Sprucing Up The Gti And Learning To Paint.

[steve@cornwall 100]

Some of you may remember that I sprayed my trusty gti with cans a little under 10years ago. After many years of neglect and bodgery I got the inspiration to "sort it out a bit" I started by soldering and heat shrinking some bodged wiring, replacing the engine breather system and some coolant pipes and a good service!

Then came the first proper clean in a couple of years and she didn't clean up too badly

 

 

However the front was a let down

 

 

Bonnet was distorted and very faded with the too thin paint patchy

[steve@cornwall 100]

One wing had crazed badly

 

 

The other had been driven into

 

 

I also decided to go more for originality so losing the clear indicators, auto bonnet and pts spoiler is a must.

 

One problem is that I use the car daily which makes bodywork difficult as I tend to rush the finish. Where bodywork is concerned while I lack the overall talent, I will plug away and eventually get there. So off came the bits I wanted to paint, which now leaves me driving this...

http://s58.photobucket.com/user/pugfarmer/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20160816_160917.jpg.html]

 

You may notice the filler/primer on the bonnet, that's because it's the one I'm going to use, there just isn't enough room in my shed to prep a bonnet so doing the donkey work as easier mounted on the car.

Edited August 28, 2016 by steve@cornwall

[steve@cornwall 100]

So the wings, now off the car got repaired, the crazed one stripped back to bare metal and sprayed with cans again. I am very pleased wit the result

 

The bent one

 

 

 

The crazed one

 

At this point though, the price and quality of spray can paint meant something had to give! I'd bought a small compressor a couple of years ago and attempted a front end paint which whilst the results were initially promising, the delivery of the paint was more akin to spitting so I put it on far too thick, far too fast an it eventually cracked very badly.I'd bought a second hand , larger unit from eBay but not used it for those couple of years. I bought some air line and fittings, dug out what was left of the paint, and painted the vallence

 

 

 

Suitably inspired I ordered more paint! But didn't clean the gun......first mistake!

 

As you may have seen, I also stripped a painted bumper (thinners on a rag worked great) and dyed it grey. I also did one arch

Edited August 28, 2016 by steve@cornwall

[steve@cornwall 100]

Next up was the grille, no pictures yet, and the horror that is painting a large expanse of bonnet!

This was not without difficulty as I will explain later, but is shaping up well, I think

 

 

 

 

That's enough for now, more to follow

[dobboy 231 2 Cars]

Looks good. Paint job looks good from the pics.

[yorkshirekowboy 19 1 Cars]

what type of paint and rattle cans you using? very good job!

[Gaz205 50]

Is that simply a compressor and gun at home? Is the bonnet post polishing? Looks very very good

[steve@cornwall 100]

The original paint was done with rattle cans from a local factor (long closed now) because they did me a good deal on a couple of cases! It was named simply as "red 24" (May have been a different number) which was their reference for not only peugeot cherry red but also vw tornado red. Spraying was easy, flattening and polishing was not!

The new paint on the wings is halfords tornado red, as that seems more of a match than available cherry red which seems too light and bright.

The gun paint is tornado red cellulose, which of course I've had since before 2007 ;-)

 

I'm using a sip airmate compressor with 25 l tank, it cuts in quite often when painting, and a gun from a 20 quid accessory pack from toolstation.About as cheap as you can get.

 

The bonnet picture shows it half polished and half flatted, as applied it is not very smooth and I had lots of areas of dry overspray so it gets flatted with 800 grade wet and dry then down through 1500, 2000 then 2500 before cutting and polishing with meguires stage 2 (mild abrasive) then stage 2 carnauba wax. I'm still finding scratches from the sanding process when waxing, so more wet and dry until gone then re polish. It really is a Labour intensive job

 

Wings and valence were painted in the shed, which I tried without much success with the bonnet, so that was painted on top of a patio table in the back yard !! Original can job was done in the car park.

 

I'll detail some of my trials and tribulations with the painting process later, it's been a steep learning curve as you can't just point and paint like with a can! There's still a lot of learning to go, but each small improvement as you go is immensely satisfying. I'm probably going way over the top for a car that does and will spend most of its life rubbing foliage down Cornish back roads!

