Ironhead

Thanks. In my case, probably more like 100 cars.... For example, I have yet to clear anything without having any runs. Fortunately runs are pretty easy to fix, but I sure would rather not have them in the first place....

I am using one of these on my build: https://www.iimuch.com/ I cannot say if they work or not, since my build is not finished, but they claim to resolve precisely the problem you are talking about....

Thanks. I would do it again...so far....but that assessment has a few conditions. I have not started on the main lump of the body/chassis yet, and with all the nooks/crannys and difficult angles, it might prove challenging in its own way. Although....Most of it will also be simpler as there isn't much body work to do in the interior/engine bay/underside of the car, etc. Just a matter of epoxy prime then paint with single stage. Then, if you wanted to pay someone to do this, there is the issue of finding someone you trust. Painting a car like this, where every inch was brought to bare metal, is a big job and would be very expensive based upon time alone. It takes a lot of paint too, and I have roughly $4K invested in primer/sealer/base/clear because I wanted to use good quality product that hopefully will be durable and last. It terrifies me to think of the vast number of corners that could be cut by someone doing this job for money...which would increase their profit and not be noticable until too far down the road for them to be held accountable. Those sorts of concerns are basically why I DIY anything I possibly can....I have trust issues. It is frustrating though. Every single piece I have painted has flaws of one sort of another. They are minor, and will probably be invisible when the car is assembled, but they still bug me.

Thanks JD, much appreciated.

I finally got a coat of paint on the hood that I am going to live with. It looks great in the pictures, less perfect in person, but I am not going to repaint it again any time soon. Painting a car piece by piece....

I haven't updated in a while because I have been spinning my wheels a bit. The photos of the painted hood here represent the second time I painted it. Hopefully the pictures are of adequate quality that the problem is visible.... "Tiger Striping"....which I guess happens when noobs without painting skills (me IRL) try to paint large horizontal areas. You can see faint light/dark "stripes" consistent with the motion of the spray gun. In my first attempt at painting the hood, this problem was obvious after I sprayed the base coat so I never cleared it. The second time, I couldn't see the striping after spraying the base and it didn't really show up until I had two wet coats of clear over it. It is not "super" obvious, but it is bad enough that I cannot live with it. So I am going to have to strip the damn thing and try again. I have read a lot about "Tiger Striping", and the causes of it. Typically it only really is an issue with metallic paints, one of the reasons I chose a solid color for this car. The thinking is that to get the striping with a solid color, either your technique or spray gun setup has to be really horrendous. I mean, I have no painting skill, but I think my gun setup is at least a "B" and my technique is at least a "C-", so I'm in sort of a quandary as to what is causing this problem. Once I get the hood stripped down, I might try painting the base coat with the hood vertical instead of horizontal, then put it horizontal for the clear coat since I have no real problem with runs spraying base, and I am definitely "run-prone" with the clear coat. Any of you with painting experience have any insight? I am spraying with the gun perpendicular to the surface, with roughly 75% overlap. Spray gun fan is adjusted so that gun sprays an elongated "egg" pattern. Thanks for looking.

Yeah, you wouldn't believe in person how far off they are. How if fails to show up in a photo is beyond me... Thanks for the suggestion Jeff.

I tell ya, this painting crap can be frustrating. You asked which color was the "true" color. I have not yet repainted the smuggler's doors, but I put one of them next to the door in order to illustrate how different the two colors are. I mean, what the hell? In the photo they look pretty much identical. Again, the smuggler's doors are a different color and type of paint from the doors, which are a base/clear. I tried to match them with color chips. In the photos, it looks like I succeeded, certainly close enough considering that the two colors won't really be right up against each other. But actually looking at the two colors in person, they are freaking miles off....not even close. How is this possible? How can the camera lie so horribly? I got the cowl piece painted. This is the fiberglass version from ZTrix. It came out uuhhh.."OK", I'm not planning to repaint it or anything, but a part like this is a different painting experience from steel panels. First of all, it is nothing but compound concave/convex curves (which would be true of the OEM panel as well), so I could not figure out how to block out the flaws. You cannot really use a straight sanding block on much of this piece. I had to modify it quite a bit to make it line up with the fenders and hood, so there was a lot of bare fiberglass that I had to re-gel-coat. Then I sanded the crap out of it with flexible blocks, epoxied it, then high build primer, a bunch more sanding, then sealer/paint/clear. Fiberglass, basically being plastic, likes to build static so I wound up with a lot of dust specs in the finish. Wet sanded the clear with a flex-block, everything looking good. Then when I buffed it out I saw there were a couple of waves on the part that were invisible until I got it really shiny. F***!!!! I don't even know where they came from...a sag in the clear?...or just a flaw in the fiberglass that was invisible until the part was buffed and glossy? Like I said, I don't see myself repainting it...but with the right reflection you can definitely see it. I tried to capture the right reflection to photograph it, but couldn't....I guess that's good. Frustrating stuff though. Getting this piece fitted/prepped/painted took several days. If I ever want to have a running car I will have to live with some flaws I suppose. I guess if you want a SEMA quality paint job there is no substitute for experience. I got a bunch of assorted brackets and hinges yellow zinc plated.

