Guest bastaad525 Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 Hopefully gonna get my car down to the paint shop today. Nothing fancy, just going for a $200 One Day paint job.... I know some might cringe when I say that, but trust me it cant be any worse than the patchy, oil stained primer that's on there right now... I'm not expecting miracles but at least something that I wont be ashamed to say is mine. I'm most likely going to go with dark, charcoal gray (non metallic). The other options I like are dark navy blue and dark forest green. Anyways, that's not the thing I need help on... I need help deciding on a few things that I"m thinking I may want NOT to be painted... these are things I think I've seen left a different color on other Z's, that sometimes looked nice. 1. on the hood, which is a late style 280z louvered hood, I'm thinking of leaving the louvers primered black 2. the front of the car, I have a poly air damn, which I'm thinking of also leaving primered black 3. the 'removable' rear panel that encompasses the tail lights and license plate... also thinking of leaving primer black please give me some oppinions guys if I should leave any or all of these black or should just let the whole thing be painted. I'm right now leaning 90% towards the charcoal grey color, so I know the black wont even be that noticeable against the grey, which I kind of like that idea even more. Opinions please! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 Remove anything you don't want painted, trim on the windows, the rain gutter trim, hell I'd even remove the door handles and locks, headlights, emblems, etc. Those places are notorious for doing a bad masking job, so you've got the old color creeping out from every corner where they did a poor tape job. Sounds like it won't be too noticeable considering the color of your primer is pretty close to the color you want to choose, but still, it is annoying (trust me). I always liked the black or dark air dam, flares, and tail light panel myself. Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim240z Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 It's personal preference. Since the panels are removeable, you could have them painted, then if you don't like them the same color, take them off and repaint them whatever color U want. If it was me, I would have the car painted white. It hides all but very major imperfections in the bodywork. Also, make sure that all of the oil and grease is out of the primer......I bet the shop won't be all that fussy about removing it. Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 yeah I'm thinking the air dam 100% for sure... it gets too dinged up to paint anyways. The tail light panel ... hmmm... yeah it looks good staying primered in my head... I may do as Tim suggests, let them paint it, and if I dont like it it's easy enough to take back off and primer myself. what about those hood louvers? I figure there's gonna be some overspray... actually though I have a friend who got his car painted at this very place, and said for the money he was very surprised about how thorough they were. He gave me the name of the guy to ask for. His car did come out pretty dern nice.... and that is part of the reason I want to go with the charcoal grey so that anything they do miss will just blend since the car is primer black but it's really just dark grey now too.... As far as any of the chrome trim... none of it is very clean anyways... I dunno I'm really not stressing it. Tim - ugh... white??? I agree it hides a lot of stuff but... ugh. Also I did ask about what they do about getting the grease and oil out, the guy told me (and this guy I talked to is about the coolest person I've ever talked to over the phone EVER!!!) that they will wash it with a degreasing chemical and then hand sand it down lightly... again my friend attests to having a good experience here. Bottom line... I'm not expecting it to be near perfect, and I'm not expecting it to last too long either... I'm only paying $200, and I fully expect to get no more than what I pay for. This is only a temp thing anyways until I can save up some decent money to get the body all straightened out and get a real paintjob. In the meantime I just want the extra rust protection and a car that just isn't so damn butt ugly (not that a 240 can ever really be ugly). The funniest thing is gonna still be that all the exposed painted interior and door jambs and stuff are still factory orange... I've actually so used to seeing that orange whenever I opena door or anything, against the dark grey background... I dont know why but it actually looks kinda cool to me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim240z Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 For the jams, just back tape it and hit it with matt black rattle can. As for the hood vents, I think the contrast that breaks up the color on the hood looks nice (as you can see from mine). Take them off before you take the car in. Clean them up nicely and shoot it with bumper black rattle can. just my opinion. Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 Yeah I saw how you masked the inside when you painted your door jambs, easy and effective... I've been thinking of that ever since I saw your car like that last time I was there. I'll get around to it one day.. again I dont know why but the contrast of the bright orange showing when I open the doors... just appeals to me I dont know why! I see a theme here about taking stuff off that I dont want paint on... these guys are really that bad huh? Actually Tim I like your first suggestion... it would be easier to just let them paint everything, and then if I want to change anything of the parts I asked about back to flat black, I can easily remove them from the car and do so. This way I can actually see how it looks and choose at that point. It shouldn't be a problem to paint flat black primer over regular paint would it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted November 20, 2003 Share Posted November 20, 2003 w000000t dropped the car off, should be ready by early tommorow afternoon... SWEEEEEEEEET. Well, the grey they had wasn't nearly as dark as I thought it'd be... I was thinking charcoal grey as in the color of charcoal before it's burned, but this ended up being the light ashy grey of post-burned charcoal, so that color was out. It was a really hard decision between the dark navy blue and the dark green, which was actually very close to british racing green. I wanted the green because I"ve seen it on many Z's, but when I took the plates outside the blue just looked sooooo much nicer next to my car. So navy blue it is. It's kind of odd because I think blue is one of the few colors that I have NEVER seen on a 1st gen Z. I've alway seen them in white, black, grey/silver, orange, red, green, or yellow. The color looked great though... I can't wait to pick it up. I also expressed some concerns to the guy about shoddy work... he was more than happy to show me some of the recently finished cars and cars in progress... I didn't really see problems with overspray on a couple of the cars they had