Painting my Ford Fairmont EBII 92 - Ford Forums - Mustang Forum, Ford Trucks, Ford Focus and Ford Cars

La ChroniK · 04-01-2005, 16:40

Hey guys, within a month or two me and my uncle will be respraying my car black. The current colour is light brown, so it will a significant change.

Just wondering if you guys could give us some tips and advice on the process. Got the air compressor, spray guns, sand paper etc all the tools and things- but need to know about where to get paint, and get good paints, and roughly how much paint will be needed for 2-3 coats and touch ups. We will be going with acrylic not 2-pac. So any advice on paints and where to get them will be much appreciated, i am in Sydney by the way.

73falcongt · 04-02-2005, 07:18

La Chronik your about to find out how cheap you can spray your car for. Reason I'm saying this is that considering your not going some fancy or metallic black, pure black or jet black along with white is the cheapest acrylic paint you can buy. I can pick it up for 50 bucks, thats motorspray by the way, for 4 litres which is plenty for an EB, you can go putting 5, 6 coats no problem, depending whether your doing under bonnet, engine bay, boot and inside doors and whatnot. K&H also sell a 'flat or matt black' in 4 litres thats around $40 bucks I think, but you won't get a high gloss finish. Use a block when sanding as often as the situation allows. Are you going baremetal or not? If your keeping the car for a good while you should, otherwise don't worry. If you don't know much about painting a car don't worry you'll learn. Another thing, black is probably the worst colour you can paint in for a first job in my opinion because it's the most reflective and even the slightest mistakes or inconsistencies will show. As far as buying paint goes all I can say is shop around, you'll be really surprised what prices can be beaten buy other paint shops. I thought I ALWAYS had the cheapest paints at my paint shop but one day another paint shop proved me wrong.

Good luck with the job. It'll turn out great.

La ChroniK · 04-02-2005, 15:11

Oh ok cool thanx man.

I wanna keep the car for a while, but me and my uncle are not going back to bare metal. Just rubbing it back so we can get some grip. I really have thought about black and i think it will look really good. DO you have any other colour suggestions, i really like black but i know there could be some other nice colours, like candy apple maybe. But im not sure aye. What shops actually stock automotive paints, like can you go anywhere, or like are they specialised shops/industry. For example could i go to supercheap auto, autobarn, stuff like that??? Is metallic blackthe real shiny one, coz i think that's what we want, or at least a black with very high gloss.

We will be doing inside doors and all that, as well as under bonnet and most of engine bay. How many coats do you recommend. If you could do me a favour and write down a list of things we will need that would be awesome. Just so we dont forget anything. That would be much appreciated falcongt.

73falcongt · 04-05-2005, 03:53

Personally my favourite colours are really bright ones, yellow, orange, red. But black suits some cars a lot better than others, plus black is glossy as all hell, like looking into a mirror. Metallic black isn't necessarily shinier, just looks different, for the highest gloss finish just a nice base colour black will be best maybe used with some clear to get some extra shine.

You don't really need much stuff mate, mostly your hands. You'll need rough to fine grade sandpaper and ummm, the correct tools for what your doing, for example panelbeatin hammers, bog and spray putty is needed if your doing repairs. Bottom line is you want to get a smooth and uniform surface before you apply the undercoat, if you can do that your laughing. As for how many coats you need it depends. Some people are happy with just 3 or 4. If I was to do a car, assuming the job was going to be reasonably well I'd put basically as many coats as I could, be it 8 or 9. The reason I would do this is not necessarily because it will look better, at least I don't think, but to give you more room so to speak for doing other stuff without exposing the undercoat. Basically after you've sprayed it you'll do what I call detailing the paint, thats wet sanding it and buffing it to the flattest motherf$cking surface you can get, then it'll be like looking into a mirror. As I said before though, the glossier, the easier it is to see stuffups, I'm talking about even the slighest imperfections in the panel.

Don't buy paint at super cheap auto. Same goes for other stuff to, you may find some stuff at the same price or cheaper than other places but for generally paint stuff's too expensive at super cheap. Jet black goes for about 90 bucks at Super cheap I think. Stuffs too expensive. Autobarn I find is more competitive, they can do ya some pretty good prices. In my opinion, best places to visit are specialised paint shops, and especially automotive paint shops. Auto One stores sometimes specialise in different areas, for example the one in preston also known as rare spares specialises in sometimes hard to find parts from GT's and holdens and so on. The one in glenroy specialises in paint and they do good prices. Just shop around.