Bravo Paul!!!

T

You are correct sir.

Budget build is going to stay ugly for now. The hot 3.2 will be our little secret.

I posted a question about estimates about a year ago here, and EVERYONE said paint it yourself. I think I'd pay 5k to have someone else do it in a heartbeat. This is going to be a working car, not a show pony, and mainly I just want the best rust-proofing I can get on it.

I agree. Painting it yourself isn't easy. You need a good compressor, lots of time, you have the chance to waste a lot of expensive material in a hurry. Like many other professionals, a good painter has made mistakes and you are paying them for their expertise as well as their time and materials. It's all a trade off. There's no one - right answer for everybody, especially if you consider the 914 your hobby car.

I think the key to rust-proofing is making sure it's all gone before any paint goes on it, and the first layers of primer (typically the epoxy) is put on right. I've always thought of the paint itself being mostly decorative with the primers being your protectors.

Also, Cincy should be a good location for paint quotes considering stuff is typically cheaper than national average there are 3 states to compare (differing environmental costs etc) and some good hillbilly communities in each that may offer some cheaper rates. But I would still at least consider painting yourself, it is extremely satisfying.

Since we are on the topic of DIY vs cost, has anyone considered plasti dipping?
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Low cost compared to paint. Can do it yourself. Super easy to fix scratches and easy to get rid of. I priced out a car at the shop last year and it was only like $700 to do.

Forgot to confirm that the cost of great paint/clear final coat does get pricey. Just doing my flares was like $200. And when I had trouble with a milky clear, I called the supply house and asked for help, their paint technical guy came to my place and showed me what was wrong.

What was wrong - the clear I bought, while expensive, wasn't "great" stuff. The technician gave me a "very expensive" clear and problem solved. Of course I had to sand and color coat again, but it worked. Can't remember exactly what he said about the cost, other than it was crazy expensive.

Long story short, there is a monster difference between materials.

One of these cars was painted at Macco for $1000 bucks a few years ago, including both trunks, door jambs and some minor body work.

Its not perfect but when i closed my hood with my wipers still up and chipped the paint i just reminded myself it was only a $1000 paint job. If I spent 10k on it I dont think i would let myself drive it like I do.

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People around here are paying more than 5-6 for a paint job. WAY more! Shockingly so. X2+. With owner take apart and reassemble. Without a bunch of rust repair. Dependent on the shop, I don't even ask the price.

Or, you could go the route I did.
~$400 in materials, 2 days work, no paint booth or fumes, repairs are simple.
This was my first attempt at vinyl with no experience other than watching some youtube videos:









My plan was to verify that I liked the color before shelling out the $4-6k for real paint.

But now I like the vinyl so much I don't know why I would want paint ever again.


I painted the car with primer in a DIY paint booth, and all the black.
But all of the green was 3m 1080 vinyl.
The $400 in materials left me with enough spare to do the rear trunk (again) and any one body panel.
So I would have had enough to do the front trunk as well if I hadn't opted for the black.

I think this may be the route I go, at least until I decide to finally break down and paint it. My question is, how much did you buy? (40 ft? 50 ft? 60 ft?). I plan on buying a bit more than needed, just so I can "re-do" parts as I learn.

Thanks in advance

Doesn't the vinyl fade too (like paint) so it's not that simple to just "replace a panel"?

-Steve

The retired painter I know is a died in the wool perfectionist in ALL aspects of his life. He is PURE energy... you should see his landscaping/gardening...

He worked 30 years at a Cadillac dealership, and his favorite car was his BMW. His co-workers did an "Overhaulin' before that show was invented.. they hijacked his shortbed mid 80's Chevy Pickup 2500 and did exterior and interior to MATCH the BWM (Black Exterior, Red Leather interior)....

The truck is of course, worth WAY more than the BWM today.....

Exactly what I plan to do with my suby build. Once the builder is done getting the car running, I'll do some bodywork and primer and then all black vinyl.

Vinyl is a reasonable answer; I've used vinyl in key areas of my race cars. However, you still have to do good surface prep, and imperfections (cracks, wrinkles, orange peel, etc) will still show through.

Use a matte finish and it's less obvious.

My local Tech school has a paint and body program. I did the Painting class one semester and got to do bondo, all the prep stages, shot paint in a booth, and wet sanded & polished for $150-200. The paint store that supplied us even gave us a discount on our first order.