just finished... if there was one tip off that they were cheap paint jobs it was the texture of the paint, it wasn't a nice glossy clear coat... rather, it was single stage paint and was a tad rough textured, the guy referred to it as "orange peel" texture. That will not bother me at all though, I'm not worried about it. Anyways, I ended up asking them to leave out the front air dam, and the rear tail light panel. I'll have them paint the hood louvers for now and see how it looks, but I will probably pull them off and paint them flat black again later. Now I just cross my fingers... please please please let this paint job be left alone by my bad luck and dont let it be a magnet for idiot drivers... I swear if someone dings me after this I will seriously injure them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ON3GO Posted November 21, 2003 Share Posted November 21, 2003 did u pick it up? any pics? im sure it will look great in blue.... i dont want any more green Z's around here anyways mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted November 21, 2003 Share Posted November 21, 2003 DOH!! The honest truth is, when the guy told me some of the colors over the phone, I had already narrowed the choices down to those three colors (grey, green, blue). I kept thinking that I probably wouldn't like the grey, so it would be between the green and blue. ON3GO... I kept looking back at pics of your car and thinking... damn that color is nice When I first got there I was ready to say green, but my friend kept leaning towards blue, then I called my g/f on the phone... she said blue too. Then I took the samples outside... the blue looked really nice in the sun... the green was very flat and reminded me of a chalkboard Not at all like your car... so I was sold on the blue. Green has always been one of my top choices for a Z but I want a nice deep, forest or emerald, metallic looking green, not just flat green like what they had... so blue won out. I hope it ends up looking okay....... So is it just me or are there NO dark blue 1st gen Z's out there?? I swear I can't say I've EVER seen one! Man the suspense is killing me I can't wait until tommorow!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted November 21, 2003 Share Posted November 21, 2003 Oh and I WAS gonna do two racing stripes until they told me that it was only gonna cost me the small sum of EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB_BA Posted November 21, 2003 Share Posted November 21, 2003 The racing stripe on my 280zx cost a grand total of $25. YES, it was paint, and YES it was good paint... $800 for racing stripes? I'd use some white out... j/k JB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ON3GO Posted November 21, 2003 Share Posted November 21, 2003 THEREs alot of dark blue Z.s i have tons of pics.. let me no if u wanna see them. mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 1975yellowBSPZ Posted November 21, 2003 Share Posted November 21, 2003 So is it painted???? I got lost somewhere around the color blue.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted November 21, 2003 Share Posted November 21, 2003 I pick it up in a few hours... man I can't wait. ON3GO - yeah I figure there's got to be a lot of them out there... but damned if I can remember seeing maybe one or two, and I remember those were 280s, with that sick bluish green color that reminds me of the 80's so much. I did hunt around and also Phyte posted some really nice pics on another thread of mine... man I hope it comes out looking half that nice. At least now I can picture blue on a 240 though dont know why my brain just couldn't compute that for some reason... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ON3GO Posted November 21, 2003 Share Posted November 21, 2003 well man if u have AOL IM message me.. i can shoot lots of pics of Z to ya and we can chat too. mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PETEW Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 Well, were are the pics. I want to see some of the freshly painted Z. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 no no pics... I'm like the only person in america who doesn't have a digital camera it seems! It did come out pretty nice, better than I expected for the price, for sure. I'm happy with it Now I just hope the smell goes away soon... makin me dizzy! I may be getting a cam soon (maybe for xmas?) if I do get my hands on one you can bet taking pics of my car is first thing on my agenda There is one downside to the paint job though... it has made me aware of just how many dings this car has... many many that I never knew were there. So when the time comes for me to get a 'real' paintjob man there is gonna be a lot of work that needs to be done. The thing looks like it was used for target practice to test the accuracy of a batting cage pitching machine.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim240z Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 Bryan, If you want to take a ride down the 405 tomorrow, I can snap some pics for you and host them. (BTW, that's why I suggested White. It would have hidden many of those dings) Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 heheh Tim I forgot to write on my last post, how right you were actually I DID consider it while I was at the paint shop, I've seen a few white Z's and they aren't bad at all... but in the price category I was looking (which was the lowest one, poor bastard that I am) the closest they had was an off whitish or creamish color and I wasn't having it. They also had yellow which I considered, but then when I took outside it didn't look so good... it was that faded banana-creme-pie yellow, not that nice bright yellow that is so common these days. Really the choices weren't so great... and to be honest, I really did not know the thing was THIS dinged up it's okay though it still looks nice, and anyways I was never really going for show car quality.. it's a 20 footer, for sure, but it sure looks GREAT from 20 feet I'll settle. I mostly wanted this for protection from the coming rainy season, also to protect against grease a little better, and also to get some damn respect!! NOW when some mechanic works on my car I have a reason to get on them about being careful with it! For some reason people think if the car they are working on is primered they can just take the liberty to ding and dent it, just throwing tools all over the place, and to place their dirty hands all over it and leave handprints. I HATE that! Now I have reason to tell these guys not to do that crap. Also Tim thanks for the offer but no can do tommorow I would DEFINATELY like to get some pics for posterity before it gets all screwed up, which I'm sure wont be long, but I wont be home from work until 10am, then I gotta get my 8 hours, then it's off to my girlfriends brothers girlfriends grandmas birthday party (I'm not even exaggerating) and from there straight back to work at night. Maybe next weekend? I'll hit you up again like next thursday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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