On Wed, Aug 22, 2001 at 10:48:05PM +0300, Michael Ruhm wrote:
> want to get the car stripped to bare metal and re-painted. Any (rough)
> idea(s) on
> what it's going to cost me? Would like to have a good job, but not looking
> for show car--just something that will last for awhile. Should I go ahead
> and
> pull the windshield? Not sure how much is involved in that, but the little
> I've
> seen indicates it's a pretty heinous job.
Having just played the paintjob game, I'd reccomend going one of two
ways, either full restoration (what you really want), and figure the
body&paint will cost you about $2,000, or cheapass in which it will
realistically cost you $4-500 ($250 for paint, the rest for tools,
sandpaper, bondo etc.)
Good paint will cost about $600 for the paint, that's not counting
labor costs.
Miracle/Earl Scheib/Maaco will cost $2-300 to have them paint your
car.
The quality of the paint job is primarily dependent upon the quality
of the prep. This is something that you can do yourself. How badly
is it dented? You don't want bondo any more than about 1/16"
thick. You can get a set of hammers and body dollies (hand held
anvils) for about $20. Bondo is relatively cheap. It's easy to learn
how to use, and if you make a mistake, you just sand it off and try
again.
I don't know if the roadster windsheild can be removed while still in
the frame. If not, have a pro pull and replace your glass.
Chrome strips are cheap ($45), just pull them off and replace them
with new ones.
Invest in decent tools. Pros use a DA (dual action) sander, but you
can probably get by with an electric vibrating sander.
Sit down with a piece of paper and price out everything that you'd
like to do, and decide how good of a job you want. I went the cheap
route, because my car gets driven on the track and it's silly to spend
$2,000 on body work that will probably just get crumpled in a couple
of years. If I look at the paintjob at all closely, I do cringe, but
it looks about 10 times better than it did, and since I already had a
lot of the tools, so it probably cost me less than $400.
Of course pulling the windsheild, and replacing the chrome strips
would have instantly added a couple of hundred to that. Like I said,
decide on cheap or good, and stick with your choice. If you go with
cheap and decide that you don't like it, consider it glossy primer
that makes it easy to find the dents and ripples and do a good job in
a couple of years.
Larry
--
I can't go back and change time, but I can make up for lost time.
lrc@red4est.com http://www.red4est.com/lrc
///
/// mgs@autox.team.net mailing list
/// (If they are dupes, this trailer may also catch them.)
|