So I'm curious to see what the collected wisdom and experience here says -- and I'd like to hear from those who are NOT/have NOT stripped the car of every part for a "rotisserie" style restoration.

This is for those of us with running, driving 914s considering a paint job yet less than enthusiastic about disassembling the whole car.

I'd especially like to hear from Dr. 914 and others who have restored multiple 914s over time and seen how the paint jobs held up. Is a rust bubble the kiss of death for all surrounding metal?

Thanks,

pete

depends on your budget...............

comeing from a body shop owner........

remember you could be opening a can of worms. what you thougt was going to cost you x amount of dollars just grew by three times for metal replacement, or where someone put an inch oof bondo or... well you get the picture.

Always take care of rust. Rust bubbles will be the end of a good new paint job. If the factory paint is still there, or if there is a really good layer of paint that has adhered well to the metal its a perfect base to paint on. IMHO the factory paint if its still ok is a great base to paint on. The only worry is hidden rust (which usually seems to appear in the sail panels it seems).

This is all my opinion though, I will be repainting my car in a month or two and have stripped a lot of paint because it is rust, but did leave the well adhered paint on and am just going to scuff it well. My dad has repainted over Porsche factory paint and he thinks it a good base, just as most factory paint is a solid base to start from when repainting a car.

If its original factory paint there won't be much filler under it.

As far as stripping parts off you do want to get as much off as possible to avoid getting overspray on visible pieces. In my case this is a moot point because the car is mostly taken apart for restoration anyways.

Pete, if I recall correctly your car looked pretty good. It doesn't need painting. From what I've read, the strip decision is based on how many coats of paint are on the car and the quality of the paint used by the PO's. My car had some really cheap paint over the original. I decided to strip it down so I had a good base for the paint. You've had your car a long time so you should know its history. Obviously any rust needs to be repaired properly.

Good luck!

we just found 8 (eight!) layers of old paint on my drivers side fender. with primer and bondo, it's easily 1/2" thick ...



never ever again. from now on, it's either acid dip and nice or rattle can and don't care.

anything else inbetween just makes me wanna puke ...
Andy

Down to metal. Only way to be sure.

Besides, if we just painted our cars, they might actually get driven and not sit in our garages for years at a time. We can't have that.

Zach

This is the black widow....naked

The black widow....basic black

Focuas on the rusted sections. Not the non-rusted.

Damn, I feel disenfranchised.... I wanted to vote



Oh well, I'm gonna tell you anyway what I think, strip it to the original to get a good base and if the original is cracked or bad.. strip it all the way.

How many paint jobs up to that point, and how did you get it down as a complete car? Or did you?

Thanks!

My bud just had his 69 Camaro painted by a reputable shop. They stripped down to metal to find slightly warped door, roof, and quarterpanels which were straightened with bondo. So they replaced the panels and painted. Looks really nice in Midnight Black. Of course he dropped something north of $10K for the paint job.

For that price, I could buy 2 or 3 914s and keep the best looking one.




Spoke

For an optimum job a total strip down is probably best. If you are on original paint and there's not much bubbling rust, then you might get by with spot repair and respray over original paint.

From my experience, the total strip job yields best results and you get to put modern materials on your car like self etching primer, catalyzed primer filler, and much improved top coat paints with much better UV additives, etc.

The other thing you'll probably find if you have the car stripped (not dipped) is there's probably some light rust hiding in places you didn't know.

If possible I'd go with soda blasting the old paint off. From everything I've read it seems to be the least invasive removal method, and you can go from there.

I voted for strip it to bare metal, both here and with my wallet! I didn't want my baby to die an early death of some form of cancer. Plus the PO(s) had covered her with at least 3 different layers of so-so to crappy paint and the bondo on the drivers side and trunk lid were pretty thick!