When the time comes I'll paint my car. It may not turn out perfect but it will be better than it is now

Plastidip is not that durable and the grey I used faded in a year. For short term stuff, like my wheels, I like it.

Vinyl wrap is usually UV coated so it lasts longer. There are tricks to the trade to keep it from peeling up but there are plenty of vids that tell all. I'd be all excited about it but materials cost is close to what good paint does here. If you are a few years out or want to try out a color I say go for it.

Here ya go...like I said, it's got a 5-foot paint job right now, but up close, there are cracks all over the paint, on just about every panel...

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I know pictures can make it look better than it is, but it doesnt look too bad. Had you tried rubbing compound? We have some old volvo's at the shop and with a few hours of rubbing compound, and polish we get them looking nearly brand new.

I'm going to try to get most of the priming done myself, at least where I've exposed the metal or welded in new metal. The outside of the car looks fine, I could get away with just doing the underside and interior and leaving the outside as is. That option is on the table and looks better every day. But I've had it in my mind that a good rust proofing means blasting the whole car and getting some modern primer on the entire thing.

Yes, I think Cincy will be a good place to get quotes. Apropos of nothing, it's been like a freaking rain forest here. This winter has been a repeating cycle of a couple days of below freezing, followed by a warm-up to 50's and constant rain for a week. Garage is always damp and Mr. Plant keeps telling me it's nobody's fault but mine.

Cracks mean that it really needs to be stripped down to metal, 40hrs
Then any imperfections fixed, 10-50hrs
High build primer, 4hrs
Block sanding and more high build primer, 20hrs
Primer sealer and paint, 16hrs

So thats at least 90hrs of book work at a minimum of $45/hr = 4k JUST in bodywork. Then there is material/consumables.

Paint- 300-2k
Primer- 100
Filler- 100
Sandpaper- 100

Your estimates are right on the money for a decent paint job.

You want stupid cheap? Go to Mayco. They pay their employees minimum wage and their work reflects it. You can get a paint job from them for around 2-2500 with the work noted above. Will it be straight? No. Will it have dull spots? Probably. Will it be good enough? Also, probably.


If you want to save money, strip the car down to metal yourself, do ALL the bodywork to how you like it. Take it to Mayco and have them spray it, Negotiate with their sales guys to have their good spray guy spray it.

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I can sympathize. A couple of years back I went to paint my 914 and all I could find were $10,000 quotes. Except for one douchebag who wanted $50,000. I understand that it's a huge amount of labor to prep/paint a car and therefore expensive. But I didn't have $10,000.

Well, I did, but wasn't willing to spend that on something as minor as changing the color of my car from wrong orange to correct orange.

I asked around and finally met a retired guy that used to run the auto restoration program at a community college. He worked out of his own home shop and worked on one car at a time. We struck a deal where I would do half of the labor for a few hours every day and more on weekends. In return, I got half off the price. I think mostly because he wanted to work on something else. I ended up paying $4k, he ended up buying his own 914. That's probably the best deal I'll ever get, and the work he did was amazing thanks partially to having open access to the college paint shop / booth. Now it's correct orange.

Enter my Barracuda. It needs paint and bad, but thankfully it hasn't rusted. Like you I've also been running around town getting quotes and just can't justify spending $10,000 on a $5000 car that maybe I could sell for $7000.

We need a new plan.

Plan A: I found a guy in Seattle that does dry ice blasting and if you remove the glass and trim yourself, the car can be stripped without leaving any media behind and won't deform the sheet metal. Cost is about $500 and takes two to three hours. If you do this, you have to get it into primer right away. I figured by doing that and buying some good materials and finding someone to do a good job of shooting it can save a lot of money and have good results.

Plan B: Enroll part time at another local community college and spend a year doing their auto-resto program. You can do your own car and here the tuition is about $2000 overall. Yes, it takes a year (but so does getting a car painted by a shop) but you can pay as you go for materials and what-not. That lessens the blow. The main problem for me is that I hate sanding. I'd rather pop out my eyeballs than do that much sanding.

Just a couple of alternate plan ideas. Food for thinks.

You're car looks great. I may condider doing a wrap. I could change colors every couple of years.

