6G Celicas Forums

Hey guys, if you have restoration experience i could really use your help.

The paint job and all the dents finally put me in the position to sell the 6g. problem was i couldnt find a car that can match the 6g's "feel" if you know what i mean. Since having a shop repair her is so expensive, i figured ill tackle restoring her on my own. After watching alot of youtube videos and reading how-to's on restoration, im confident enough to try it, but still have a few questions and would appreciate your opinions.

(1) money and quality wise would you recommend i do a maaco job or tackle painting on my own(either rent a booth or enclosed tent)?

(2) are there any considerations/advice for using bondo or other recommended products on non-metal surfaces such as the bumper and sideskirts? will the flexibility of the bumper be a problem?

(3) Im pretty much gonna sand/bondo the entire car and am considering a bodykit. If i were to get a cheap one off ebay, will getting the thing to fit be the same as sanding and bondoing the thing, or will i need to do some fiberglass work? Id love the gt-four look, have any recommendations on where to get bodykits for cheap?

(4) I am also having problems with rust below both doors. Rust cant be seen from the outside, but looking from the inside, it is definitely a problem. Would u recommend i restore it myself by cutting and welding or just replace the door entirely?

(5) When i do paint it, would you recommend i remove different parts; hood, trunk, doors? also, would it be worth my while to remove things like the lining and windshields? id figure sanding and bondoing would be nicer with the linings removed.

(6) Any videos and/or websites would you recommend i check out before i start. most of the videos i watched seemed to be from the 80's. any videos with more modern techniques? or has restoration been pretty much ageless.

This is alot of info and questions but i would appreciate any input on 1, 2, or all of my questions.

Thanks,
-Joel

This post has been edited by captb: May 28, 2010 - 10:13 PM

cant help ya with 1
but for bondo you should use a brand named "Rage" and any kind of hardener would work. but for every golfball size of bondo use about an inch of hardener. When you do this you need to mix the bondo with the hardener until it is all one color. then you only have a few minutes to put it on the car and smooth it out.
Um your gonna need low grit sand paper to get the first layers of paint n stuff off the car. another thing is that when your sanding where the dent is, the actual dent is larger than you can see. And you do NOT need to sand the car to bare metal! after the bondo has fully dried use a little higher grit sand paper to smooth out the edges between where the bondo starts and stops.

3. if you get a body kit you will need to do fiberglass work which i know nothing about lol
4.idk
5

Thanks NewOrleans, ill be sure to check out "rage".

anyone else got advice on my other questions?

Hey guys, if you have restoration experience i could really use your help.

The paint job and all the dents finally put me in the position to sell the 6g. problem was i couldnt find a car that can match the 6g's "feel" if you know what i mean. Since having a shop repair her is so expensive, i figured ill tackle restoring her on my own. After watching alot of youtube videos and reading how-to's on restoration, im confident enough to try it, but still have a few questions and would appreciate your opinions.

(1) money and quality wise would you recommend i do a maaco job or tackle painting on my own(either rent a booth or enclosed tent)?
Maaco is good if you do your own body work, if you have time and money do a DIY

(2) are there any considerations/advice for using bondo or other recommended products on non-metal surfaces such as the bumper and sideskirts? will the flexibility of the bumper be a problem?
If the dent isnt too deep/big I would prefer Glazing Putty. How ever its softer than body filler (bondo is a type of brand body filler) It all depends on the bumper problem

(3) Im pretty much gonna sand/bondo the entire car and am considering a bodykit. If i were to get a cheap one off ebay, will getting the thing to fit be the same as sanding and bondoing the thing, or will i need to do some fiberglass work? Id love the gt-four look, have any recommendations on where to get bodykits for cheap?
IMO just body work what's needed. then make it as flush as you can with the rest of the body. cheap kits will fit like crap. C-One copy kits are your best bet for a gt4 look. Cheap bumpers might need to be cut and reglassed.

