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

[rick 918-S]

A couple of issues:

I have painted over factory paint stripping only the panels that needed to be stripped. By this I mean... during the process of repairing a hood panel for instance you sand and feather several rock chips that you will end up surface priming and working to fill the surface difference. Rather than take the chance the new product will soft bridge the old hard finish and cause a ring effect when the new finish is applied it's better to strip off all the paint on this panel. In the end it's the same amount of work with less change of a negative result.

Then if your car has been repainted there is no way of knowing what will happen to this recoated finish when sandwiched between a new paint system and the original finish. There is no way of knowing if the original finish was prepped well enough to hold 6 more mils of expanding and contracting top coat. An educated shop will choose not to paint over this. The additional time and expense in materials will far out weigh the risk of attempting this method of repair. Someone will need to pay for this mistake if things go wrong and 99.9 times out of 100 it won't be the vehicle owner. When they put their vehicle in the hands of the shop they expect them to know their business. BTW: this method can work fine but a wise shop owner will ask himself (at the risk of loosing the job) what if it doesn't? So when a shop tells you they don't want to paint over your old repaint they are not just wanting to charge you more money they are most likely concerned this will blow up in their face and cause an issue for both the shop and the vehicle owner. A wise shop owner can't stay in business by loosing money during repairs. So at the risk of watching a guy walk out the door you can only justify it to yourself by saying; " you can't loose money on something you don't repair" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

Then there is an issue with the chance of "creep." In order to effect a quality refinish things like bumpers, moulding, locks, handles and trim need to be removed. If there not and a new finish is applied over the original finish several things can happen. These are three of the most common creep issues that can turn you otherwise nice repaint into amature night.

1) New primer, sealer and or paint can creep under the tape job and end up on the trim, handles and other parts you do not want painted.

2) Cleaning and sanding next to the trim etc. can be diffecult. uncleaned finish holds wax and dirt. sanded old finish will not hold the new finish tightly. As the new finish dries and shrink to a tight hard surface it will chip around the unpreped area's. Again amature night.

3) And one of the worse things that can happen is the lack of a complete forensic repair from not removing the unboltable parts. This sometimes hides dorment rust. You know the kind I mean. The kind that started with a small chip, the rust starts to creep under the paint. It never really bleeds out in the surface until you chip off the crusted growth. This can be disrupted by sanding vibrations on the panels. The result can be rust creeping out from under the edge of the trim shortly after the paint work is completed. You'll see a little orange stain start to form at the edge of the trim and say; " I just paid to have that FIXED!" When infact we can't fix what we can't see but we will end up either fixing it, getting slammed for not offering a warrentee or worse not having the owner of the car take responsability for the end result.

So, in retrospect, You may need to consult a shop you trust. Listen to their advice. Don't just follow their advice like a blind man. Get a second opinion or two. Then use your best judgement. If the price is too high at the first estimate go home, save more money or work a deal with the shop to maybe pull the trim and bumpers youself to help with the cost.
Don't eliminate work the car may need based on a budget. (which I know wasn't the original question or the issue) I wandered a little but this is too complicated an issue for a click in a pole.

I hope this helped. Here's a challenge for you Pete. Take your car out and get some estimates with these idea's and concepts in mind. Then report back to us with the findings. Tell us what the shops advised you to do. Not names of shops just the advise.

Remember there's always time to do it right the second time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)