Well I am going to ***** this thread even more by posting it on H-T, so here it goes...

Well here is the very first thing wrong with my car minus the nasty honda rot....


The pervious owner thought it would be cool to "shave" the side molding by sticking bondo in their. Yea bad idea, because it looked like ****, would rub on the front fende when you open the door, ect. So....



I grinded all that **** out.

So this is how it looked (minus these wheels) before it went into my make-**** paint booth...


So I sanded and sanded, and masked and masked, to get it ready for surface primer (sorry, couldn't find my camera during that stage, thus no pics)

Here is kinda a pic of some of the masking...


Safety first...



Primer time....





Since I am a cheap ****** ****** going to college, I couldn't afford much so, the entire paint system that I am using is Duplicolor paint. It is all real paint (as in non spray can, comes in gallons, and you have to do all the reducing and all that) and as I said in another post, they have 6 colors to chose from, including Revin Red, Dark blue matalic, Silver Mist Matalic, Lighter blue (called like blue ocean or something like that) Fleet White, and maybe black? Paint is 40-50 a gallon@murray's autoparts/pepboys/autozone vs the 250 for championship white at sherwin williams. Primer and reducers are all really cheap too. All paint materials cost me around 120, however, found i need to buy more reducer since I have to use that to clean my gun.

I chose to go with fleet white since white is the best color to hide imperfections in painting skills, body quality, ect.

well now this is where I stand. I am 97% finished. I sanded (too much lol) and buffed everything on the car except for the front bumper. Turned out really nice. In a few places, I sanded too deep, probally would have been better if I would have more layers of primer on and sanded that down 100% smooth. However, it looks 3048304830948x better. If I had more time I would fix it, but I am moving to college in 4 days, so thats a no can do. After I was finished sanding, I was bumbed on how dull it looked, but after doing some reading, I found that the shine normally doesn't come out until you polish it. So I bought an orbitor buffer and had at it. Turned out GREAT. The car is extremely smooth and even has enough shine that it will reflect a cell phone's background at night to the point that you can read the text on the screen. It doesn't do it as good as my CF hood, but what ever.

Part of the reason why I traded my sol for the Hatch was I wanted a roof rack, and the sol just can't do it. So I have been ebaying around and found basicly all the parts I needed including parts for 2 bike trays and a 6 pairs of ski holder for around 350. If I would have went and bought it from my local bike shop or REI, it would have cost around 650. It finally showed up today, so I installed it and took a few pics....







Now here are the wheels...


And my bike...


For the rack, I need to buy the fairing. The thing whistles like crazy at 30mph and on with the sunroof open, so I will be buying the fairing ASAP.

As for the missing side moldings (note holes are still there) I am waiting on my JDM thin moldings to show up. I hate going the "JDM route" however, I went to a few junk yards and they all said they would not sell me just the side moldings because it would screw the door up and they wouldn't be able to sell it. They offered to sell me the full door, however, I passed. Next route, Hondaautomotiveparts.com. At LEAST 70 a side. Next, JDM route. OEM JDM honda's were 140 if I shoped around. However, passwordjdm.com decided to manufactor their own replicas because finding them over in japan was getting harder and harder making the prices become really expensive. So I ended up going with the Passwordjdm.com ones for 100+shipping. They should be showing up here thursday.

 

l000kin' clean...

 

 

i notice u left the door handles black. was that just out of preference? nice work on the diy paintjob.

 

Looks sick

 

looks dam good. i remember seeing your thread about you painting your wheels, also.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mulletov &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i notice u left the door handles black. was that just out of preference? nice work on the diy paintjob. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yep, it was kinda for the panda look. Since I have the CF hood, and soon the JDM side moldings, plus the OEM side skirts and the black wheels and rack, I decided to keep the mirrors and door handles black. I need to actually mask them off and spray some black trim paint on them because they are pretty faded, but right now, its defently not high on my prioridys list.

 

Nice job....DIY is great...sometimes..

 

adding some side skirts?

looks great overall, but whats going on with the rear pass fender well?

 

 

judging from the pics it looks really good

 

Goodluck wit the Rust huh

 

yep, for now, It will just rust through. When I get some money, I will have a place weld in one of those honda rust fender patches that have been posted a few times. I have been quoted 500 to do the job. Not terribly expensive, but right now, I don't give a ****. Now that I have an idea of how to paint, when I do get it replaced, I can just paint that rear quater panel. Or I can drive down south and pic up a nice shell for a few hundred bucks.

 

looks nice. ur wheels too..use to be orange right?

 

correct...

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1333363

 

koo beanz