(4) I am also having problems with rust below both doors. Rust cant be seen from the outside, but looking from the inside, it is definitely a problem. Would u recommend i restore it myself by cutting and welding or just replace the door entirely?
Hmm i would suggest taking off the door panels and seeing where the area is affected. Sadly i dont have a problem (knock on wood) so i cant tell you how to handle it.

(5) When i do paint it, would you recommend i remove different parts; hood, trunk, doors? also, would it be worth my while to remove things like the lining and windshields? id figure sanding and bondoing would be nicer with the linings removed.
Paint on a warm weekend in your garage, covered, dust free, debris free, and dry. Check the stickies for Coomer's paint booth thread. I used that thread to make my own paint booth. Also and input from my dad.

(6) Any videos and/or websites would you recommend i check out before i start. most of the videos i watched seemed to be from the 80's. any videos with more modern techniques? or has restoration been pretty much ageless.
Have a good spray gun, have 1 primary water catch for the compressor line and 1 before the gun. Get the paint mixing technique right. Paint, Hardener, and Reducer. Primer before paint. Wet sand the whole car and use Joy soap as a degreaser before you paint. Coomer's Paint thread in the Stickies/How to section has plenty of info to get you started.
This is alot of info and questions but i would appreciate any input on 1, 2, or all of my questions.

Thanks,
-Joel



Any other Q's just ask.


Have fun,
Jon

1. Do you like my car? If so, you'll like Maaco's work IF, and I'm really making sure you hear that... IF it's a good shop. There are 3 Maaco's in the Columbus area and I'd only send you to one if you lived here. Visit them, and feel them out. If they take you in the back to show you their work, that's a good sign. If the guys who work there get their cars done there, like mine did, that's a VERY good sign.

However, like they say, "we can do just as good of a paint job as anyone else, but we also do $200 jobs". IE: The $200 job with no primer or body work will look like crud and last for about as long as $200 should last. My job included the best prep package they had and the best single stage enamel paint (what the car had on from factory) along with an integrated clear coat, and that's why my car looks so good. It also cost over $750, but it's still cheap for the quality.

I know a lot of people say "oh no, Maaco!" and insist on going to a "real" shop. But these guys can do just as good of a job if you pay them enough money to. Also, I did all my own body work (door ding fillings and surface rust repair) which saved me a lot of money. The only body work they did was to repair my nearly fully cracked in half spoiler and it looks brand spankin' new without a crease to show.



PS: By "I did my own prep work" I don't just mean door dings. Taking off the trim, spoiler, rubber, mirrors, ect is VITAL to getting a good job. I didn't take off my door handles or back and front windshield trim because it was hard as plastic and wasn't going to flex, but everything else that flexed was removed. It's a pain in the ass but it saved me their fee of $500 to do this and I have a paint job that lasts now. Basically, anything that can flex and make paint to crack, REMOVE.

these guys, especially 808 and castrol have the right idea.
castrol hit the nail on the head as far as maaco. if they are willing to show you theyre finished work, right out of the paint booth, and it looks good, that helps.
look for paint on any trim, orange peel (the amount of orange peel will depend on if its single stage paint. single stage especially light metallics, tend to have alot more peel than a basecoat/ clearcoat paint job, but cost about 1/2 the price.)
for the doors, if the lower section is rusting on the inside, thats a sign of things to come on the outside.
depending on how bad it is, you can sometimes get away with useing a "cookie wheel" on a die grinder and grinding out all the rust and using somthing like POR15 to stop it from rusting again.
if its rotted, your best bet will be to look for a set of used replacement doors that are in better condition. once the cancer stops, its almost impossible to stop, without replacing the whole thing.

Agreed--what ever you can take off prior to sanding will prevent particles of all sizes/shapes from "mystreriously" coming out of all the crevaces during priming & painting.

You may want to consider some type of fresh-air intake/exaust system(fresh in bad out).

Wash/spray the area w/water.Sweep the floor to remove dirt/dust.Rinse.
I'm sure you already know--tape/mask what doesn't get primed/painted.
Your supplier should be able to tell you what you need to use/do for the flexable pieces::fbrglss,plastic,etc...

