My $50 paintjob...

[Davidss]

So last year I picked up a 1990 Honda CRX to use as a autocross/track car. It was a great chassis in that it has very low mileage (140k), zero rust, and a straight frame. But the paint was pretty rough in general and the drivers door had been hit around 20 years ago and the repair had faded to a nasty yellow color.

So while I really wanted to make the car look nicer I also knew it wasn't wise to spend $1000+ for a real paintjob. So since I couldn't make it any worse I decided to paint it myself. I used rustoleum paint but sprayed it with an el-cheapo harbor freight paint gun instead of rolling it on.

Here are pics of the car when I first got it:





My first step was to replace some banged up fenders and the bondo filled door. I also rewelded the little door stopped in the door jam. No more popping sound whenever the door is opened/closed!





I used rustoleum professional paint in gloss white in a 75/25 mix with mineral spirits and I also added some hardener to help the paint dry quicker and look glossier!





Here is a pic just after the first coat, it already looks pretty glossy. This is without any wetsanding or buffing!




And here is around 5 coats later right before the final wetsand, buff, and polish:

[Davidss]

In these next 2 pics I wetsanded 2 panels and quickly buffed them out as a test:





In the previous pictures the rubbing compound I was using was pretty worthless so I went to a auto paint store and purchased to good quality rubbing compound and polish. This made a BIG difference! This next picture is after buffing and polishing:




And here are 2 pics after everything is done:






I'll get some more finished pics soon. I still need to wax the car which will help protect the paint. And after waxing will be a good opportunity to roll the car out for a little photo shoot.

Overall I'm EXTREMELY happy with how everything came out. Spraying instead of rolling is definitely the way to go. I don't own any special equipment and I don't have any skill as a painter but I was able to do a pretty decent job. Also it really wasn't too bad as far as labor goes. The paint laid out pretty well and didn't need a ton of sanding. The majority of the sanding I had to do was just to correct my painting mistakes, and many of those were due to not having good lighting...

There are a lot of $50 paint job haters/unbelievers and I can understand it. This isn't for everyone, but I honestly had great results out of it!

[Titus]

Wow... looks great! What type of prep did you do? Any sanding and priming before spraying it?

[CHeavin_2006]

Nice! Pretty fast CRX as seen in Mineral Wells... Why were in the Y class and not X?

[apex2apex]

David, car looks great! I should do the same thing to my beater civic

[RedHot-n-Red]

Very nice, would you paint my car for $50.00??? :)

[cone-cerned]

Very nice, would you paint my car for $50.00??? :)

David may not, but I know a girl down on 6th street that says that she'll do anything you want for $50.

[Miatamoto]

Can't beat that for the money. Looks great Dave!

[gabkwong]

Nice job! did you have to wet sanding after each coat?

[MadMonkey]

David may not, but I know a girl down on 6th street that says that she'll do anything you want for $50.

What's her number?

[sxk122]

Looks great.

Needs more stripes now.....

[cone-cerned]

David may not, but I know a girl down on 6th street that says that she'll do anything you want for $50.

What's her number?

In my book, she's number 1.


Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be here all week. Please, don't forget to tip your waiter.

[Davidss]

A few things I forgot to mention. First I would say that after doing this paint job with a spray gun versus rolling. A spray gun is definitely the way to go! With a spray gun you really don't have to sand that much. Seeing some of the pictures of the first few coats of a rolled job makes me cringe with the thought of how much work it would be!

Another trick I employed to avoid sanding was in the finishing stage. After the last coat I waited over 48 hours for the paint to get a harder. Then I went over the car wetsanding it only once. In unimportant areas like the roof and rocker panels I used 1000 grit (to save time) and then 1500 grit everywhere else. From there I used a 3m trizact p3000 sanding disc on a cheap dual action sander. This is a MASSIVE time saver as you can go straight from 1500 grit to 3000 grit in minutes and without breaking a sweat! After that just a orbital buffer and VERY aggressive rubbing compound and then a porter cable polisher and polishing compound.

Here is a pic of the trizact p3000 disc. It's not exactly wet or dry, you use it damp. I only needed one disc for my whole car but a crx is pretty small. The only weird thing about them is that 3m doesn't offer them individually so I had to call around to a lot of auto paint shops to find somewhere that would just sell me just one ($7):



Here is a video of the trizact disc in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nE01A71n1I

Wow... looks great! What type of prep did you do? Any sanding and priming before spraying it?

I quickly sanded the whole car with 600 grit just to help the new paint stick better. I also sanded off the pinstripes which left large areas of bare metal which I did not do anything with. Rustoleum will stick to paint or bare metal.

Nice! Pretty fast CRX as seen in Mineral Wells... Why were in the Y class and not X?

I was running Y for more competition. At NTAXS I started running class 1 (same as X) this year but I sort of regret it. Besides Jerret's car there aren't many other cars that show up as well prepped as mine in class 1 or X.

Nice job! did you have to wet sanding after each coat?

I had to do a little between every 2 coats. Most of the sanding I had to do was due to my own spraying mistakes (massive runs for instance).

[RedHot-n-Red]

That is a VERY good paint job!

[black roadster]

I'd love to see it in person.

[jbh]

David,
Its a very nice job, I have seen your car in person many times. I have painted a few cars in my younger days and I was amazed when you said you did it yourself, it really looks like it was done at a professional shop. The wetsanding really makes the difference. I used to work for a shop that repaired JaIgs and other high end cars. We wet sanded every car we painted, but we used a high speed buffer to bring back the shine. Only problem was it is real easy to burn through the paint with it if you stay in one area very long at all.

I assume the paint is a one stage paint? No clear coat is needed to go over the base coat (2 stage paint)?

You could probably make a few $$ by charging a little to do this for others with a car in your situation.

[MadMonkey]

^^ Exactly what I was thinking. In fact, I'd be one of the first to step up

Well, with a different car anyway. My Miata paint is still decent and I need to sell the van... we shall see what happens.

[Mr.E.G.]

It looks considerably better than what I accomplished with my Miata. I too sprayed it but either I suck at spraying or my gun shit the bed (or both) because it ending up with a textured finish. My original attempt to spray came out great. It looked smooth like glass and I really liked it... then my girlfriend came into the garage and tripped over something which brought all of the plastic I had hung down on the car forcing me to completely start over. After that, everything went to shit every time I sprayed more paint.

I have rolled with good results and I will either stick with the mediocre results that I have now, or I will roll it next time. The spraying is just too damn hard for me to pull off.

[jelliott25]

That looks really great. I've been trying to work up the energy to do something similar with my NA. I have huge blotches of paint missing now with bare metal showing. I know I've got to do something here eventually but I can't bear the thought of 2K for a nice paint job, nor do I want to pay to have a crappy one done. Anyway, nice job on the CRX sir. I admire your go getiveness

[Davidss]

UPDATE:

It have been 2 years since painting the CRX. I have long since sold the car but hung out with the new owner yesterday. I am happy to report that the paint job still looks great! With a minor polish it would look as good as new!