well my High School grad gift was a paint job on my camaro. my dad and I are spending this week (my college spring break) painting it. I dont have to pay for any of it b/c thats the gift part of it. anyways, I figured I'd throw up some pics after day 1 of body work/bondo and how ugly my car is now ha

 

yeah thats what mine looked like after i sanded it down. it took me like a month to sand it down, did it on my off days

 

im putting a new front bumper cover on there as well. its been the biggest PITA

 

yeah i fixed mine, but it took a long time

 

FYI, the side door window weatherstrip comes off easily by sliding a plastic trim tool under and applying firm pressure upwards, they are just clipped in and will clip back in. Please don't tape around them, remove everything you can. I work at a body shop and far too many cars that have previously been painted come in and the paint is failing because the painters taped moldings and weatherstripping off instead of removing them. The exterior sail panel (triangle) is easier and should also be taken off.

I did my v6 not long ago and had to drive it around in it's several stages, all of which had no spoiler, like your picture, I bet that looked funny on the freeway.

Are you painting it a new color?

 

yeah its going to be red

which is another pain in the ***. meaning I have to paint door jams and I wont be able to paint the engine bay till I pull the engine later on.

 

Thats a nice graduation gift.

 

Please please listen to him, they aren't hard to take off. Kind of a bitch to get back in without them popping back out when you close the door but very very much worth the trouble.

 

What did you use to sand the car down?

 

I took off the weatherstripping today. it wasn't too bad. but I can tell putting it back will be a pain in the ***.

I sanded it mostly with random orbital sanders. 1 thats pneumatic s/p? made by kobalt that eats it away quick. then for smoothing it out, I use an electric dewalt random orbital sander. oh and of course by hand as well for the tight areas.


edit*

tomorrow (day3) we will begin taping it off and priming it for the first time.

 

It seems really weird to paint a blue car red when there are thousands of red Camaros out there, but if that's what you want, that's what you want! I hope it's at least some sort of custom metallic red, like 2008 Corvette Crystal Red Metallic Tintcoat.


It'd be a good idea to get your exhaust tips refinished too so they look brand new. I'm not sure how you'd go about that though. I suppose you'd get them powdercoated.

I'm glad it looks like you're leaving the roof black like I think a true Z28 should always have. Are you going to have the clearcoat resprayed though? If it's still the original clearcoat, you're due for a new spray. My car has been garaged 80 to 90 percent of its life, yet the factory clear on the roof is finally showing age.

 

well I dont really like my tips so im not going to refinish them. im just going to have to pick some out that I like better. as for the roof, I am keeping it black. I dont like when they are painted. We did sand it down and primed it though. its going to repainted glossy black and cleared with the rest of the car after paint. we haven't purchased the paint yet so I need to pick out a red soon. that corvette red looks nice. I am tired of blue. blue is my favorite color but I want something different.

 

after first coat of primer. we removed the hood so I could sand the underside of it and primed it seperately. The driver side front fender was removed so I can replace it. it was damaged so Im puttin a new one on there. It will be sanded and primed after I get another one. heres the pics...

 

Do you have a booth? Or are you doing this all in your back yard?

Sorry for all the questions but I am slowly but surely starting to get into painting cars and the more info I can get, the better.

 

I'd be willing to bet done outside, considering its still all masked up.