Good question...complex answer... The paint on the doors is a standard two stage base/clear color. My plan was to use a tough single stage commercial fleet paint (Delfleet Essential) for the underside, engine compartment, interior, etc. The specific color code I am using for the exterior is not available in the Delfleet, so I attempted to match using color chips. This failed...the chip appeared an exact match, but once I sprayed the Delfleet on the smuggler's door and compared it with the two stage on the doors, it was miles off. Weird how that works. So, "the" color is what I painted on the doors. The smuggler's doors are either going to be covered in Raptor Liner or re-painted. I have switched to a single stage (Deltron DCC) for the underside, etc of the car that is available in the exact same color code as the two stage for the exterior. I sincerely hope it is a better match. Since one is a base/clear and the other a single stage, I am sure they will not look exactly the same, but they need to be closer than with the Delfleet..which is much darker, bluer, and more saturated than what I painted on the doors. Hope that answers your question... Thanks for the comments guys.

Doors after multiple coats of high-build primer and a lot more block sanding: Painted, clear coated, wet sanded, and polished: They certainly aren't "perfect"....but I am happy with the result. Thanks for looking.

Well, my plan is to skim coat/block the entire door (both), hopefully to correct all major discrepancies. Then I am going to put on several coats of high-build primer, switch from 80 grit to 220, and start using the guide coat at that point. I have the powdered guide coat, but I can't really use it at this point because it doesn't stick well to all the bare metal areas. We'll see how it goes....

Thanks for the input. I had epoxy down before the filler also....it all just sanded off the "high" spots as I was block sanding the door. Even with the epoxy primer on the door, I could tell very little about how straight it was, as the primer had a fairly flat finish and I couldn't get any reflection off of it. Lots of technique to this stuff. I think (hope) I am starting to get it down. One thing I learned today....unless your sanding block is absolutely rigid like a piece of wood, you don't want to apply any significant downward pressure on it while sanding....just use very light pressure letting the paper do the work. I found if I pressed down much, the block would deform around high/hard spots rather than sanding them flat. I kept filling places, then sanding them, only to find it wasn't sanding flat despite the block. Through trial and error I realized I was pressing down too hard....

I actually sprayed color on the storage bin covers....just to get an idea what it would look like....and because I could. This is the color the car will be. I have gone back and forth as to how much I liked it, but now I have bought paint...both single stage for the interior, engine compartment, underside, etc....and two stage for the exterior....so I am committed now. This IS the color.... I started bodywork on the passenger side door, because I thought it was pretty straight and would only need minor tweeks/sanding. The more I fiddled with it, the more high/low spots and flaws I saw....so I wound up skim coating the entire door with filler and block sanding the whole thing. This is the result. Let's just say it wasn't as straight as I thought/hoped. Either that or my blocking technique is screwed up. I consider it ready for primer now...so soon I should know. The pictures are a bit deceiving though...the thickest filler is perhaps .020"...maybe not even that....and most of the low spots could not even be seen or felt prior to the blocking. I am sure they would have been visible under a gloss coat of paint though... The driver's door is much worse...it will be interesting to see how it looks after this process.

TTT stuff is fairly well documented, and I am using it in my build thread.

Had I known that, I would have had the respect to keep my opinion to myself....LOL. But since I already stepped in it.... Doesn't the design introduce unwanted/unsprung/undampened "slop" and variable "windup" on braking into the movement of the rear suspension? I realize the rearmost "solid" portion of the control arm, combined with the strut, would contain most such movement. But that is only two points, it seems to me that the movable/adjustable portion of the control arm would have the same effect as an overly flexible control arm, introducing the unwanted/unpredictable movements described above....on a component wherein rigidity is the goal... I haven't had time yet to read the above link, which probably answers this question, but what is the advantage of this design vs two rigidly mounted heim joints for camber adjustment, something along the lines of the TTT rear control arms? ***Edit**** It sounds like you answered the question above....I will find time to read the thread.

Yeah, it is so toe can be adjustable. The turnbuckle next to the heim joint would be used to adjust toe, then the angle of that piece would have to slightly change, requiring the heim joint. IMHO it is a poor design however.

