I searched for about 5 minutes, couldnt find the answer i was looking for, so i'm starting my own thread.

I am going to be painting my car white in the year or so. BUT i'm going to paint the motor bay now, since the motor is already out of the car. The motor is out, and all the wires and lines are tucked or removed out of the way, so the peple can spray it whenever i'm ready. the only thing is, i know when it comes to painting cars about 80% of the money they charge is for prepping the car.

This is why i already got the wires and lines all out of the motor bay. Do it myself so the paintshop dont charge few hundred dollars... Now I guess the only thing left that I can do personally, before i send it to the paintshop, is sand it down. I know this will save some money on the prep-cost to.

so my questions are this......

1. What grit sandpaper would i use to wetsand the motor bay down.

2. Other than removiing the wires and lines, and wetsanding the motor bay, is there anything else i can do to prep the motor bay and keep costs down?

thanks for the help.

 

any help?

 

well i found out how to do it. when your wet sanding car paint should use 320 wet grit at first... than 400 wet grit over it. turns out smooth as hell....

make sure when your sanding down the paint, that you dont sand down to metal. You can sand down to the grey primer, thats fine, but do not go below that. once you have bare metal showing, it has a huge risk of rusting...

I'm going to do a complete write up on how to do this, in the ralliart 04 "how to section" i have taken pictures throughout the entire build. Starting off with a motor bay with wires ALL OVER THE PLACE, to stripping the motor bay clear of everything. to wet sanding, to pre paint clean up, and than in a week after this post, a picture of the painted finished product...

figured nobody helped me, so i'll just do a how to write up so somebody else who needs to do this can do it them self.

painting your car, about 65% of the money goes into prep work. so by me doing all these i'm saving like 300 dollars on the motor bay paint job alone.

 

Ok Joe a quick bit of advice for you you are correct for the most part but degrease the engine bay before you start sanding so that you don't force any oils into minor sanded areas also beaware of the rubber joins (I think there are a couple of joins that have a flexiable silicon seal)
1) degrease engine bay
2) use a prepsol wax and grease remover
3)sand 320 (only if there is a really rough surface) I would sooner use 600 wet and dry don't go any finer than this as you will not give the new paint anything to grip to.
4) again use wax and grease remover (prepsol)

hope that helps.

 

oh yea, i sprayed her down with degreaser. that was the first thing i did after tucking all the wires and crap out the way. thanks for the info, but i guess its to late llol. the car is already at the body shop, dude said i did a real good job prepping it, and took off over 50% of the bill.

I'm gonna do a full write up and pics as soon as the car is back, with a white motor bay.

again thanks for the help, threads been up for weeks, in 2 sections, and your the only one to respond

 

Very nice. Would def be interested in this as I wanna respray my body of my 09 when I convert to the X body and get rid of this garbage Mitsu paint.

 

320 is a little too smooth if they are going to shoot primer on top of that.
The primer needs something to bite onto, and the 180 is perfect.
Next step would be to shoot the primer.
You would then wetsand the primer with 320 for a smooth finish.

Here is what I would have done:

-Degrease
-Degrease
-Degrease
-180 (DRY)
-Degrease

Emphasis on the degreasing as this will affect the overall finish.
The shop doing the painting should be doing the final wax/grease removal prior to paint.

___
Carlos Tirado
Tirado Custom Coatings

 

well as you can tell by this thread, adn another thread i made in an evo section, you can tell i researched before i dove into my car with a sanding block. I did look into it, called up body shops and looked online for a step by step how to.

and the 4 local body shops i called, and a step by step how to i saw on a honda forum, they ALL said sand with 320 at first, than 400 (one shop actually said 440) so if all of them paint/body shops said thats what to use, than thats what i used... and it turned out really good. when i towed the car to the shop to get the work done, he said i did a real good job prepping.

so either or, whether i use the sandpaper i was supposed to do, or the "dry" sand paper you told me to do, i did it right.
thanks for the advice (4 weeks after the fact) lol.. I mean i'm not at all saying what YOU told me was wrong not at all.. i'm just saying the way i was told to do it turned out pretty darn nice... so i guess either or. thanks again for the advice tho.


I'm gonna be posting up pictures as soon as my car is back white (middle of next week)

 

Huh, don't know how I missed this thread the first time around. I would've moved it down to the detailing section where you would've gotten more responses from knowledgeable people.