After I unmasked the passenger side and put the doors back on I turned to the inside of the hood and trunk. Since they were already graphite grey and fairly close to the color I'm using I probably could have gotten away with leaving them but my A.D.D. just wouldn't let me. I didn't like that when the hood or trunk was open you would be able to see a color contrast with the rest of the car.

I scuffed up the inside and boy was it a lot of boring work. There are so many contours and crevices due to the design and construction of everything. It was a major PITA to get all the shiny spots gone. But you know what they say...painting is 90% prep.

Here's the parts after paint.






Use this lever if you are taken hostage and need to escape from your own trunk! lol



Next up is the exterior!

 

I admire the patience. Nice work. Color looks good too.

 

very nice man

 

Hey Collin,
I know you have some awesome threads on here yourself and some very very nice fab work going on. If I get bit by the horsepower bug at some point I may just have to enlist in your services! Thanks for following!

 

Well, I finally got around to painting the exterior. Having never done this before, I was nervous! I encountered a few issues along the way, hey it wouldn't be a learning experience if I didn't, right?

After the first base coat I realized drops of my own sweat had hit the driver front and rear doors and caused the ensuing paint to bubble. Arg! I let the first coat dry for a while and carefully wet sanded with 1000 grit to get the offending spots out. Then I degreased and dried the areas for paint. Fixed and all is well.

Very beginning of 2nd coat of clear...gun starts spraying funny and clogging. No!! I had to stop and spend almost an hour completely disassembling the gun and cleaning every part of it. Problem fixed, spraying normally again but hood has more orange peel than the rest of the car due to the erratic spraying pattern. I'll have to fix this during the cut and buff in the future.

Aside from those issues my nerves gave way to jumping in and laying the paint down. My gf was extremely right when she said I should get step stool to for a better angle on the roof. I was sure glad that I made the stop at Home Depot and picked one up.

One final thing is that the green paint you see in the pictures was aerosol etching primer. After spraying it on a few areas of bare metal I learned that I should have never done that. Another lesson learned, I wet sanded the aerosol away and instead laid down my 2k primer and then wet sanded it smooth. So...much...time.

Here are some pics, enjoy.

Masked up, before I had to replace the green primer with 2k primer






After base coat




This is seriously how foggy things get after a full coat of clear. I was really glad i purchased a new respirator before doing this but I found myself wishing I had a full face shield. Since I took a break to clean my gun before the last 2 coats of clear I forgot to put the hood of my paint suit back up so in short I clear coated my hair. It's a little stiff but the good news is that it's only a buff away from a brilliant shine!



After clear coat

 

Holy **** dude you run a body shop in your garage! Lol. This is inspirational work. I admire the time and patience you put in. Car looks gorgeous already.

 

wow this is starting to look amazing.

that was really foggy ! haha

 

Thanks for the feedback guys, it's much appreciated.

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! I recently prepped and painted all the small stuff that was taken off the car - mirrors, door handles, wing ends, fuel door, and vortex generator.

The mirrors actually have quite a few pieces to them. I completely disassembled them so I could paint just the outer shells. To completely remove the inner assembly from the shell you have to de-pin the wires from the connector so you can pull the mirror wiring through.

Here's one all taken apart




I removed all the old adhesive foam stripping from the underside of the vortex generator before painting. The less fiddling with it after shiny new paint, the better. I found that the dremel tool worked well for this.




Here's some of the bits scuffed and ready for paint. In dull black it looks like they came off of Batman's car, lol.




Shiny!






Here's part of the attention to detail I was talking about. I fixed the door handles in the fully pulled position for painting so even the inner parts would be painted.




Here's another detailed tip - since the paint doesn't spray very directly to the backside of the handle the finish comes out a bit rougher, so after they were on the car I wet sanded the back of the handles and gave them a hand buff with a microfiber towel. Now they feel nice and smooth when you open the door.




Door handles and fuel door back on




Prepping the vortex generator with new adhesive stripping




And installed




New adhesive stripping installed in the ends of the wing




Wing installed




The many grille pieces for the hood and front bumper ready for a new coat of black paint




And a big part of learning how to paint is learning how to fix your mistakes because there will be some. I got a run in the passenger mirror shell which I decided to fix after I mounted the mirror back on the car.

Before




After taking the run down with a razor blade and then wet sanding with 1000, 1500, and finally 2000 grit




After a quick polish, no signs of the run, and there's less orange peel than before. This is similar to the process I will use on the whole car when cutting and buffing later on.




Next up is prepping and painting the side skirts and bumpers, and then putting everything back together.

 

wow, how much is everything costing for you? materials and equipment?

this is so cool

 

I love the documentation of everything! The color is beatuiful. It's like a mixture of GG and AS that comes on our cars. Keep it up.

 

Looks great!

 

Awesome work!

 

Thanks! I haven't totaled up my stack of receipts just yet, but if I had to guess I think the paint and materials are a little over a grand and another grand on tools and equipment. Depends on how I calculate some of it. I bought a nice air compressor, for example, to support the painting but I can use it for so many other things. So I really consider that as just a general tool cost, not a direct cost for this work. The paint gun, on the other hand, is a direct cost.

I'm guessing if I paid a professional to do everything I'm doing it probably would have been $5k, so I'm definitely saving some money. The time commitment is huge though...I probably have over 100 hours into it!

 

You're right - the color is in between GG and AS, just the look I was going for. I will get some nice pictures once the car is all back together and out of the garage.

 

The painting is complete! I'm SO glad to have all that work behind me. Overall I'm pleased with the way it turned out, especially considering it's my first attempt at doing this and also that I did everything without the use of a real paint booth.

When I find some time in the next few weeks I hope to hit the whole car with a light cut and buff to flatten out the orange peel a little bit, though it's really pretty good as is. There's many differing opinions out there about how long to wait after painting to apply wax but I'm going to follow the most conservative ones and apply after 3 months. Since the cold months are upon us it will also take more time for the finish to fully harden so extra time probably won't hurt.

Also in the near future I'll be installing my springs and new wheels, as well as my turbo back exhaust system. Onto the pics!

Bumpers and skirts painted








More trim bits installed like the hood vent and wipers and cowl






Reinstalling the side skirts with new adhesive stripping






More attention to detail - foam strip installed on back of license plates to minimize rectangular shaped wear marks on the paint over time