Here you can see the shiney surfaces like fenders were soda blasted, and the dull places like wheel wells were sand blasted. blasting cost about $1K If you don't have the skills, I would budget at least $15-20K for the stripping, body work and paint! It hurts to think of it, but I think the finished result will be someting I can gaze upon with pride for many years!


a little paint archeology!


and how she looks today

A couple of issues:

I have painted over factory paint stripping only the panels that needed to be stripped. By this I mean... during the process of repairing a hood panel for instance you sand and feather several rock chips that you will end up surface priming and working to fill the surface difference. Rather than take the chance the new product will soft bridge the old hard finish and cause a ring effect when the new finish is applied it's better to strip off all the paint on this panel. In the end it's the same amount of work with less change of a negative result.

Then if your car has been repainted there is no way of knowing what will happen to this recoated finish when sandwiched between a new paint system and the original finish. There is no way of knowing if the original finish was prepped well enough to hold 6 more mils of expanding and contracting top coat. An educated shop will choose not to paint over this. The additional time and expense in materials will far out weigh the risk of attempting this method of repair. Someone will need to pay for this mistake if things go wrong and 99.9 times out of 100 it won't be the vehicle owner. When they put their vehicle in the hands of the shop they expect them to know their business. BTW: this method can work fine but a wise shop owner will ask himself (at the risk of loosing the job) what if it doesn't? So when a shop tells you they don't want to paint over your old repaint they are not just wanting to charge you more money they are most likely concerned this will blow up in their face and cause an issue for both the shop and the vehicle owner. A wise shop owner can't stay in business by loosing money during repairs. So at the risk of watching a guy walk out the door you can only justify it to yourself by saying; " you can't loose money on something you don't repair"

Then there is an issue with the chance of "creep." In order to effect a quality refinish things like bumpers, moulding, locks, handles and trim need to be removed. If there not and a new finish is applied over the original finish several things can happen. These are three of the most common creep issues that can turn you otherwise nice repaint into amature night.

1) New primer, sealer and or paint can creep under the tape job and end up on the trim, handles and other parts you do not want painted.

2) Cleaning and sanding next to the trim etc. can be diffecult. uncleaned finish holds wax and dirt. sanded old finish will not hold the new finish tightly. As the new finish dries and shrink to a tight hard surface it will chip around the unpreped area's. Again amature night.

3) And one of the worse things that can happen is the lack of a complete forensic repair from not removing the unboltable parts. This sometimes hides dorment rust. You know the kind I mean. The kind that started with a small chip, the rust starts to creep under the paint. It never really bleeds out in the surface until you chip off the crusted growth. This can be disrupted by sanding vibrations on the panels. The result can be rust creeping out from under the edge of the trim shortly after the paint work is completed. You'll see a little orange stain start to form at the edge of the trim and say; " I just paid to have that FIXED!" When infact we can't fix what we can't see but we will end up either fixing it, getting slammed for not offering a warrentee or worse not having the owner of the car take responsability for the end result.

So, in retrospect, You may need to consult a shop you trust. Listen to their advice. Don't just follow their advice like a blind man. Get a second opinion or two. Then use your best judgement. If the price is too high at the first estimate go home, save more money or work a deal with the shop to maybe pull the trim and bumpers youself to help with the cost.
Don't eliminate work the car may need based on a budget. (which I know wasn't the original question or the issue) I wandered a little but this is too complicated an issue for a click in a pole.

I hope this helped. Here's a challenge for you Pete. Take your car out and get some estimates with these idea's and concepts in mind. Then report back to us with the findings. Tell us what the shops advised you to do. Not names of shops just the advise.

Remember there's always time to do it right the second time.

thank you for the consideration. We always say that if the 914 still has the unmolested factory finish (meaning no cracking of the original finish) that we can prep and paint over it. When the cars were painted at the factory the metal prep was the best and cannot be duplicated. If the 914 has been repainted, we ALWAYS media blast to bare metal. If the factory finish has rusted areas they can be spot stripped and worked. Obviously if there are many of them, we media blast the whole car to bare metal. Paint products these days are superb compared to yesteryear. Another point is that we always base coat clear coat to avoid fading. These type finishes (polyurethene paints) seem to last forever!

