Painting my car myself!!!!!

Bob, I really hate to discourage you from doing this but I'm sure you see my point. I think trying to weld a new lower quarter skin in the door that is so thin would be a project in itself without totally distorting the door and ending up with a quarter inch of filler on it to make up for that distortion. Most paint systems today need three ingredients to work and different mix ratios. (single stage paint) = paint+ reducer+ hardener (mix 2-1-1/2) same with the sealers,(mix 4-1-1/2) mix ratios are for dupont and are probably wrong but you get the idea, now add in metal prep, seam sealer, grease and wax remover, thinner to clean the gun, resperator (mandatory! the new paints are bad news) tack cloth etc. you end up with alot of materials purchased to do a small job. I own a QV. also and dupont shows our cars were painted with basecoat/clearcoat, so to match true factory finish you would need base color and base reducer(mix2-1) and a high solids clearcoat = clear+reducer+ hardener(mix 4-1-1) add to this that almost none of the reducers or hardeners are interchangable and you have a mountain of materials,not to mention body filler,80,120,220,440 grit sandpapers,high build primer, activator and reducer,two different grits of polishing componds, polishing bonnets, masking tape,paper,etc etc. Its alot of investment to just your time to end up doing twice if things go south. Again, hate to discourage you, but to do it right this is what it will take. Kim

 

Painting the whole car is tricky, you need the right environment, but unless you are repainting the whole car you can come a long way at home in your garage.. minor repairs or rust-bubble fixes are easy and come out nice if you have time for the "afterwork".

After you have applied a healthy layer of the right color, take out the 2000 grit paper, rubbing and polish. I just had my red 308 repainted "in house" (well our "house mechanic" did this one but I've used the same procedure on other cars) and a couple hours work after the painting will give you a great looking touch up job. .. you have to let it dry first though!

Tip: Find a shop that has digital color matching equipement, they will mix you a pint at your correct color.. the car fades over the years so you must have the color adjusted.

The rust bubbles on the rear fenders required more than 1 sq inch metal replacement each.
The door required us to make a new 40 cm * 4 cm metal strip, bended at 90 degree angle to repair the door, the outer skin was ok but the mating area, sort of underside of the door, that was rusted out, the skin was almost loose.
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As you will need to replace part of the door skin, and you are not (as far as I can tell) an experienced welder, you may want to look into "gluing" the piece in place. This is not a mickey mouse option, but instead a professional product used on newer cars. In fact, many new cars have quite a number of their exterior panels "glued" on. Check out www.eastwood.com as I believe they sell a few different products that might come in handy.

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

 

Bill makes a good point about the glues, quite a few roof skins on new cars are glued in place. Another great option would be to ask around at the local paint stores if there's anyone in your area that restores old cars from their garage, the paint shops know of these people and know the ones who are really good by everyday conversations and visits from their outside sales people. Alot of these guys will do a better job than you would get from a body shop because they are not a production facility(in and out quickly),their into quality. In my area there are some incredible restorers that put alot of the shops to shame! Plus, they will probably do the work for 1/2 the price the shops want because they don't have the overhead and if you talk to them and ask them to be involved in the process I would bet about 80% would let you, Then you get to be involved, plus you have a teacher standing their to explain the process at every step and stop you when needed. 1/2 the cost,and involved! And even if he won't admit it, its pretty cool to go down to the coffee shop and when the guys ask "what are you working on today?" he gets to say "just a Ferrari"

 

One thing you can do to save money as a DIY would be remove things like side markers, tail light lens and bumpers etc before you take the car in. Especially if you take it somewhere and tell them you are on a budget. If you go cheap they will just tape around these items and it's never as good as if you take them off before you paint.

 

I stripped my 308 to the bare metal and painted it myself.

This started with replacing all the rusted out sheet metal behind the wheels. I cut the pieces out, formed new sheet metal pieces, welded and blended with no bondo.

I did all 4 sections that rust behind the wheels . .. on the driver side, the piece was the entire length of the rear section of the quarter and I guarantee no one can tell.

I also replaced a section about 30" long below the rear license plate frame . . it's got a gentle curve in it and a bend that curves underneath where it's tacked to the body.

My dad had a body shop when I was growing up . . we didn't do work quite like that . .. no that I have all the fab equipment I can't help it .

