I just got done painting this car so I can sell it.

Just a little history on it. I bought it 4 years ago and shortly after I bought it the paint on the hood and roof started fading badly and flaking off. I assume the person I bought it from had a shitty paint job done on it right before they sold it to me.

Anyways, my friend and I painted the hood, bumper, fenders, doors, and roof. I am just trying to get this thing sold and want to get the most out of it. I knew it wouldn't sell for **** with the paint flaking off like it was. Plus after I took the turbo off I replaced the front bumper with a white OE bumper that I bought from a local kid.

Here's the before:



It actually looked a lot worse than that when I painted it because the above picture was taken a year and a half before I painted it and the paint had gotten much worse.

Here's what it looks like now. Yesterday I put it all back together, the door handles, moldings, head lights etc. then I gave it a quick wash.



My reflection, it wasn't totally dry so that stuff is just water...









I think it turned out pretty good. I wasn't that hard to do, easier than I thought it was going to be. This was my first painting experience and other than sanding for freaking ever it was a pleasant experience.

Just a few more things to do and it's ready for sale.

 

lol that kid is awesome

nice diy

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EJ1 wilcox &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
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That kid is cute! He's sayin', don't sell it, fix it up for ME! Good job on the DIY paint job too!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by crstfr14 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

That kid is cute! He's sayin', don't sell it, fix it up for ME! Good job on the DIY paint job too!</TD></TR></TABLE>lol but yea looks good

 

looks really good...

 

looks good
just slam it quick

 

Looks dam good. You took the boost off?

 

not too shabby

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by juicy.fn &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">lol that kid is awesome
</TD></TR></TABLE>

LoL

Yeah, can you tell that my wife takes lots of pictures of him? As soon as I get out the camera he busts out his "cheesy smile". lol

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JDMroyEG5turbo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">looks good
just slam it quick </TD></TR></TABLE>

I actually recently took the coilovers off and returned the suspension to 100% stock. I want to sell it completely stock, I'll get more money out of it that way. 99% of the Civics here are beat up and riced out to all hell, so people are hesitant to buy any Civic that has been modified.

Oh, and I took the turbo off to fund another project and so I could sell this one. I bought my current project car with the money from the sale of the turbo.

Thanks for the comments!

 

Looks legit! What kind of gun did yo uuse? Where did you get the paint? How much paint did you use? wHat was your sanding process? Did you cover your walls in the garage and set up a fan/ventilation system?

I'm really intriged!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Alexander &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Looks legit! What kind of gun did yo uuse? Where did you get the paint? How much paint did you use? wHat was your sanding process? Did you cover your walls in the garage and set up a fan/ventilation system?

I'm really intriged!</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks.

The gun - I'm not sure about. I used my friend's gun, he showed me how to do it and I took it from there. I think I remember seeing that it was made in Germany or something. Anyways, it was pretty easy to use. I'll ask him more about it and post it up.

The paint - I bought it from my work. I work for an auto parts distributor and we sell paint. I think the brand is SEM? Does that sound familiar? It is supposedly our cheaper line of products but my friend who helped said it lays down better than he expected, he thought it was about on par with PPG.

I put down 4 coats of base with 3 coats of clear. The base was mixed with reducer of some sort (I don't really know much about paint yet). And we used medium hardner with the clear coats. I also bought a pint of primer and a can of adhesion promoter.

For quantities, I bought 1/2 gallon of black, but we used only about half of that. I gave the rest to my buddy who is going to use it on another project of his. I think I bought a pint of clear as well.

The total cost to me was... well, I get really good discounts so it's not really representative. But I paid a total of $120 including paint, masking supplies, sanding supplies, plastic, everything.

The sanding process - this was the biggest pain of the whole thing. My friend said he would help me paint the car since I didn't know how, but he told me that I was going to be doing everything. Which was fine considering I am just going to sell the car anyways, and I don't expect him to spend hours sanding on it anyways.

I started out with 400 grit wet and sanded the whole thing down by hand until it was smooth. This took me about 8 total hours because the hood and bumpers were so rough because of the crappy paint under them, in some spots I had to take it down to the metal in order to get it smooth enough.

Then I sanded with 600 wet and smoothed it out even more. Then after we primered the whole thing I sanded with 600 wet again until the primer was smooth.

Then after we put the base and clear down I started with 1500 grit and wet sanded the whole thing again. Then I moved to 2000 and then 2500. After that we cut and buffed it with some Meguiars stuff.

Yeah, the process was long and back breaking, but it came out pretty good. My friend told me that the process we went through with this car is about equivalent to what a hot rod shop would go through. He said regular paint shops don't do it by hand and cut a lot of corners to make the process go faster.

The garage - we didn't cover anything really, we wet the floor down and parked the car right in the middle. We had a box fan in the door but other than that we didn't have any ventalation system. It was also raining outside while we were painting which I'm sure helped with the overspray.

Other than some dust, the garage is fine and we didn't get paint anywhere we didn't want it.

Anyways, if you have any other questions, let me know!

 

the paint is lookin' really good

 

nice paint job

 

lookin pretty ok

 

Wow, nice job!

 

damn sexy! how much did it run to DIY?

 

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by juicy.fn &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">lol that kid is awesome

nice diy </TD></TR></TABLE>

LOL. the paint looks hella good for a DIY, but you need some new rollers.

 

good job

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DxHatchback &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">LOL. the paint looks hella good for a DIY, but you need some new rollers. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Don't be hatin on the old skewl TSWs! lol

Actually I just put them on there because I'm selling the car. Didn't want to give away the nice wheels.

I returned everything back to stock except for the exhaust. It's still got a Tanabe Racing Medalion cat back. I couldn't find someone with an OE exhaust that wanted to trade.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RARE_EG2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">good job </TD></TR></TABLE>

 

great work looks really good.

 

looks good from here

 

good job