Pete, this exactly what I am having done now. Should have my car home mid Mayish. The car was taken down to bare metal. I had some minor rust issues and a very bad respray over the orginal paint. Shelby Chan (flatout on this site) is doing the work. I pulled my bumpers, taillights & front turnsignal buckets, chrome trim, old seals, locks and a few other small items. I also removed the seats, back pad, carpet and a few others things just to make sure nothing else needed to be repaired.

I drove 5 1/2 hours one way to get my car to her. Yes, they were closer shops around here, but everyone I went to made me feel like I was bothering them with my NARP. I heard about her work here on the site and contacted her. I won't tell you the price, that is up to Shelby, but let's just say it was very very fair.

I am sure she will be getting a lot of PMs & calls after I post pictures when my 914 is done.

The black widow was an original black 74. I purchased hte car from Dan Root, It appeared that just one repaint(very poor) was applied to the car.
I stripped the car and a couple of people hand sanded the car to what you see in the pic.
The body had no bondo or patch panels or rust. All of the lids and doors were removed for paint and reinstalled for proper alignment.
CCLIN914NATION

I just had this conversation with a custom car painter. His opinion coincides with George's. Few can duplicate the quality of the original factory prep. Of course a show quality job requires a all encompassing prep and paint, but that is a lot of $$ and/or time. My SoCal, garage stored for the last 12 years 914 is an exceptional example, so I will likely paint over the original paint. The one door that has bondo/repair will go down to metal.

Andys

I've been pondering the same questions myself, so glad to see all those with experience weighing in here.

I'm also wondering if the experts can offer their insights on prep method for a less-than-rotisserie repaint. Assuming the car has only removable exterior components removed (trim, seals, etc.) but is not a tub, obviously dipping isn't an option. Can a car still be sand/media blasted like that? Anyone have any experience with "homestyle" media balsters (I suppose it would be the ones that use the dissolving media)? If you are going the labor-intensive route and useing sanders/sanding blocks and paint remover, is this really feasible to get down to or close to bare metal on a car with 3 or 4 coats of bad paint?

Sorry Pete if this is a highjack, seemed like a close enough issue to include it here.

By reading this post you will know how I voted.

I am not a professional body person by any means, but have painted a few cars and helped with several others.

I have done some spot repairs, and with my experience and skill level, I find it necessary to go down to bare metal and start over. Here are a few reasons:

1. I am too tight to send my car off to be painted. (They wouldn't do the prepwork that I will do anyway.)

2. When doing spot repairs, I can never seem to totally eliminate all visible evidence of the repair. For me, it's easier to do the whole panel. No blending, no feathering, etc.

3. When I spend the time to repaint, I don't want it to blister in a few years. I really don't want to have to EVER repaint it. The only way to be sure of your substrate, is to remove all prior coatings and start over.

4. Metal prep is metal prep. When the 914 bodies were new, they were e-coated. The original e-coat would and does provide a very nice start point, but today's etching primers are a good starting point as well.


just my humble opinions

There is a LOT of good info filtering into this, and all on a positive note. Keep it coming.

Thanks!

pete

If your car has a few layers of paint, thats good because you can block snad it until its perfect. If you have rust issues, then that requires alot more work or money. It all depends on application also. My new car will get block sanded, roller painted and color sanded. I can do a little at a time and it should come out great for a track car.

I too was worried about being able to get as durable a paint job as the factor, and also about removing paint from areas where I could never replace it. So I dipped my doors, engine lid, and headlight covers. Then I had the trunk lids blasted, to keep the paint plus Ziebart intact in the channels.

That pretty much left the four fenders, and after cutting them out for flares, there wasn't much of them either. My car had been repainted, back in '80, so I could hand sand the fenders and use the different paint layer colors as a depth gauge. I took it down to a mottled mix of original primer and original color, mostly primer.