Edited August 29, 2016 by steve@cornwall

[Gaz205 50]

Quite inspirational ! I will be following

[Tom Fenton 1,548]

 

Not the best pic, painted by me in the garage at home. To be honest the spraying is the easy bit in terms of skill and time. The prep before and flatting/polishing after takes longer and requires more skill.

[Gaz205 50]

And that's why a decent spray job costs around 3k I guess

[steve@cornwall 100]

Painting the whole car will end up costing me between 200 _300 including the equipment. However I think I'll have well over 20 hours on the bonnet alone, and the risk that it all goes bad down the line.The last front end paint I attempted looked great at the time, but made the car look like a scrapper 6 months in.

 

 

Anyway, problems when painting the bonnet. Firstly, as said, I didn't clean the gun after use and next time around it wouldn't spray any paint at all, so with no instructions or training of any kind I stripped the nozzle and needle and cleaned with thinners and an artist type paintbrush. All went well, but I also removed the fan controller to clean behind it.

So with the gun reassembled I proceeded to paint the bonnet stood upright in the shed, the idea being to do top half one day, bottom half the day after. The paint resembled a moonscape. I tilted the gun to paint around the curved front edge and didn't notice the paint dripping from the air hole in the reservoir..........oops!"

A couple of days later I flatted it off again and after a session on the internet learning about gun adjustment I had a fiddle with the settings and tried again, this time with the bonnet flat on a patio table!, much better, much happier but the drips were still evident. More light flattening with 800 grade around a wooden block and they seemed gone. Now, I was told years ago to "look with my fingers" with body repairs, Lightly running finger tips across the area to feel the imperfections.That was one of the soundest bits of advice ever given, but my fingers weren't sensitive enough this time, although detecting the drips long after my eyes stopped seeing them. However I decided at this point to carry on and rectify later with the finishing, after all its all the same paint, isn't it?

After a few hours drying it went back in the shed, resting gently on an old sofa throw on top in my stored rear seats.

Next day was time for the next coat and on going into the shed I knocked over a sun lounger which scratched the still softish paint quite badly ....... more sanding.......grrrrrr.followed by another couple of coats. This time I scratched the front putting it away.......ffs.

 

More flatting followed and a close inspection which showed some imperfections in the original paint that I had missed before, stone chips and a couple of shallow dents/scratches. Some delicate use of un-thinned filler/primer with an artist brush filled them (have some pics that need uploading later). These were flatted off with 1500 grade wet and dry, with an old rear shocker bolt used as a small dolly.

Next mistake......once filled and flatted I put a small spray of can filler/ primer over the imperfections and flatted this off again before the final couple of coats.

For the final coats I mixed more thinners (about 70%) and started painting, looked lovely, until the filler primer reacted giving me half a dozen rosettes about the size of an egg in the finish. Nearly ready to give up here! Anyway let it dry for a couple of hours and gave it a final coat, then left it outside for the night.This was risky, balanced as it was on the patio table, with my two young springer having access to the yard at night....

Luckily all was well ! The rosettes flatted away perfectly without trace, and the process of getting rid of them as a do or die final attempt left the finish you see above. I was immensely relieved I can say. I can only assume there was too much thinners for the primer, which partially revived.

 

This brings me up to date, some flatting and polishing to do before reassembly. I have replacement bumper irons and wing stiffened to fit along with new "top hat" bumper mount in stainless. I also intend to straighten, fill and paint the bumper trim. But before I re fit it all I have the head gasket to replace, no way am I doing that I've my fresh paint!

Edited August 30, 2016 by steve@cornwall

[steve@cornwall 100]

Minor progress, too bloody rainy to get much done. But a couple of boring snaps first. After flatting the paint with 800 wet and dry I examined the finish from all angles an marked the small imperfections with marker pen, which rub off when prepping later. As said filler primer got "blobbed" on then sanded.

 

 

 

One corner was rubbed through when prepping so required a couple of extra coats

 

 

[steve@cornwall 100]

It's been to wet today so no outdoor bonnet work. I've adjourned to the shed where the light is too poor to see all the imperfections, so I switched from the finer grades of wet and dry to farecla no3 compound and the obligatory meguires. This has shown up some areas that are still showing light peel effect and some scratching from the coarser wet and dry. I need to now see tis in proper daylight, from many angles to decide whether to flat these back or, in view of how I'll use the car, call the bonnet finished.

