Repainting the 914: Down to metal, always?, Curious to get your thoughts Options

[horizontally-opposed]

So I'm curious to see what the collected wisdom and experience here says -- and I'd like to hear from those who are NOT/have NOT stripped the car of every part for a "rotisserie" style restoration.

This is for those of us with running, driving 914s considering a paint job yet less than enthusiastic about disassembling the whole car.

I'd especially like to hear from Dr. 914 and others who have restored multiple 914s over time and seen how the paint jobs held up. Is a rust bubble the kiss of death for all surrounding metal?

Thanks, (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

pete

[PRS914-6]

My painter wouldn't even give an estimate until he saw the car stripped. This is a guy who previously had to come back and fix "hidden" rust in other paint jobs that were lurking under the existing finish. Once you eat a couple of those you get gun shy and he won't paint over old paint.

914's rust. Period. We all know that. When my car was media blasted we found numerous spots that were rusted that did not show with paint still on it. Several holes were blown right through thin areas that rusted from behind. My painter was quick to point out the reason of "bid after blast"

Several other good reasons apply to media blasting. The car can get primed within minutes of media blast before oily sweaty hands start touching the metal, the surface of media blast is a great bonding surface, media etches down deep in the "voids", the surface is uniform, repairs are much easier with clean metal and you can apply new materials from metal up that were all designed to work together and the list goes on......I would however not use "sand" and instead go to someone who specializes in minerals that do not generate heat as bad.

The only big negative I see is the complaint about the media constantly shaking out and making a mess. This can be resolved by spending more time while the car is stripped using an air hose and shop vac. In the long run I think it is the way to go although it does cost more.

Here is an example of what media blast will reveal....didn't look too bad until after blasting. Look inside the door handle cavity on the top. It looked perfect before blast and would be difficult to get power sanders into but showed up easily after blast.