MOST IMPORTANT--you will need some type of breathing mask that is rated for the primer/paint you use.
Stay legal........
Go at it...When you're done,post-up,have a beer,be proud!

{edit}Maaco does have__ some__ places where the ppl care!!!

This post has been edited by Bigblock: Oct 22, 2009 - 8:48 PM

Yep, exactly. SOME . CaptB, please read our comments well and realize it's really a crap-shoot. If you call a place and you tell them the make and model of the car, and without seeing it... knowing what paint you want... knowing what prep to do, BLUNTLY say a quote over the phone, that's BAD NEWS. Two of the three Maacos did this for me. I have no idea what the quote was for exactly to this day, and the even numbers they named are impossible to obtain by any combination of paints and preps. Lastly, I called both of these cruddy Maacos on the next day, named the same make and model as I did before and they gave me totally different numbers than they quoted me the day before. That's a bad, bad sign.

On the other hand, the third place in Columbus I called, the guy asked me what I wanted, told me what they offered, and gave me an IDEA (not an estimate) of what it might cost. He then, instead of booking me, asked me to come in and see the shop and bring in the car for inspection so they would know what I wanted done to it so they didn't mess up anything.

3 of the painters there had cars painted there of their own.. some of them multiple cars. The one guy who was there that day had his Camaro there coming out of the booth and it was nothing short of gorgeous. I saw some of their $200 paint jobs, and they looked halfway decent I suppose. Most of the bad paint jobs were the fault of the car owners though. There was an 80's Civic there that had rust everywhere (and Walmart plastic rims! Woot ), and ... literally... asked them for a $200 paint job, single stage, in metallic (which looks bad.. metallic is always best in base and clear) and didn't want to pay for any repair. YES, THAT MEANS THEY PAINTED OVER ALL HIS RUST ON HIS QUARTER PANELS!!!! He didn't take off ANY trim or parts like mirrors or windshield wiper fluid nozzles, and it wasn't pretty. To be fair though, the paint wasn't all that bad and they did a phenomenal job taping the car with the challenges brought to them. But again, it was the car owner's laziness and cheap wallet that contributed to the poor job. They were actually embarrassed about it and assured me that what I was doing would make my car look 10 times better.. and it did.



You see, once again. $200 with no prep will give you a minimally sanded (hardly ideal), non primed car over door dings, rust, and unfortunately some trim that can't really be avoided. Am I saying mine is perfect? Hell no. I can name MANY spots were my paint has flaws. But this is also normal to single stage jobs, of any quality. Did I get orange peel though? Nope.. and that's a sign of a good shop. The most I got were little bumps in a couple places from a dirt particle or what not. If I had spent over $1200 and gotten base and clear, which happens with that too, those bumps would have been buffed out easily.

So yes, it's all about how much you want to spend. If you want show room quality, don't even bother with the first two grades.. seriously. They call them "work horse" quality for a reason. If you want good quality, the highest single stage or a base/clear will suit your bill. It's not perfect, but the way I see it, the car looked like the back side of Pumba when I got it, so it's a lot better than it was.

All in all, remember to do your prep. It's a bitch, I won't lie. It took me 2-4 weekends of hard work to get it ready. But it was worth it and saved me about $1000 in the end. It was also a great learning experience and got me acquainted with the car. I retained my knowledge so well that I was able to put the car back together after the paint job in only one single weekend. This is actually quite important as you have an old car. The best thing you can do is educate yourself about how to get to all sorts of places to repair parts in the future that will fail, and prepping your car will help you do just that. I've saved probably an estimated $3000 in service fees because I did the repairs myself. Parts are cheap, labor is not.

Best of luck. If you have ANY questions, let me know.