My car was virtually rust-free. Trunks and engine compartment were Zeibarted after that repaint in '80. Terrible stuff to live with, especially in the trunks, but after soaking it off with solvent and rags, it had done it's job. I left it on the undersides, just cleaned it and freshened up the wheelwells.

Every car is different and needs its own strategy. The hybrid approach worked for me.
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I don't think you need to remove all the old paint.. just get a nice, thick napped roller and paint right over that rust, dirt and anything else you happen to find.


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Then the owner sees his car and ends up looking kinda like this...


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Seriously.. with cars as old as ours, you almost have to take them to bare metal to get them right. After 35 or more years, you don't know what horrors could be hiding under the seemingly original paint.

Hi Jim, looks great!

I got your pressure plate and flywheel.

Hijack over....

My paint process was very similiar to JK76.914 in Massachusetts. My goal was to save as much money as possible by doing some things myself. I had a body man working out of his home garage & was able to support him by taking parts to outside services for paint removal. I took the engine lid, hood & trunk lids, doors, rocker panels, splash pans & anything sheet metal to a local paint removal dipping operation for paint removal. They dipped the parts for paint removal & dipped in a neturalizing solution which I highly reccommend. My body man stripped all exterior sheet metal to bare metal. We didn't remove any orig. paint inside cavities like the (2) trunks, engline compartment, gas tank area & only some of the interior areas like the floor. My 914 was rust free so things worked out very well. After all sheet metal pcs came back from the dipping operation we used a metal etching primer (I think DP-40) primer on all the cars bare metal surfaces. This metal etching primer is a must do before the paint process begains. Be sure to follow the mfg's instructions to the letter. Along the way during metal straightening I used an Indian Ink wash (see Photo) to show low spots in the lasher straight finish.

Summary:
I believe I was able to save lots of labor costs by taking removable pcs. to be acid dipped saving lots of labor costs. I also believe don't do a thing to interior surfaces because the factory paint systems are good. Only remove exterior paint surfaces to bare metal.

Tom
BTW: The painting of my restoration was one of the most flusterating tasks of my restoration. Went through the paint guys divorce, sickness, job loss & finally he ended up stealing money from me. I trusted him at the paint store to bill me direct for paint supply's he said he needed. He painted a few Harley's on my money. The best part, I got a beautiful professional paint job & no longer talk or reccommend this paint guy. Painter's are wierd people!!!

I took 2 different approaches on my 2 cars. Both cars have complete color changes.

For the interior, underside, engine compartment and trunks I used a 60 psi media blaster and took multiple layers of old repaint down to the original paint. It was amazing how much tougher the original paint is then the repaints. (60 psi won't cut through the original very well) Once at the original paint, the media blasting left a rough enough surface to put on a good epoxy primer. Any areas that needed rust repair were done first. The outer fenders were all taken down to bare metal then primed with epoxy primer before the bodywork was started. This way I knew the outer shells would last and if I have to do a later trunk repair, who cares.
So far no signs of rust anywhere.
BTW by the time my GT car is done I don't think all that FG and bondo will rust.

There is only one way for sure to know what the base is and that's to strip everything off, but it needs to be done with care. First comes the blouse, then then skirt, oh yah, this is my car, first comes the layers of mistakes made by po.

So... why did they rust so much??

That was pretty much my experience

It has been said that there is no such thing as a rust free 914.
So the obvious extension to that is painting over the rust is only going to be a temporary solution.

If it is going to be a "keeper", then you may as well spend the time and/or money to do it properly.

Otherwise leave it as it is and

cheers
Gaz

They don't typically rust starting on the exterior side of the painted panels. They either rust from the backsides of the panels, the bottoms of the chassis, or when the paint has been completely compromised, either by things like battery acid or a few decades of neglect.

Anyways, IMO, it really depends on the particular car, although as time goes on, more and more 914s are going to need a pretty thorough takedown of all the paint. 15 years ago, there were still a good number of non-significantly-rusted original paint 914s that just needed an exterior respray of the paint. (There still are some in California, although even that number is dropping.) For a solid car like that, I'd rather retain as much of the factory primer (and below) as possible.

