Paint

Well this has been on the to-do list since the beginning, then when I needed to get the aero mirrors painted it was a case of, well I could get that done for virtually nothing if I get the whole car re-painted at the same time. Its thinking like that which makes 928 ownership such fun !

I have one quote, which if I do all the non-paint prep work and strip the bumpers will set me back about $4K, this guy came recommended from a couple of sources, he does all the Mercedes and BMW's in town. I have another contact to chase down also.

I am pretty sure the car is RubenRot Metallic, I did see a recently repsrayed 928 in this color at Sharktoberfest and it came out really great, although I am thinking his was a little lighter than standard. Will have to do some color chip comparisons.

So first on the list before I do dis-assembly is to have the side mouldings removed and the holes welded, found a local specialist who says he can do it but I will have to wait a couple of weeks as he is finishing a project and then heading down for the Sema show.

Here are a few pic of the mouldings removed, for those who havn't done this before its easy enough but the rear most mounting point on the door is fastened with a bolt .... remove the door seal to remove.

Holes now welded !!

OK, so in the progress of stripping the car down ready for paint, I primed and sealed the welds in the rear, seeing as they are steel figured I should do this ASAP. The rearmost welds on the front fenders are going to be more of a challenge ....

Front and rear bumpers have been removed and are currently at a media blasters having the paint removed, I also removed the hood as I decided to get a bunch more parts (including the hood hinges) plated.

Interesting, the front shot with the digital camera makes the paint look quite good !!

Removing the rear windows proved v easy once I found the knack, push outwards on the window at the rear corner to break any seal, the on the inside fold the seal on the bottom on the other side of the metal lip. You only need to do about 6" and you can push the window out.

While the car is at the paint shop started on some of the smaller items, the lock surrounds always have looked bad so while they were out of the car a perfect time to see if they can be refreshed, virtually all of the original black paint had been worn away. I ordered some SEM trim paint which every one seems to recommend for this type of work, will also use it on the front and rear window trim too based on the results of the locks. Prep work was fairly easy, clean up and rough up the paint surface, 1st try was pretty lame but after sanding down the 2nd turned out much better.

It was v difficult to get good pictures, the flash just reflected too much.

Looking forward to getting the car back from the paint shop v soon, slight color change to Arena Red .....

1/25/05

Went to the body shop with camera today, I gave them a camera to take pictures of progress but thought it would be fun to post some updates. Last time I saw the car all the body was being prepped and sanded, now the car is in final stages of priming. Hood and hatch had just been removed, the hood to aid painting as its loooong, the hatch because prior paint work mean the seam was flaking and they were not happy with just painting over. So now I get the hatch jam painted in new color ... cool. Sure it will cost me but at least they are going about things in the right way.

The bumpers are finally finished, these took a lot of prep, probably more $$ in prep and paint than the part is worth by itself.

These are the photos from the disposable camera I left with the body shop.

Going to be another month or so before completion, they are using my car as a filler when their is no insurance paint work, fine with me.

Just ordered all the parts to put the car back together, ~$1200, hatch seal alone $200, this stuff not for the faint of heart, you'll need a fat wallet if you ever gave someone the complete car and told them to get on with it ....

3/4/05

Well this week they got back to the car and started putting some color on !! I borrowed the camera from work and it took terrible pictures .... but you get the drift .. the driver's side still needed to be polished, it had been sanded with 3000 grit to get rid of the orange peel. Word is I might get the car back next week and the other parts such as sunroof, spoiler, mirrors etc .. later.

I did get q chance to speak to the painter which was neat, so the paint is baked at high temp (forget the value) he said another 15-30 days for the paint to fully cure.

I am also getting the windows tinted, the tinter dude said don't do the door glass out of the car as the chances of scratching it on refit is pretty high, however the rear quarters were OK and are much easier to do out of the vehicle. I think the contrast with the new color is going to look about right.