PS: If you do decide to paint it yourself, please don't be an irresponsible twat and do what youtubers do and paint the car outside.. with the bugs.. IN GRASS.. and letting all the fumes escape into the atmosphere. There's a guy specifically who painted his car orange on youtube this way, and it ticked me off to no end. I hope the guy had bugs stuck under his clear lol. What sickened me was that he wore a mask to protect himself, but let the fumes drift off across the street to poison the lungs of people having nothing to do with this.

As said before, make sure your ground is wet to prevent paint particles from floating in the air for what seems like ever. I personally wouldn't recommend doing it yourself. I CERTAINLY wouldn't recommend looking at youtube for "lessons" as most people don't even start in the correct first spot, have the spray gun the right distance from the car, or paint in the correct non-stop motion that they're supposed to.

Besides, after paying for the paint, the equipment, the tent..ect.. you're looking at about what it would be to just have Maaco do it for you. Do the prep, take off your trim and learn to use bondo and you'll save money, have a great paint job, and won't ever have to lift your finger on the paint itself and worry that you do a cruddy job.

This post has been edited by CastrolCelica: Oct 23, 2009 - 12:36 AM

Thanks for all the advice guys. and i definitely will be weary of any maaco and any body shop for that matter. But right now im on the edge of painting myself. im out to get some supplies to start with the prep work. if i were to paint myself, what would be the cheapest for primer, paint, clear? and assuming i rent out a booth how long would it take after each coat, given that i sand between coats? just wondering if it would be a multiple day kinda thing.

808celica, you're from hawaii too. you know of any places/junk yards/websites where i can get a decent replacement door at a decent price. shipping kinda sucks for us.

Cheapest, uh oh.. you're going down the wrong path already! Good paint, clear and primer will run you about what my paint job cost... plus you have to do it yourself. But I congratulate you on trying this though. I hope it turns out well.

To answer what questions I can, you *should* be able to paint your car in one day. Now, being that you're not a professional, I can't guarantee that you can. But yes, it's more than possible to do this in a relatively quick amount of time.

If you want tutorials per say on how to paint the car and what exactly you need to do and what exactly you need to buy, it may be beneficial to find a car painting forum and ask some questions. Trust me there's forums for everything. Hell I even found a bustling forum that deals only with buffing and detailing cars when I had questions about that. Nuts huh?

EDIT: I'm sure you already know this, but if you're doing a base/clear or a single stage enamel, you'll need curing time. So just because it's sprayed in one day, doesn't mean you should go waxing it the next. I'm not 100% sure on base/clear (especially since all brands are different), but my enamel takes about 4 weeks to fully cure. That means no decals or wax in that time.

This post has been edited by CastrolCelica: Oct 23, 2009 - 6:18 PM

and suscribed lol

Thanks for the advice guys. Honestly, all this input has brought much more confidence that i can actually do this. and I'll definitely subscribe to a forum.

Can anyone tell me how to take the window trims off. i saw the sticky on painting them in place but a few people mentioned removing them. any input before i start prying?

Personally i wouldn't. It will be more of a hassle to replace them. I just did a good tape job If you're doing a DIY spray then the less things you take off (unnecessary things) the better.

Hey 808, Id prefer leaving the trim on but there is a small rust patch right above the trim that i need to get too. you think i can just treat it like a normal repair? im assuming that with the trims intact i wont be able to remove all the rust though.

oh, and any input on getting replacement doors to hawaii?

getting anything big and heavy shipped to hawaii IS GAY!!!!!! Aww man that sucks wanna take a pic and post up? I really should go get a 6gc shell to cut and fool around with.

heres some pictures i have now. ill get pictures of the rust area tomorrow.


BEFORE




I love how my car is so photogenic. Its much uglier in person.

why didnt you say you're from Hi. Is this Waikele/Mililani area?? Got your pm from forumshawaii.net wanna have a 6gc meet at your house?? can drag out the other 3 guys and we'll see what we can do with your car.

haha. funny. but ya im the same guy. im pretty sure i told you long time ago when i first joined the site. And as long as i can fit into my schedule, id be down for a 6gc meet.