My black car ('BB') looks fine from 20 feet away. The dings, dents and scratches all add to the character. Driving it (when it runs ... ) is what counts in my book. Actually, it runs great, just need to fix the clutch cable issue

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That being said, I have a friend who's a professional body & paint guy. He's agreed to tackling the minor bodywork and repainting the '71 (no trunks, engine bay or door jambs) the original L80E color for only $1,500. I'm currently striping all the trim bits and will be dropping it off at his place when the rainy season is over

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My wife and I enrolled in an auto/body course at a local occupational center (years ago), where we learned a lot about the subject. We were able to do some minor body work on two of our vehicles ('80 Chevy LUV and a '76 BMW 530i), then had a friend who was currently working at a 1-day paint shop paint both of them. He added some extra hardener in the paint and they both came out looking great. We sold the LUV 10 years later, and it still looked great ... sold the BMW 20 years later and it still looked OK, but starting to show it's age. Wax does wonders

As others have said, that's a real good price, almost half what a "cheap" job would be here in UK.
This isn't the hobby for you.
Sell the car, buy some beer and chill.

I was straight forward but I like how you said it much better! LOL.

Tony

Had to chime in since I just finished painting my car. If I'm honest , I spent close to $5k just doing it myself. That is including all the tools (except the compressor) and supplies that I used. At home in my garage over a 3+ year period. I won't count all the rust repair work but will count installing the flares. I had 2 quotes. Both had the car being delivered to them on a rotisserie totally stripped including wiring removed. both quotes were for full paint trunks, engine bay , underside of decks and bottom. Neither quote included the price of paint which I already had. First quote $12k for narrow body. Second was to install flares and full paint $19500. Since I didn't have the $$ and wanted it nice, I went ahead myself.
So here's a bit of a breakdown to give you an idea. I used all PPG paint products, Deltron clear, Shop line color (custom mix) dp90 expoxy primer and PPg satin clear on the bumpers. rockers and roof. 3M sand paper. I also used a 20% discount at our local supplier because of my school affiliation.
I believe in buying good tool and product. My inexperience was enough of a handicap. I didn't need cheap tools or product messing me up. So here goes

1) $2200 for 4) 60 hour semesters of body shop classes. Got to do everything first with supervision before I tried it at home
2) $1400 for color, clear and special clear for bumpers. Keep in mind the bumper were painted three times before they were good. The outer shell twice and the front deck three times. After I had stripped it down to primer
3) $500 paint guns . Devilbiss starter kit primer/finish $189 and a divilbiss GTI finish gun for $320
4) $300 for paint booth
5) $400/500 for sandpaper, solvents, sanding blocks, tape, masking paper and plastic.

I couldn't have afforded the quality of job that I have. There are minor flaws because I'm a rookie. Nothing glaring. Friends who've had cars done in the last few years have either paid dearly or been disappointed with the results. I can always repair or redo if the need arises. That being said, I probably won't do another one.
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Dude... That right there? That looks KILLER! Thanks for the great explanation and congrats on an impressive result!

That is beautiful work, just beautiful. I personally appreciate the amount of effort it took to get it that nice, and I think the color combination is great

I applaud your effort Dave! Bravo!

Tony

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Thanks guys!

Great job and a beautiful car. Was the $300 for a paint booth rental or to build your own temporary paint booth?

I was penciling myself in for this summer

^^^ get in line Nice work, great color

Your car looks fantastic Dave!

To address the original post.

I was looking for a nice driver quality paint job and was fine with single stage paint.

I handled all the prep work and shot the primer. Things went bad when I tried shooting the color myself. I stopped in at a local restoration shop and talked to the owner. We sanded the botched color coat down to primer, I bought more paint and he shot the color coat in his booth.

All in, including paint X 2, primer and paying the guy to shoot color...I'm at about $950 and quite pleased with the results. The paint job is holding up well after 3 1/2 years of driving.

I see you are in Virginia. If interested, PM me for the contact info on the guy who painted my car. It may be worth a trip north.

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Hey Eddy: You have seen my clunker paint job. I agree with your assessment.

but. On a budget and living on a fixed income in a tiny one bedroom house built in 1935 on a dirt road (PCH) I can tell you that you can beat the 4 dige numbers but you have to be prepared to live with persnickety examinations at your local Cars and Coffee etc.

I built my booth in my carport with 8 dollars worth of HFT plastic and a few 2x4's to secure the booth from blowing away in the afternoon gusts....

I then purchased a disposable top load gun, a gallon of acetone, mixing cups and a few 914-event tee's cut into 6" squares. In my case, I took off the doors and the lids. Then prepped the jambs and other hidden things.

Prep is everything in any half decent paint job.