I don't mean to be a butt....but for those purposes any suspension would do just fine.

All good information here, I would only add that if the relevant bars are properly padded with FIA or SFI spec padding, the danger they pose would be reduced somewhat. Hitting your head, helmeted or not, on a bar with FIA padding would certainly be no more dangerous than hitting it on the stock door frame, probably less so.... As others have said, these are small cars, and for larger drivers (like me) common sense decisions and inevitable compromises are necessary if we are going to drive them at all. I lowered the seat as much as possible, tucked the bars as tightly as possible, and will definitely pad all possible contact areas. Not much else one can do, but buy a Camaro or some other larger car. A "Halo" seat would definitely be a good choice on track only cars....probably not so much on cars that are still street driven. It is just a matter of minimizing risk as much as possible, then accurately assessing whether you are willing to live with whatever danger remains.

Nothing infuriates me more than when you buy a product, bring up a legitimate issue with the manufacturer, and their response is: "Well, no one else has complained". That is a none too subtle way of saying: "You're an idiot, and I don't care what you think". There is ego, and there is business. It would be best for everyone if the two could be separated. I don't know the facts, but you would think if that many have sold, some documentation of a few of them would be on this forum. I do agree with their complaint about the original design of the T3 mount, but T3 now has an improved setup out that looks like a much better design. More money of course.

Good to hear. If my "paint booth" turns out to be too tight for the car chassis, I will have to do something very similar... I know many have done it that way. I plan to lay the clear on in multiple coats, then wet sand and polish. This would probably minimize problems caused by a few dust specs anyway.

Thanks much for the input guys, hugely appreciated... There is no doubt the biggest challenge here is space. Partly for that reason, I made the decision early on to paint the car in pieces. With the wide fenders and everything in place, the car won't really even fit through the door. The doorway into the room is 72"....stock Z is 64" wide....with fiberglass fenders installed it is more like 70", so damage would be almost inevitable if I tried to push it in/out fully assembled. The room itself is 11' X 18', so with the main car body chassis in the room stripped, I will have roughly 2.5' of space front and rear, and about 3' on each side. Not much...so I figure the car is going to have to be rolled around a bit to increase access as each side and end is painted. Also partly for the reasons above, the color I chose is a non-metallic that I am hoping will still match even if the car is painted in pieces and varying orientations. Painting the car assembled really isn't an option. Most of the car body will be covered by fenders, over fenders in the rear, hood, hatch etc...all of which will be painted separately. The only "critical" parts, appearance wise, on the main car body will be the roof, pillars, and the rear areas not covered by taillights. My basic plan is to start with small (and easily stripped if something goes wrong) parts like fenders, doors, etc....just to get my technique somewhat down and ensure compatibility of the various primers, sealers, color, and clear....although this should not really be an issue as I have chosen everything from the Deltron line so everything should be compatible. The lighting in the room is from 5000k LEDs, which should be very close to natural sunlight, so I was more than a bit surprised that it looks kind of yellow in the photographs. I have no idea why that is. It is going to be a learning curve to be sure. I have a fair amount of experience spraying paint for smaller projects...and I have some ability to spray a light coat, or a wet (but not runny) coat, but I have never painted anything the size of a car. Thanks again.

Haven't done much on the car in a while, as I have been focusing on converting a room in my shop to a cheap half-assed redneck paint booth: Each 4' X 4' plywood box slows down the velocity of the ducted air and filters it through standard paint booth air filters. One box blows in fresh air, the other sucks air out. Then the air is ducted in/out of the shop. Motion is provided by two inexpensive Chineseium "explosion proof fans". Although they are identical, I knew the blower fan would be slightly more efficient than the suction fan, mainly because the suction fan partially collapses the hose when in operation, as you can see in the final picture. All this worked surprisingly well. With both fans "on", there is a slight over-pressure in the room to prevent any dust from being sucked in. I did some calculations based on the fan specs and the size of the room, and with both of them on they should completely cycle the air in the room in less than one minute. However, the airflow in the room is still very subtle, not enough to disrupt a spray gun or anything like that. The canvas drop cloth on the floor is there not to protect the floor from spills, but to be wet down prior to painting hopefully to further suppress airborne dust. The car fits in the room with about 3' to spare all around. I wish I had a bit more room to maneuver my fat ass around while painting, but I don't. I might have to roll the car a bit side to side as I paint each side. The rack is in there from which to hang doors, fenders, and other smaller pieces for painting. It will come out when I roll the car body in. So...if anyone here has any experience painting cars...will this work? Am I going to blow up the shop? Any suggestions?