I have a used front end i've been meaning to have painted and installed. In an effort to save a buck, i'm thinking of doing the prep work myself. here is the scenario - it has already been painted a pearl white, and has very minor damage to the gel coat. What would i have to do, besides bondo the one damaged area, to prep the thing for paint? is it necessary to sand all the existing paint off, or could it stay on?

Give me some tips here. :-D

i would wet sand all the clear off and like the first layer of paint. use like 800 or 1000 grit sandpaper and you should be good. theres a lot of places here in houston that will give you a good deal to do all the work for you. this guy is fixing my hood and repainting it with my bumper for $250 and i have a red car. he does really good work and uses ppg paint.

Use 3M wetordry sand paper, and wet sand with soapy water the entire bumper. That is the last step before you actually paint it. Before that, you will probably sand it smooth with a lower grit where you bondo. The existing paint works well as a base goat, but you need to get rid of all of the clear. So basically, wet sand it real good to get rid of the clear. To tell if the clear is gone, if you use a squeegee and there is water on the bumper, when you wipe the water off, it will look very dull, and not reflective at all. If you see any reflective parts, you need to wet sand more. It's pretty tedious, and you always miss a few spots, which is why I had to sand my entire car almost 5 times in order to get all the clear off. Do not sand the paint off though because it works well as a base coat like a primer.

wet sand the whole thing w/ 400 grit sand paper.

What kind of front is it Dino?? I'm going to guess and say Aggressor.......



Mick

Shogun Body Kit
GTR Flared Wing
Arospeed Muffler
Half red-Clearm Tails
QT s-08 18"
Toyo Proxes Z4 215/18/35
..some turbo thingy me and Ray pieced together...

ur guess is rite ;-)

Yay! I get a cookie!



Mick

Shogun Body Kit
GTR Flared Wing
Arospeed Muffler
Half red-Clearm Tails
QT s-08 18"
Toyo Proxes Z4 215/18/35
..some turbo thingy me and Ray pieced together...

yup now we wil have 2 aggressor style eclipses in houston 2gnt :)

So you're finally gonna put it on, its gonna look sweet man especially with your fmic in the mouth of the aggressor. When I had it on a lot of ppl used to say that it made the car look like a beast or a predator.

damn.....i need to get off my arse and get my front mount installed. *sigh*

kaptain mike.....

whered you get the front end painted at? looks nice. oh, and how much?

triX

125....off dunvale.