General Question

lilikoi's avatar

Car body surface prep - all or nothing?

Asked by lilikoi (10105points) October 12th, 2010

My old car needs a paint job. Bought it used so don’t know the history.

The top coat of paint is of poor quality and is not well adhered to the multiple layers of paint beneath it. It is flaking off in some places. It has to go.

Beneath that, is another layer of paint from previous body work. This layer is better adhered and better quality but I figure it should come off as well.

The third layer of paint is the original factory paint. I wanted to keep this intact and simply scuff the surface of it.

Unfortunately, at least on the first fender I started on (it appears to have been repaired multiple times), the original paint coat was not completely intact. When sanding, I ended up down to bare metal in some parts while in others the factory coat was there.

Question:

Since it’s down to the metal in some places, must I know take it down to the metal throughout the whole piece?

I was under the impression that you need to abrade the metal for primer to adhere properly and I don’t see how you can do this on just a section of bare metal adjacent to non-bare metal.

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8 Answers

josie's avatar

Prime the metal. Blend with the edges of the original paint. If you want to go to the trouble, reprime the whole piece. Paint

Tropical_Willie's avatar

No you do not have to take the rest down to metal.
However the prep for bare metal is different before paint than the rest of the car.

jrpowell's avatar

Are we talking a 82’ Nissan Sentra or a 64 Impala? If it just a old crap car you drive around because it works I say fuck it and drop some paint on it.

lilikoi's avatar

It’s a 1970 VW bug and although it may not be as cool as a 1950s VW bug, I like my car and I don’t want a crap job. As evidenced by the previous crap job, it won’t last in Hawaii’s humid, salty environ. Plus sanding isn’t as hard or time consuming as I thought it would be.

So @Tropical_Willie – I prep the metal parts separately from the painted parts then prime? I do intend to prime the whole thing. I think I’ll get better adherence of the paint by priming the whole thing rather than just part of it…the extra work is pretty negligible anyway

josie's avatar

Prime the whole thing. That would be two primer coats on metal, one on old paint.

Tropical_Willie's avatar

@josie Hit it. Two different primes and bare metal first. After that first prime on the bare metal you use the same pre-paint prime on everything.

Are you doing just the prep and prime ? ?

lilikoi's avatar

Okay thanks guys. I haven’t decided yet. I might also do the painting. So no need to abrade the metal before priming?

Tropical_Willie's avatar

@lilikoi Make sure that there is no oil or grease anywhere on the surface, and NO dust or dirt. That is on any of level of primer or paint.

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