Matching paint color is another topic entirely . .. good paint stores have a device that "should" match paint . .. it's good enough for "most" bodyshops. Here's the thing . . I had two identical batches that are slightly different . . . I can tell but I doubt anyone else can . . . it's all in your own perception and part of being good and efficient at bodywork is knowing what matters like not being totally anal in a place where no one will ever see . . . that's why it seems like it takes forever the first time you get into it.

Happy to share pics or any other tips . . . the artist analogy is a good one.

Sean

 

I had a similar problem with my 1982 308 about ten years ago,rust bubbles along the bottom of the door. I took my car to Steve Tillack's shop in Redondo Beach and had both doors re-skined. After ten years the paint on the doors still matches the car and no more rust bubbles.

 

Yes, (thanks to my house mech) it was all handmixed by eye and sample and the result is almost perfect.

A local professional carpainter first sold me a pint Ferrari Dino Red, the only color that he matched up to the samples.. that was way too orange and our first layer was sanded down to make foundation for next layer. (my car was Marrone, years before I got it)

We added other paint to get a perfect mix.. test on a non visible spot with a paintbrush.. mix .. test .. after 15 minutes we had a really good match. After that it was resprayed.

The day after I estimate we used about 2 hours buffing and sanding with water and fine sandpaper (#2000) and the result is really nice, the photos are before polishing for the final result.

 

Have a jap body shop take the door off the car and chemical strip it,then take the door to a professional welder and demand best quality and you will get a nice start for the body shop to spit some Glasurite on it.The Pro will cut out the bad and replace with the new with great precision.Body shop welders,even "master jag restorers" lag way behind Professional Welders because they use gas or mig,and are not exacting,relying on grinding and filler.Pro's are totally precise in many perameters that should be so fine there is no warp nor more than minor grinding.I would never let "a body man weld on my Car".Pro Only

 

I'm afraid I have to disagree with just about everything stated here.

What exactly is minor grinding? You would never let a body man weld on your car? What on earth are you talking about?

Chairpilot, if you want to try this stuff yourself, I encuorage you to try. It's important to remember that Ferraris are nothing but cars. There's nothing mysterious about how they're made - there's no unobtainium or kryptonium in them. Here's how you do it.

Disassemble the door then take it off the car and lay it flat across some sawhorses. Mask off the upper half of the door. Using a dual-action sander, sand the lower half of the door down to metal. After you've done, assess the situation. If the metal is perforated, you'll need to cut the rotted panel out with a whiz wheel. Cut the panel out as a rectangle. If there is rot where the panel wraps around the door - buy the Ferrari rust repair panel - it's about $150 from Ferrari UK.

Once you've gotten this far, simply go to Home Depot and buy some sheet metal. Get 24 guage (maybe 26, I can't remember) sheet metal. Trim it to fit the hole exactly. You should have a gap no more than a few thousandths all the way around.

At this point you can take it to any bodyshop and have it welded in. Then have them paint the lower half of your door to match the top. They'll grind it and skim coat it with plastic. It really isn't all that hard.

Remember the words of Chip Foose: "You don't have to be good at welding. You have to be good at grinding."

Hal

H

 

I agree with Hal. But based on the pictures attached, I'm certain you will need to cut out a large part of the door to fix it. I have fixed problems like this before and used a MIG welder with great results. The patch repair panel from ferrari UK sounds like a good idea and a thin coat of filler if needed won't hurt anything, if you check around the net on painting Ferrari's you will see the body work from the factory is not perfect and needs plenty of hand work to look good... with some filler !.If you have the tools already like I do then you will be even more compelled to the work, but I started fixing cars in my early teens and still do more than 30 years later, so I have plenty of experience and never really took advice from people who said "that's too hard" or "It can't be fixed" etc. I also do my own paint work, and these days the cost of equipment has come way down. If you are willing to put in the work and are not afraid to start over after you make a mistake, you can get great results. I learned a lot through reading and making lots of mistakes, but now I can get craftsmen results at low cost. I however do know my limits...good luck whatever way you decide.

 

If you want to try your hand at welding , I would recomend to use MIG brazing. There are many good advantages over MIG welding such as much less warping of the metal, and much easier to avoid burning through the metal. I did it on my 308 and I obtained a superior job over welding (mostly due to my limited experience in welding thin stuff). By the way the exact match for my car was 22 gauge CRS. You will need to use 100% argon as shielding gas.

