Painting under headlight bucket, Tips or tricks? Options

[FL000]

I am going to attempt to paint my car this fall. I say attempt because if I fail miserably with the primer coats I will seek professional help! Most of the car looks accessible except in the front trunk area under the headlight buckets behind the front cross brace. Looks pretty tight in there. How do you get that area painted? I imagine a small detail gun helps, but is there anything else?

Thanks

[Mikey914]

The headlight assemblies and eyebrow pieces should be pretty easily removed. If you want a decent paint job you'll want to pull.
Mark

[worn]

The headlight assemblies and eyebrow pieces should be pretty easily removed. If you want a decent paint job you'll want to pull.
Mark

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) and I had trouble with paint ricochet in those boxes. If anyone has a cure let us all know. Please?

[Luke M]

I am going to attempt to paint my car this fall. I say attempt because if I fail miserably with the primer coats I will seek professional help! Most of the car looks accessible except in the front trunk area under the headlight buckets behind the front cross brace. Looks pretty tight in there. How do you get that area painted? I imagine a small detail gun helps, but is there anything else?

Thanks

A long time ago, I helped a friend of mine paint his 914 front trunk. The area that you speak of is a real pain to get to but it can be done. He used an air suction gun with a long 90 degree nozzle at the end. Mask off the car because it makes a mess from the over spray. Put the suction hose into your paint can and spray all around. It helps if one person holds the hose into the can while the other sprays.
I'm sure you could find a replaceable tip for the gun to make things easier. My friend just did it on the cheap by pinching off the tip with a hammer. He did this until it sprayed the way he wanted it to. Here's a pic of what I'm talking about.

[worn]

Here's a pic of what I'm talking about.

Geez! That looks like it would deliver the paint alright. And I have one. Not sure I have the nerve though.

[Mikey914]

I've never personally shot these, but if you wanted to get paint into the bucket you could put a vacuum vise from a shop vacume in the bottom of the drain tube (underneatg) .
This would get you good airflow. You may kill your filter but for as much area as you'll need to cover it may help get better coverage.

[falcor75]

Inte the bucket isnt hard, its the area under the bucket thats tricky.
I did it with alot of thin dustings from the inside of the trunk and from the round holes in the front panel. When finished I then covered the area with a layer of clear cavity wax.

[Luke M]

I'm pretty sure the red arrows are pointing to the area that the op is talking about.
The upper headlight bucket area would be fairly easy to paint.
The lower area ( red arrows ) is what I was talking about in my earlier post.

[SixerJ]

Maybe bonkers but what about a expanding foam gun? With a hose into the paint / variation on the suction gun I guess

You can adjust the needle stop & wind up and down pressure paint delivery on the compressor or air line to change the level of splurge......

Interesting thread to watch this one

[Olympic 914]

Eastwood internal frame coating. you can get in there with the nozzle but paint this area first because the stuff goes everywhere. then just dust some paint in there with a detail gun to get some color.

I tried to use the nozzle on a prevail sprayer with body color paint, it would have been a great way to get in there but the tip wasn't compatible. Maybe you could figure out a way of using the hose.

http://www.eastwood.com/internal-frame-coa...-nozzle-qt.html

[914GT]

This is what I've done in that area. First I blow a lot of compressed air from the top, sides and front to dislodge as much dirt as possible. Then for both epoxy primer and top coats I turn the pressure down on the gun, and reduce the fan-out, and spray in there as best I can to fully cover the insides, using a flashlight to check how it's looking. Nothing is really visible in there but want good coverage to protect the metal.