Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

Thinking about a new paint job. Part Three.

In the interest of full disclosure the information and photos I'm sharing are from this shop's website. I have been a satisfied customer since they painted my '70 Mustang. I have been impressed by their work, their website, and their customer service. This is a full range, collision and paint shop. They do all levels of paint work and restoration. Looking at the website you'll see many examples of their handiwork. There are many high dollar cars such as Mercedes, BMW and Cadillac. Of course the only car you'd really care about would be your own!

A  bare metal re-spray is the gold standard of paint jobs.

If you're going to do it, do it right. That quarter panel had to come off.

I'm just relating my own experiences and impressions as a customer. I'm not a paid spokesperson, and I don't have any ties, financial, family, or friends connected with this establishment. I do not have any specific permission to use these materials, however you could access all this just by clicking on their website. I do appreciate their excellent website that offers so much useful information. Think of this as just a customer referral.

I went by the shop to inquire about a possible respray of my '96 Mustang. I'm considering just an exterior repaint in the original color, Laser Red metallic. This would be the easiest, quickest  and cheapest choice. There wouldn't be a need to paint door jambs, trunk or hood. My car could use some extra surface preparation since there are some small oxidized areas that are rough, and would need to be smoothed out. There are also a couple of small dings here and there.

It's obvious that you won't get a good job if this problem is not addressed.

All it takes is the proper surface preparation.

This area of oxidation is visibly rough because the customer chose to omit the necessary
sanding and sealing prior to painting.

This would probably be the most satisfactory route as any areas that were not masked completely would only betray the original red paint.

Unfortunately I have this thing for Highland Green Mustangs. This was not a popular color when the 67-68 era Mustangs were new. That awful lime green, (since reintroduced) was much more common. Even my '70 coupe was originally that hue. The first factory "Bullitt homage" Mustang was built on the New Edge SN 95 face lift. Ford also offered a forest green for his model which is also very nice, but was chosen by few buyers.

To be honest, it's much easier to buy a car that is already in a color that you want. Especially if you are buying a brand new car, though there aren't always a lot of choices. I've only bought five new vehicles and I've only been able to find one available in a color that I really wanted.

I suppose that I could just sell my Mustang and buy a Bullitt model, but I like my car, and I don't want to spend all that money. Why not just change my car's color?

I was considering a color change, and I checked their website and saw that a color change was one of their advertised specialties.

However there are going to be increased costs. First is to add 100.00 to whatever level paint you're choosing.

Then add painting under the hood and trunk for an additional 200.00, each.

It looks like they do a thorough job masking.
This is a later model Mercedes, you know.
Later model is still 20 years old!

Door jambs are an additional 150.00 each.

You can see that the sill plate is masked off.
I guess that the owner didn't want to drive a purple Benz?

The weatherstrip/seal and window are completely masked.
Sure beats the old newspaper that I use.

So the increased cost is 800 bucks even on their cheapest re-spray.  There is obviously a lot of extra labor involved.

The shop manager told me that they will not paint inner fenders or firewalls. They will paint the fender flange under the hood, he said that I could mask the bolts if I wanted to.

Even with the extra cost work, there still might be some areas where the original color would be noticeable. Their website clearly advises customers that they have to determine their comfort zone with the results. Which cannot be guaranteed to be perfect. The higher levels of paint and prep will result in a better job, but the customer has to decide if they will be satisfied with the results. There are going to areas that can not be effectively painted over.

Some cars have black inner fender wells and firewalls and some have body color. The inside of the trunk is another area, for example.

They had a Suzuki Samurai that had been color changed from Pink (actually faded mauve)  to silver, parked out front.

The out side of the body and the door jambs came out very well, but because it's an old type truck there is still a lot of painted metal in the cabin. Which was still pink of course. I would break out the rattle can and paint that black or whatever color is similar to the existing interior color.

Here's a gallery of color change vehicles featured on their website.

Back to my own situation.

I have been considering a color change from the current Laser Red to Highland Green. That's a rough one, as any missed spots will be glaringly apparent. Although green against red does look pretty good... on a Christmas card!

It's not that I hate red, but I really want another green Mustang. I like my car, I would just prefer another color. In a way, it's not that big a deal. Even if it doesn't look like a Concours level job it would look fine from the outside.  It would destroy the originality of the car, but honestly, it's not like it's a rare Corvette "Gold" survivor. Plenty of Mustangs like mine out there.

If I really wanted it done right, the doors would have to come off. Blowing apart the entire car can be done, but not at anything like a reasonable cost.

Let's take a closer look at where the trouble spots would be on my car.

Starting with the door jambs. They would mask off the interior of the car with plastic sheeting.
They will mask the weatherstrip and door cards, you can see the process in the earlier pictures.  Here's where there could be a trouble spot. There are two areas of red on both sides of the weatherstrip. The weatherstrip/door seals would have to be completely masked off. Since rubber doesn't maintain a firm edge, any movement of the rubber post painting will expose the underlying red. It's certain that rubber will shrink and shift as it continues to age. The best course would be to remove and replace with a new seal after painting. More expense, but easily done.

The outside door edge. This is the area that will be seen all the time.
If imperfections in this area would bother you, maybe you should reconsider.

I would do a lot of cleaning before I brought the car to the shop.
Realistically they aren't going to spend hours cleaning this, but I can.

The front edge of the door opening has to deal with the hinge mechanism. This would have to be scrupulously cleaned and carefully sanded. That black rubber flex conduit would need to be carefully masked, or removed.  The door sill plate would be masked or removed and ideally the door card should be removed. Any caked on dirt that is painted over will someday flake off again exposing the red paint. If the doors were removed than these problem areas could be better addressed. However this increases the cost.

Removing the seal would be the first step.
It could use a new one anyway.

Here we have the trunk opening. The seal can easily be removed and replaced later. The black panel above the tail lamp can probably be effectively masked. The underside of the trunk lid can easily be painted. However the red paint on the interior of the trunk will be visible.

Next, we look under the hood. This is where certain areas just can't be easily repainted by the owner. However if you wanted to disassemble all the components and mask and paint, go ahead.

I try to keep my car clean.

Here's another real problem area. The front fender flange and bolts. These bolts appear to have been painted body color. My preference would be to replace and mask the bolts prior to painting as well as remove and replace the hood bumpers. The radiator support and inner fenders would have to remain red, unless I was to paint them black.

Okay, it's bit dirtier  here.

Finally you can see that the firewall is painted body color.  The left side of the firewall is partially covered by the a/c housing and there are various black painted braces and bits attached. However you can still see the red.

Have I come to any conclusions? I think that I'll stretch this series out to one more installment!