I painted my car a little.

"thebigbossyboss" (thebigbossyboss) 11/08/2015 at 13:00 • Filed to: Crapallier Gear

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Hey Oppo. So while I was on Oppo haitus this summer and fall, I managed to paint my Cavalier all by myself. It was my first foray into automotive painting and I gotta say I am proud of myself.

Starting off with this piece here. You can see due to Ottawa winter of doom (average temp of Feb 2015? 1.3 degrees farenheit or -17C) the paint is peeling up the fender. I meant to fix this last year, but then around fall 2014 life got kind of busy and car painting had to wait.

The first step was to take my small level put it against the car then get some chalk and make a line across the paint. When I went to buy the chalk the woman at Michaels asked for my postal code (In the us that would be a zip code). I declined saying “I’m not the usual type of customer, I just want chalk so I can mark paint lines on my car.” She said “Oh we get that all the time.” ....I doubt that. Anyways.....

I then took painters tape and laid it across the line and double checked to make sure it was level. Things are definitely deceiving when you park on an angle but the level never lies.

The second step is to take my wire brush for my cordless drill and get rid of all the extra paint. Here we are after some grinding. I don’t think I was quite done when I took this picture it got a bit shinier yet.

From there I rinsed off all the metal shavings, and put on some engine degreaser.

I let it stay wet about 20 minutes then rinsed it off.

I then let the metal dry. Then I put on this blue stuff you see here called “metal ready” it makes a zinc coating on the metal and helps the paint to adhere. I put on about 3-4 layers to keep it wet for the recommended 30 minutes. I then rinsed it off using the bottle in the next pic.

This bottle I got at the dollar store for $3 and it makes a really great portable hose if you don’t need a ton of water pressure. I use a blue camping foamy to lie on when I do this stuff. It works really great!

Then the metal is let dry (bone dry they say) one last time, and the paint (called POR 15) is applied. Here it is after application. The actual painting takes the least amount of time of anything. The overall prep work took about 3-4 hours for this section.

The applying of paint took less than 5 minutes. It dried overnight and the next morning I ripped off the painters tape and see how true my lines are.

The lines turned out pretty straight. Due to the angle of the parking, unfortunately I didn`t consider that the level would be level with a true level, not the ground. Therefore if you’re me, and stare very very closely you can tell that it`s slightly angled, but people can`t tell unless I point it out to them. Not bad eh?

I did also do both sides, but I used the drivers side for illustration since it was in worse shape!

Happy 211,000 km marker to me. This peeling paint has bugged me for so long and finally it’s fixed!!!

And that is how to paint a car.

PS9 > thebigbossyboss 11/08/2015 at 13:04

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Yooo dat wheel gat is no bueno, bro. You need a 12 inch drop at least!

crowmolly > thebigbossyboss 11/08/2015 at 13:04

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Looks good, but you have to topcoat POR15 if it’s used like this. It can be damaged by UV light. Good move with the metal-ready, it actually etches the surface to help adhesion.

Idiot In The Garage Needs A New CGI Job... > thebigbossyboss 11/08/2015 at 14:03

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Ah, I kinda miss my Cavalier. I wonder if the high school kid I sold it to has crashed it yet or not...

thebigbossyboss > crowmolly 11/08/2015 at 14:11

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Top coat with what?

thebigbossyboss > Idiot In The Garage Needs A New CGI Job... 11/08/2015 at 14:15

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They are remarkably durable little cars. And they are torquey too. I mean it’s no BMW 3 series, but for what it is it goes pretty quick in 5 spd guise.

Probably got another year or two left on this old boy.

crowmolly > thebigbossyboss 11/08/2015 at 16:35

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Color coat, like a sprayable touch up paint in this case.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > thebigbossyboss 11/08/2015 at 19:54

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Aftermarket side-marker indicator...?

thebigbossyboss > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars 11/08/2015 at 20:12

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Ye. Deal with it.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > thebigbossyboss 11/08/2015 at 20:34

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Not complaining at all my friend! :) I’ve always liked side repeaters...anything to make one more noticed is a good thing - wish they were required here as they are in Europe, in fact! Plus, I’ve always liked the look of them and it’s interesting and clever to see how designers implement them!

Even as an aftermarket indicator, yours doesn’t look too out of place there!

Could’ve always bought the ones JDM-required ones from the Toyota Cavalier too! :P

thebigbossyboss > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars 11/08/2015 at 21:38

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That would have been awesome. Mine used to be blue, but then the popo got on my case and had to switch to white.