Infamous $50 paint job!!

[Dr_Snooz]

Super!

[MannyDantyla]

In case anyone is wondering... YES I am going to install the side molding that will cover up the ugly lines where green meets white.

[slammed79]

Love it! Great color combo.


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[Irish_Alley]

In case anyone is wondering... YES I am going to install the side molding that will cover up the ugly lines where green meets white.

i saw those line and was thinking "um is my computer glitching or can he see it also"

[MannyDantyla]

After working on the interior for a week or two, the exterior paint is now good and hard and ready to be wet sanded and polished.

I wet sanded everywhere but not to the point where all orange peel would be gone, I didn't add enough paint for that, but enough to get the brush marks and blemishes out. I used 1500 grit paper.



Then I started polishing it with Meguier's Ultimate Compound. The stuff is supposed to be all you need, but I found that no matter how many times I polished the same spot there was a limit. Then I finished it up with Meguier's Glaze Compound. You can see the difference in this image:



(the whole is where the side emblem will go, I have those in a box, ben sitting there since last spring and I can not wait to finially install them!)

I finished one fender. Now I just need to do the whole truck! This is more work than I thought it would be but will hopefully pay off.

[LTZ C20]

Ohhh, shiny.....

[aaronboss221]

Can't wait to see final product! Now I am thinking about trying some of this out on my truck just have to find the time. Thanks!

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[MannyDantyla]

Can't wait to see final product!

me too!

[MannyDantyla]

All done! The paint job is complete!!

Overall, it was a success. A lot of mistakes, sure, but that was expected. Did it cost $50? Not really. Just the paint mixture (the enamel, penetral, enamel hardener, and paint thinner) added up to over $120. Then theres all those little foam rollers which aren't cheap. But the very cheapest of the cheap paint job, like a Macco paint job during a discount weekend, would have cost at like $600.  It would have been with cheap, single-stage paint, one color only (no green and white two-tone paint job like I wanted), and would probably have came out looking just as good/bad as my roller paint job. A quality paint job would start at $1500 and go up from there.

Which brings me back to where I started. There was no way I could afford a pro paint job! I gave myself an allowance of $1500 to restore this truck which included much much more than just a fresh paint job. So an expensive paint job just wasn't in the budget. Then I started looking at alternative methods, like plasti-dip. But when I did the math, a plasti-dip paint job would have cost $400 at least and would not be a real investment into this truck. Of course I could have gotten a dozen spray cans and bombed it, but I wasn't interested in something with basically no quality at all. Then I came across a youtube video of someone painting a small red car with rustoleum and a roller. And it looked great! I started watching and reading more and more. The rolled on version was much harder, shinier, and more durable than with spray cans. I was sold.

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I finished the polishing. I used a two step process: first I used Meguiar's Ultimate Compounds, then I used Meguiar's Ultimate Polish after that. Usually two applications for each step, using a DA sander/buffer. It took a long time but it worked. Maybe it would have been better to make it a three step process (compound, then swirl remover, then machine glaze) but this ain't a show winning truck or anything and all those Meguiars products are expenseive... I could have skipped the polishing completely by not wet sanding at all, the finish after the last coat of paint was great, but there was enough dust specs and little bugs and drips and sags and brush marks, it needed to be wet sanded.






I'm pretty dang happy with how it came out.

I'll try to get a pic in here of when all the trim is put on (side molding, wheel arch molding, emblems, lenses, hub caps, all that).

[LTZ C20]

That looks excellent, really does look very very nice. Great job, I'm actually pretty well impressed.

[aaronboss221]

I am impressed! Turned out great. Definitely gonna take this info and try some of it. Thanks!

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[Dr_Snooz]

A very respectable job. Looks great!

[MannyDantyla]

Here's the difference between the rolled on paint and a small section that was spray painted. Same color (hunter green) rustoleum, but one was spray painted and the other was rolled on. The sheet metal part that goes unter the grill and behind the front bumper, I believe it's called the "lower grill panel", was spray painted several months ago before I did the front clip swap. You can clearly see the difference in gloss and quality between the two styles.

[enaberif]

Because one is spray paint and the other is not. Spray paint unless protected or made properly will never have the same finish as a paint from the can. Spray paint has crap added to it so it can be ejected out of a can.

[1967KaiserM715]

Did you do any extra work to the spray paint section?  That probably has a small effect on appearance too