As you start to get into rust issues, cars with 30 years accumulation of bad body repairs which are now carrying 50 lbs of bondo on them, a dozen layers of paint, etc., and cars where the original paint system has otherwise completely broken down, you have to go much further.

The paint guys I used to talk to always said that you will never get a primer coat as good as the one the factory put on, so why strip it off if you don't have to.

They also talked about bleeding, said they would discourage doing a color change on a red car, even if stripped. They seemed to think you could never get all the red out and it would bleed on the first rock chip.

YMMV.

Sounds like they huffed too much paint in their time. How would a stripped to bare metal chassis "bleed" red through.

Definitely some brain damage there.



Just a question for you folks who think the factory primer was next to perfect:

If the factory applied primer was so good, then why are there so many rusty 914's????

I have to agree......Paint has come a long ways in 35 years. The coatings are so much better now. Why not take advantage of that?

Pete already knows how I feel about this one. I would be reluctant to paint a car this old and not get it down to bare metal. Just too many unknowns hiding.

On my car there were a few blisters that turned into complete rust throughs after it was media blasted. You couldn't tell until it was blasted. If they were painted over, the rust would have crept through the new paint.

The downside is to go to bare metal, the entire car has to be stripped and it triples the price of the job. If you knew positively (and I don't know how you could) that no rust existed under the OEM paint, I can't see a problem with a re-spray. If you miss a spot of rust and it bleeds through, you wasted all the money initially spent and still have to strip it.

It's a tough decision if you are on a budget.....

This is a tough one, I think it ultimately depends on the car, who's doing the work, and the quality of the materials being used. I took all of the auto body/paint classes that the local JC had to offer and they were ICAR backed classes. I was able to keep my chassis at the school and strip it down via DA to bare metal, epoxy primer each panel as soon as I reached metal to prevent any oxidation, installed flares, smoothed it all out, and final paint in the schools booth.

First of all, lets talk about the factory paint. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they dipped the cars in primer, so it "should have" covered every surface and crack. Obviously over time this barrier has subsided to the elements. In most cases, its due to rocks chipping the paint, battery acid, and normal chassis flex during use which creats openings at the seams. You only need to go to metal where oxidation has taken place or massive amounts of bondo was favored above spending more time/money "fixing" the dent correctly.

Some of these chassis have MANY paint jobs. My chassis started life signal orange, forget the second color (black maybe?), then back to signal orange, and then again, then I think a red, and finally maroon metallic. Depending on the quality of the respray, I wouldn't want more than 3 paint jobs on a car. At that point I'd at least take it down to the previous paint job and lay down the new coat.

Now assuming for the moment we're going to keep a few layers of the factory paint and only focus on the oxidation and any thick filled areas. Take those to bare metal and bondo or epoxy primer, then spray your sanding primers and smooth out the panels. Sounds easy right? Here in lies a surrounding problem. The old paint will actually soak up the solvents from the new primers and paints. This causes the new paint to shrink and/or crack which can ruin the final paint job if the chassis is rushed from start to finish. To prevent this from happening, light initial coats along with waiting longer between coats to give the solvents more time to be absorbed by the old, and then evaporate from both.

For future projects I am more inclined to leave a few factory layers because I simply don't see the purpose of spending the extra money in sanding materials.

All that being said, if the chassis was special enough like the original 6's or even race history (I know they're all worth saving, but some more than others), I would consider acid dipping. Wurth, along with others like 3M make phenomenal tunnel sealer spraying tools. They work by sticking a small, long flexible tube as far up in the tunnel from an access hole. Then you pull the trigger and pull the tube out slowly while spraying a 360deg fan coating of a wax/primer. Being unable to coat those parts is the only thing that would keep me from an acid dip.

Well, thats all i know at the moment. Cheers, Don.