If you have a good rust free car, take it to bare metal with twenty dollars worth of sanding disks (or in my case bead blast) then have the door dings and others rolled out w/o any filler or mud. If rust issue show up fix them while it is easy.

Spend good money on a good two part epoxy primer.

After that I mixed and applied epoxy primer then sprayed a float coat to find the little imperfections here and there.

Sand to level and get ready for the pucker phase.

Do not have a beer or joint here.

This is the phase of beating-the-5k-norm-cost is beat.

I mixed up two stage paint in several batches. Have many plastic cups from the paint store ready to mix properly and efficiently.

On trunk and hood, spray flat on sawhorses. If your lovely earning Wife is away from the home, use the living room or study for curing of parts in the primer stage... and the paint stage after.

On the car prep, cheesecloth all dust away and make sure now wind storms are imminent. In my case, they showed up.

Anyway.

So clean guns and mixing pots / spray and set the part aside for the next panel. Then on to clear coat. Same thing. Clean gun and mixing cups and mix ratio is everything in success.

Once all is together, assemble everything and call in the critics.. They are everywhere.

In my case, my lovely Wife wanted a red 914 / .......verses gold..... It is red... and I saved 6K to invest in the 6 build and future paint job... . The 914 shows up at our drives with a half decent paint job and 5K in the wallet for another day.. The engine bay and body are banked on not spending money on eyeliner before the beauty pageant.

I am focused on mechanical workings of the 6 conversion. Excellent Paint can wait my rattle can will do for now and base primer is good to go with any system.

Also check the weather.................

And the total budget was under 4 bills... not 4K.........

elbow grease is king

I painted professionally for 4.5 years. It was painting for cars and parts that weren't yet into production for the OEM's. You have nothing to be ashamed of there, your paint job came out very well.

But reinstall that rear trunk light!

Painting is fussy work and certainly not for everyone. A little dust in the air can ruin hours of hard work. Price is relative and has a lot to do not only with the total cost of the car, but also with how important color and finish quality are to the owner. After all, its the first thing everyone sees.

Have you thought about painting it yourself? I did the body work and paint on this Nova in my garage. It was my first paint job. Watched a lot of videos on YouTube first. Spent under 600.00 for the paint and primer. I went for it because I don't have 6 grand laying around for a paint job. It can be done!Click to view attachment

Forrest, you give me inspiration and your car looks fantastic. Great work!

Randall
The paint booth was made of 2x2s, 6mil plastic, 4 box fans and heater filters and hinges to make a door.
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I was penciling myself in for this summer
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I didn't know you guys were lining up! hehehe Dion thinks I'm shooting his quarter and trunk when the bodywork is done. Won't he be suprised when I hand him the paint gun. PS Don't tell him.

Like the old saying goes " Speed costs, how fast do you want to spend" That includes time or elbow grease as it was stated here. Amateur painters like us have a higher chance of success if we use quality products and tools. Even pros chase their tails sometimes. They just have more experience to solve their problems. As long as your outcome expectations match your effort, you should be fine. If you don't want the mess( and there is mess involved!) and tools that you'll never use again, do what you can and hire it out.

We are all at different places in life that allows different resources and time. We all love our cars and want to have fun with them. Sometimes we can barely afford to put gas in them and other times we have lots of $$$ and time to invest. I say do what you can to enjoy the hobby. I really admire some of the posts I see here. Guys and gals who do so much with very little. There will always be people who haven't done anything willing to tell you how your project has flaws. Forget them!! There are plenty of people who are just here to enjoy there cars. I know there are plenty here in the northeast. So get out those paint guns. All you need is nerve and beer, plenty of beer!

Very cool/unique color, also very cool wheels. Nice!


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Dave-Have to chime in here...I think you might have my favorite flared car ever and it's not even assembled! The color is just awesome and the gold Campagnolo wheels match so perfectly! Really incredible!

Thanks everyone for the tips! I painted my gar in the garage too with a makeshift booth but the quality really isn't near some of the DIY jobs here. I agree with Dave on materials; I went with all PPG stuff (the mid-high grade) because I didn't want any more handicaps than experience. In the end the whole job ran ~$1200-1400k in materials and guns (I used the same Devilbliss that Dave did actually and had to repaint the whole car twice). It wasn't perfect then, but was pretty good and I was happy to drive it for a number of years. Hopefully round 2 will come out better.

Forrest:

I am completely impressed with your DIY paint job and the amount you spent on it. Well done!

Jim
Thanks and a lot. I'll try not to ruin it for you during assembly