New to the list-Paint Jobs

[Ron at Bunch.org (Ron@Bunch.org)]

Welcome to the list. I'm new too. having owned VW products before most list 
members were probably born,  I have to admit most know more about Sciroccos 
than do I. But I've restored many good cars on budget. Advantage: I spray 
painted professionally when I was 8 years old and that was more than 50 
years ago.
Here's the bad news.
If your paint's peeling and you care about the car's future, you have to go 
to bare metal.go to the bare metal.
If you need the car as a daily driver, that could be tough, but grad 
students can figure it out.
No shortcuts here.
1A. Find the best shop in town and pay them to do the best job (probably 
off budget) Guess at results.
1B. Go to one of the franchised paint shops from the TV ads and have a good 
job for a few hundred $ then watch it peel next year.
OR (and this is really the best result for the money)
  1C. Find a LOCAL friendly, quality, well established, privately owned 
auto body/paint shop, and ask him what the fee is for a top coat in your 
desired color over a well prepared base. The spray job labour and the cost 
of the paint will be your biggest cost. Make the deal for a top coat.
2. Find a decent window for the stripping. (Nice weather, other 
transportation to school)
3. Find a professional auto paint dealer, talk to them and buy a lethal 
vapor filtering mask, and then a gallon of their nastiest paint stripper.
4. Remove all  window glass, trim, molding, door handles, lights, sunroof 
seal, antenna, bumpers, plastic body trim., mirrors: anything that touches 
external paint.  Leave a gap between body and fender (purists remove the 
fenders and carry them to the paint booth.)
5. Remove the doors and rubber.
6. Remove the hood, hatchback and rubber.
7. Buy a case of best beer . (I recommend Warsteiner.)
8. Open one beer and drink it while you think about the next step. (or 
drink the beer and do step 9 before step 4. That works too. A great 
motivator because you can't reverse it easily.)
9. Put on the protective mask. Open the paint stripper and pour it  in the 
middle of the roof. Let sit whilst you open another beer. (You've passed 
the toughest part.). I did my 74 911SC by having the beer first then 
pouring the stripper on the roof before removing parts. Beer and lack of 
protective mask were a bad combination. But, it all turned out well, 
because I was committed. (I totally dismantled the car, door latches, every 
screw, sealed the engine compartment, painted inside the fenders. Only took 
me 6 weeks at 12 hours a day. My satisfaction was in a German dealer 
declining to buy the car because his Meister inspectors determined it was 
the original paint job, thereby making it collector value.
10. Continue application of stripper only up to seam lines (hood, 
windshield,fender/body). Envision that the body seams or under the rubber 
is where you'll hide the paint job seam.
11. Use whatever you must to scrape off the old paint (coarsest sandpaper, 
wire brush, wire wheel.)
12. Treat all rust areas with phosphoric acid and flush.
13. The metal now needs a good tough 2 component/reactive primer. You can 
either befriend a capable local for nothing and beer, ask the final finish 
auto paint place to take over from here, or rent a compressor and gun, and 
go back to the pint dealer for the primer(s) and do it yourself. You need 
two finishes: first is the hard over metal finish (preferably 2 
component/epoxy type to make a good bond) then the basic old grey 
primer/filler over that.
Keep smoothing it with paper down to 400 grit.
Re-prime and smooth as necessary.  Off the shelf primer cans will do.
Tape/seal the window, hatchback, doors.
Then have the paint shop wipe it down and do the top coat.
Top coat will not cover flaws you haven't smoothed.
Do your part, and you'll love it!
This should be a circa $500-700 outlay at this point at best quality.
Equivalent best quality/factory job is WAY beyond that, $ multipliers of 3-5.
Preparation is EVERYTHING.
Put your own labor of love into it.
It's brutal work. I've done 3 cars this way in the last 20 years and sworn 
off restorations. (Yeah, right, until the next baby is in line. I intend to 
do at least my 86 8v.)
OR, you can just do 1A or 1B and pray for an outcome.



At 10:02 PM 11/13/03 +0000, Aaron Aunins wrote:
>Hi - I might as well be a new member.  I've participated off and on for 
>the past few years, and came to Cincy in 2001.  Anyway, I have an 87 16 
>red Scirocco, with a rapidly decaying paint job.  It used to look really 
>good, but now I get pieces of paint on the sponge when I wash it...Point 
>is my next project will be a new paint job, but on a graduate student 
>budget, and grad student time schedule...should be interesting.  I'll 
>probably ask a bunch of paint related questions to you guys -  hopefully 
>nothing thats been beaten into the ground.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Aaron
>87 16V
>
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