 

A couple of things you'll need to make the job even easier:

1) Get some of that heat absorbing paste, I think Eastwood sells it. It keeps the heat from spreading out across the panel and therefore keeps warpage down.

2) Make a few "copper spoons." These are simple a piece of copper pipe pounded flat on one end. Cover the other end with a piece of rubber hose. Used them to back your welding, especially if there is a gap, hole, or thin metal.

3) Sata makes the damned finest spray gun out there, IMHO.

4) Use sprayable Polyester filler for final filling, works wonders!

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

 

When you say "weld bead" I have to say in my experience you don't want to lay down a "bead" on sheet metal like you do in conventional welding. I always welded sheet metal in a series of "spots" and moved around a lot as to not put a lot of heat into the metal and risk warping. It doesn't look as nice as a bead, but it is going to be ground and filled anyway. Use a metal filler that doesn't absorb water like bondo does for that initial fill over the metal. My .02. Go for it and have fun!

 

Well, you should try to get them filled with weld, but again think of spacing spots about 1/8 inch apart, and then on the next pass filling in all the gaps. Go slowly and move around the area, so the spots don't even necessarily occur in order. But, if you have some small pinholes here and there, no big deal. Again, use a metal filler (not Bondo) on the first application directly to roughly ground metal. The sequence I use is the following. Weld>grind>metal filler>epoxy primer>bondo>primer filler>sealer>base>clear. Of course a lot of sanding in between. You will come to find out that repainting a car is 95% sanding and prep, and 5% painting.

The idea is to get the metal surface relatively close to the final surface, but slightly concave (slightly depressed relative to the rest of the panel) to have some room for the light fills of the remaining products. If you have a high metal spot, you will just uncover (expose bare metal) each time you sand and then your option is to build the area around it up with even more product until it blends with the rest of the panel. That works, but is much more labor and material intensive.

There is a website called autobody101.com (or something close to that) that has a forum totally dedicated to this kind of work and you will see questions and answers to about everything you can think of. Also, if you have a good local paint jobber you can trust, they can be very helpful with all the myriad of products out there, what is compatible with what, etc. Have fun!

 

I personally use MIG, but only because I don't have experience with TIG. My guess is that people in the industry might say TIG is preferable. If you have experience with both, I would suggest going with the method you are most comfortable and proficient with.

 

The heat paste can go on either side I would think, as long as it's on bare metal. The spoon is a backer to help dissipate heat, and you are correct in thinking that the weld will not stick to the copper.

If I were to try to weld a new panel in on something like a thin-skinned Ferrari, I think I might get a piece of copper bar, maybe 1/4" thick, and cut and form it to the back of the panel. Then drill and tap it with #8 or so machine threads. But the panels with about a 1/16" gap, with notches for the machine screws, then use the bar to hold the long seam in place, with a shorter piece of copper bar on the outside. Weld between your homemade clamping system, grinding the metal, and moving the outer copper bar as needed.

I hope that's comprehendable!

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

 

Just a few things based on my own experience, take from it what you will....
I like to add a small flange so there is some overlap, I don't try to mess with butt joints where possible. I would also recommend using "weld through" primer if you go this route so the flange portion has rust protection since you can't get to it after, once the area has been repaired I like to clean and seal the back of the panel when possible. as for welding. I only use mig and depending what was being done, some repairs would have spaces between welds. Take a look at pro body shops and auto manufacturers, they spot weld plenty, so That's good enough for me. I never used metal fillers since I don't want to fiddle with more products than I have too. I basically use a combination of bondo and Fiberglass gel resin. The gel resin is amazing stuff !.
It might been mentioned earlier, but eastwood's have some great tools and protective coatings you can use.

As for paint, they have water based paint now, check out this link: http://www.superchevy.com/technical/paint_body/paint/0512sc_prepadd/index.html
It's for a Camaro, but all the steps are relevant.
Water based paint is God's gift to DIY folks, It's much better for the environment and a whole lot safer to use. The real work in your paint job is the color sanding and buffing that is the critical step after all the other work has been done and IS what sets apart a paint job or repair from all the rest. All paint jobs and repairs I have done always get color sanded and buffed and because of my attention to detail, NO one has ever been able to spot any of my repair work.
That's my two cents....