Green69rt's paint work

[Patronus]

Sealer between primer and paint. Were you thinking of cutting and buffing the paint after? Being metallic I would do base clear.. At least on the body...you could do the underside in SS just to check it out, but..base clear would be my 

[green69rt]

Sealer between primer and paint. Were you thinking of cutting and buffing the paint after? Being metallic I would do base clear.. At least on the body...you could do the underside in SS just to check it out, but..base clear would be my 

I intend to do the underside, trunk, engine bay in single stage with no buffing, etc.  Maybe a small amount of sanding on the engine bay between color coats.  I intend to take the car to a paint shop to have the topside done.  So my work will be with SS.

[fy469rtse]

Your a glutton for punishment mitch  , engine bay base colour  ,clear coat, last coat glossy coat, dont touch again,
when you lift your hood , i will be looking at the engine and detail work, that paint will be a hundred times better than the factory ever did 

[Patronus]

I'd have to agree.. Even a crappy clear is way better than a nice SS..unless your gonna work it...and in your case, that green metallic.. You'll be much happier with b/c. Besides, you got it upside friggin down mang! Turn it sideways when you spray and you'll have near perfect results.

[green69rt]

Thinking, thinking, thinking

[Charger-Bodie]

If it were a solid color I'd say single stage because it really is more durable than clear, but with a mettalic color such as this I'd say base clear. Much easier to lay the mettalics evenly when you don't need you try for gloss at the same time.

[green69rt]

A little confused now.  Let's just talk about the underside first.  BC/CC seems like real overkill down there.  I just want protection and, really it's just  a personal preference to have the underside in body color. Goeff's suggestion of using flat back sounds OK just not what I really want.  trunk and passenger compartment - same.  I forgot to mention doing the roof, since  it will have a vinyl top, I thought adding a paint layer under the vinyl was prudent and SS would be enough.

So, all the discussion seem to be around the engine bay.  It seems that the BC/CC system is the preference for the engine bay and thus under the hood.  If the engine bay is BC/CC then I may just push that the engine bay into the paint shop and stop at the primer level.

Am I getting closer to a plan??

Really the only alternative I see to this is to do everything BC/CC.  Where do you stop?

[six-tee-nine]

I will be using single stage for underside and inside of the car including the trunk.

Engine bay and outside will receive paint and clear including wet sand an buff.

I will paint the underside of my car since i will be spraying the undercoat on. The result of spraying the undercoat is much better then when you brush it on.
You cant however cover every spot or corner with the undercoat. And the spots that you wont cover will look much nicer when body color shows trough instead of primer/sealer.
I know some guys say that it is "overrestored" this way since it only the underside, but I'm sure i would regret it if i did'nt do it this way.

I will mask of where the rockers meet the floorpans and at the firewall/floorpan seam.

After paint and undercoat are on I will mask off the entire underside of the car so I dont get overspray on the nice black undercoat later on when I paint the outside and the engine bay.
It will require some extra work, but I'm sure the result will pay off.

[Dreamcar]

Just follow the tech sheets for the product your using. The epoxy's tech sheet will tell you how to correctly prep the bare metal (and what gritt paper to use on the metal) and how long you have to topcoat with color without having to scuff the epoxy. 

I myself will be using Chassis Saver which can be topcoated if scuffed properly (as per the tech sheet).

[green69rt]

Just follow the tech sheets for the product your using. The epoxy's tech sheet will tell you how to correctly prep the bare metal (and what gritt paper to use on the metal) and how long you have to topcoat with color without having to scuff the epoxy. 

Yeah, I finally figured out to look on the web at the data sheets.  Just lazy for not doing it first thing.

[green69rt]

Just doing a little checking, $202 for a set of front and rear torque box plates from Mancini.  Really worth it for a street/cruiser??  Spent a lot already and I'm starting to feel the pinch.

Ok, I was having an attack of cheap!!  Everyone seems to think torque boxes are worth the effort, so I added them.  Now was the time to do it easily.  Just for those who haven't seen what they look like I have added a couple of pics (1 and 2) of how they look when you get them from Car tool.

Pic 3 is me starting fit up.  Lots of shaving, bending etc to make it fit really good.

Pic 4 is installed.

[twodko]

The first thing noticed was hardcore valid metal work.
What really brought on the respect was the hatchet
on the bench next to the parts.

Awesome precision hatchet work. 

[Patronus]

I sure am envious of the rotisserie. I don't recall, have you done the lower radiator support?...Did we talk you out of the single-stage yet? Lookin great tho!  

[green69rt]

I sure am envious of the rotisserie. I don't recall, have you done the lower radiator support?...Did we talk you out of the single-stage yet? Lookin great tho!  