I've got a factory 1970 914-6 that was originally signal orange, and has at least two paint jobs over that. The white spray may have been okay, and they left the trunks alone. The black paint job was at best sloppy, and at worst came out of a rattle can. There's overspray all over the car, including the driver's window -- couldn't even be bothered to take a scraper to that -- and the interior carpets. The black is now flaking off the original signal orange in the rear trunk and engine bay.

My inclination is to take it to bare metal, removing everything. Since this car already has a slant nose and swapped motor, I'm not trying to keep it factory original or anything. But I do want it to last, and I don't want to have to do anything over again due to quality issues.

I've figured I'd get it soda blasted everywhere reachable. I haven't reached a sufficient level of comfort with acid dipping the tub, or perhaps I should say I lack confidence in the neutralizers being 100% effective. How to treat or coat the underbody, inner rockers, trunks, fenderwells, and all the hard-to-reach nooks and crannies is still an open question.

So I expect to wind up with a rotisserie-type bare metal strip and build-up, and may God have mercy upon my checkbook...

1st two 75's I restored, I just sanded down to good solid factory paint and stopped...Both later had rust seep through in places we thought were solid...

Current 73 model (Speed Yellow) was torn down to "tub on a furniture dolly" condition, media blasted to bare metal and we found rust damage in places we thought were solid...

Moral of the story, rust is sneaky and hides better than you thought...Take it to bare metal so you can find all the hidden rust and repair before paint...

You can fix it now or fix it later, but your gonna' fix it...

2-OH!

Beneath this decent looking paint (redone in 1979) lies the reality of rust.

What about cars that have the Chalon body conversion on it? I have it, but it's been painted 17 times. I have been working on sanding it down as best as possible. All of the metal on the body is gone, except the doors, hood and trunks. The original paint is still there and I had some very very minor rust problems, but my hood is just too rusted underneath it to fix. Should I just get the fiberglass hood as well and not have to worry about rust there anymore, seeing how the whole body is also fiberglass? The rear trunk is perfect and so is the doors and engine cover.

Click to view attachmentI'm on my second strip job now, first was my 74, now my75. I'ts a HELL OF A LOT OF WORK....did you get the emphasis--Not for the faint of heart.

Also consider, after you strip and re-work the body, everything else looks like crap, which leads you down that slippery slope of refurbish/replace/$$$$$$.

Lastly, once you determine the bottom line for your budget, double or tripple it and then you are closer to reality.

If this is THE 914 you love, then you will proabaly never be really happy with it wthout a bare metal resto, otherwise, turn a blind eye and spray away!!

I will (and have ) vote for the bare metal with a few places left un touched. I also give a BIG thumbs up for the soda blast....did it with mine and it rocks!! $$$ but can be done in your driveway.

Josh

Depends on the car...
Factory primer is tough...
If you strip out all the paint how good is the new paint coverage in say the insides of the doors?
Lots of pros and cons...

Hey Pete,
I don't know if you remember the details of mine, but I got the body down to the factory paint and addressed specific areas/dents from there. The doors/lids I paint stripped to bare metal. I then took it to the body shop. I really had no rust on the body. It still looks really good today. The paint is 13 years old this month and I still get compliments. Color sanded, acrylic enamel. $1,600
Andy

OK, WTF with the date?

My screen says May 14, 2008 for the last post by kreiger914

Now it's back to March 19, 2010...

Did I just travel backwards and forwards in time????

Um.... except for yours, just now, the last post on this thread was May 14, 2008. Perhaps this thread got bumped by a new poll reply.

We really need to shut polls older than X months.

Well it popped up to the top of the thread list with a date of today....

One more thing, I read all the comments in a thread and it's still flagged as "unread"

Alien invasion? Time vortex? Magnetic discontinuity? Kali Triangle?

No. McMark nailed it. It's a POLL ...

Every time someone votes in a poll, the thread get's bumped to the top. They don't need to actually post anything in the thread.

So, someone is digging through old threads and votes in polls that have been dead for years thus bumping them to the top of the list.

If it shows up as "unread" again, all that means is that someone else has voted in the poll after you read it.

Andy