Repainting an old car can be a rather complicated task and we shouldn’t do it in a low-buck paint shop. However, it isn’t necessary to find high dollar restorers that promise perfect results. It is actually possible to have a successful budget paint job by properly prepping our old car. In this case, we should avoid damaging old paints of our 1953 Corvette or Shelby GT500. We need to analyze our existing paint and determine whether the current paint condition is good enough for further steps. It is important to look for signs of peeling, bubbling and cracking. If we have problems with existing paints, we should make sure to repair it first.
Proper steps to repair old paint layer us by sanding the damaged external layer until the base is exposed and we could apply a primer or stable paint. However, some old cars can have badly damaged paint layer that we need to repair it down to the bare metal. This could increase our overall costs and labor. When checking the paint, we should be realistic and we shouldn’t deliberately ignore damaged areas. If one area is damaged, no matter how good we apply the new paint layer, we won’t get perfect results. Eventually a car will reach a point of decay and we need to perform major restoration task to reverse the process.
As an example, if we see many bubbles on the car surface, that it is an indication that rusts is developing on the chassis. This will require some more intensive works, because rust could spread like a cancer to other parts of the car. The first thing that we should do is to cut the rust and prevent it from progressing. There are chemical rust removers and they could do a very good job in this area. However, we should be aware that rust will start to develop once again, because it could start from the other side of the metal chassis. If our budget is limited, we should know what kind of rust converter that we should choose.
After we have made sure that the surface of the old paint is appropriate, then we need to make sure that the existing paint layer is bonded strongly to the surface. By making sure that the underneath paint layer is in good condition, we should be able to cut the overall cost down. In this case, we should have the patience and skill to perform the task. Bodywork on old car can be time consuming, especially if we want to retain the old condition. Improper shortcuts could result in problems that look like a sore thumb, so we shouldn’t be tempted to do this. We should understand that improper tasks could significantly the overall costs. The next thing that we need to do is to strip the car and remove things like side mirror and other decorative accessories, like chrome bumpers and others. After taking everything off, we should be able to get more consistent and better coverage.