 

[Edp 67 3 Cars]

Great job.

 

I have to say you obviously have much more patience that I do. Theres no way I could spend 20 hours rubbing down a bonnet, I'd probably manage half an hour and want to get the paint out

[Telf 224 2 Cars]

Following this with interest Steve. Looks great!

[steve@cornwall 100]

Thanks for the positive comments, This really is an education. After years of "passable" paintwork, I'm attempting a decent job, albeit with "passable" equipment.

 

I got the bonnet outside today and, quite frankly, was disappointed. From some angles the finish is extremely pleasing but from others the marks left from sanding the defects spoil it. Sanding these out has now revealed thin paint around one of the bloody "rosettes" with the primer showing through from certain angles, I tried to photograph these defects, but neither would show in the pictures. I have also pressed too hard with the flatting and left a couple of shallow indents on the bonnet crease.

 

It is, however, in better fettle than any bonnet that has graced my Gti for many years and will be fitted as is for the time being at least. Perhaps when the rest is completed I will address these blemishes.

 

What I shall take away from this is that no paper coarser than 800 grit shall be used after the final layer of primer is applied and any sanding of blemishes will be followed by another coat of paint, regardless of if appears not to need it. As said, a steep learning curve and some of the lessons are harsh.

[toolie72 67 1 Cars]

Hey it's all in the prep-that's what you pay big money for, I think your jobs fine-remember,you know where the blemishes are so to you they'll always have a flashing neon arrow pointing at them-somebody walking past probably wouldn't notice

 

I've seen plenty glossy metallic paint jobs which if you squint in the sunlight you can make out paper marks in the primer-done by professionals!!

 

Good job

[steve@cornwall 100]

Well I got fed up driving it as its been lately so have started putting it back together

 

From this

 

 

To this within very little time

 

 

Until I ran out of time, more tomorrow

 

[pugdamo 111 2 Cars]

Looking nice mate, coming together now.

[toolie72 67 1 Cars]

Looking good!! But lock block looks like my gravel haha-private parking place, clearly marked with gear/engine oil (somebody must be dripping oil outside my house-pesky,meddling kids-honest guv'nor it's not my car doing it lol)

[Telf 224 2 Cars]

Steve how did you get your wings off? I need to take mine off the GTI as I have a corrosion issue that needs dealing with.

 

I'm reluctant to remove them though as I hear many stories of bent wings etc.

[steve@cornwall 100]

These weren't sealed on after previous work, but I have had reasonable success using a thing called a Don Carlos knife (glaziers tool) and light use of a hammer. Remove bumper, headlight, indicator and all the bolts ( don't forget there's 2 behind the bumper, one in the footwell under the trim and through an access hole and the one at bottom of the wheel arch that may well be hidden under seam sealant).

 

Starting at the front seam between the wing and front panel, push or tap the front of the blade through the sealant. Then do the same for the length of the wing to inner wing, but be mindful that the front panel peaks into the wing where it joins so cannot be cut at that point. Then the most difficult, cut through as much sealant around the wing to wheel arch seam, where the wing edge is lipped. Hopefully you can now get the Don Carlos between the wing bottom and the wheel arch, starting at the bottom and gently cutting/ tapping the knife upward towards the top of the wing. When tapping, try and have the flat of your Palm on the wing directly over where you are separating the sealant, hopefully you can feel before too much pressure is used.

You can test for the point where you can pull off the wing by giving a tug up on the wing with your hand s in the wheel arch. Be mindful that the wings must come up to clear the piece of front panel that rises into the wing top, don't try to pull it outwards and off. If at all possible to do the repair with the wing in place I would definitely do so.

[steve@cornwall 100]

Today's efforts.......drivers door next I think.

 

 

Still requires "fettling" getting everything lined up correctly,n/s arch needs stripping and dyeing and bumper insert needs a refund.

[pugdamo 111 2 Cars]

Looking very good, it's so rewarding when it starts to come together. I bet it seems odd seeing it with the standard GTI front valence.