No radiator support.  I'm kinda running out of energy for making more repairs.  I want to get on to paint!! 

Still SS for the bottom, but I gave up on SS for the engine bay, that will be BC/CC.  All the advice I got here drove that decision .   SS for the trunk.

[green69rt]

The first thing noticed was hardcore valid metal work.
What really brought on the respect was the hatchet
on the bench next to the parts.

Awesome precision hatchet work. 

Never know when you'll need to take a wild swing at something to get it to fit!!

[Silver R/T]

Myself I'd epoxy the entire underneath and then use spray-on bedliner kit.
BTW you can get spray wand that attached to undercoating gun and you can reach inside frame rails, etc.

[fy469rtse]

very nice work mitch,
that car is going to be tight, love the metal work on this car , its brand new  , i think you have replaced nearly every piece of sheet metal now,
that car is going to drive nicer than anything you remember,
yes please get to paint , still waiting for you to catch up , no not really , cold winter here lack of funds etc

[green69rt]

Myself I'd epoxy the entire underneath and then use spray-on bedliner kit.
BTW you can get spray wand that attached to undercoating gun and you can reach inside frame rails, etc.

I like the idea of the wand to get inside the frames, etc.  I know that as I went along I stripped and painted everything I could reach but welding the panels to the frames has to scorch and burn the paint and leave the metal open to attack inside where I can't see.

[Patronus]

Eastwood makes products for coating the inside, comes with a straw to get in there. I think a shiny bottom car would be sick... Especially the green..

[bill440rt]

I'm a little late to the party, just my two cents here.
You are doing a damn FINE job on that car, the underside is beautiful. If it were mine, and it's not, I could not bring myself to slather it in undercoating or bedliner coating. My vote is paint. 
I've had them both ways, and to be honest I think it's harder to keep an undercoated car cleaner than one that's painted.
The dirt accumulates mainly in the wheelhouses. The underside, floors, etc of the car actually stay pretty clean. Of course, it also depends on what kind of roads you're driving on.
A little wipedown with a wet rag, cleaner, or detailer & stuff and it comes clean in no time. Can't really do that with a rough undercoated or bedliner textured surface. For that it's spray on some cleaner & hose it off. This creates two more problems because you can't really dry it off under there because of the rough surface and also water gets everywhere and stays in areas where you can't get it out.

I see you have some parts with different coatings, including POR-15 which is very hard to scuff. Look into their Self-Etching Primer. It's designed to go over cured POR-15 without sanding. Read the tech sheets. You can also apply paint over it. Underside on my '69 was a combination of PPG epoxy and POR-15. I simply scuffed the epoxied areas & applied the POR-15 Self Etch to the POR-15 areas. It's held up excellent.

SS here as well for the floorpans and inside the trunk. Under the hood & jambs, trunk underside, etc was done in BC/CC. There are some good break-off areas to get this done (firewall pinchweld, etc). Although my car is a solid color this could also work for metallics.

When painting the outside of the car I gave the roof just one coat of base & one coat of clear, just for protection. I did not want to leave it just primer. The rest of the car got 3 coats of base & 4 coats of clear, I just stayed away from the roof after the single coats.

Keep up the great work, again the car looks fantastic & you are doing a fine job! 

[green69rt]

Thanks Bill, what you described is close to my plan.  The only question I had was what process to use to coat the POR15.  Under the car is a combo of POR15, bare metal, EDP (from AMD) and maybe some overspray epoxy primer when I did the top parts.  Since I got it on the rotisserie, scuffing the POR15 got a LOT(!!!) easier so that's how I will start.  I do have to sand and clean the bare metal so I was just going to continue over the POR15.  Then a couple coats of epoxy primer.  I have heard about the self etching primer but was worried about how the PPG paint would react to it so was going to stick with the PPG epoxy primer.

[bill440rt]

Thanks Bill, what you described is close to my plan.  The only question I had was what process to use to coat the POR15.  Under the car is a combo of POR15, bare metal, EDP (from AMD) and maybe some overspray epoxy primer when I did the top parts.  Since I got it on the rotisserie, scuffing the POR15 got a LOT(!!!) easier so that's how I will start.  I do have to sand and clean the bare metal so I was just going to continue over the POR15.  Then a couple coats of epoxy primer.  I have heard about the self etching primer but was worried about how the PPG paint would react to it so was going to stick with the PPG epoxy primer.

You can use PPG epoxy primer over the bare metal, that's great stuff. For the POR-15, based on experience I would use their self-etching primer.
Check out this thread, shows how I painted the underside of my '69. The black parts are all POR-15:
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,18080.0.html

My undercarriage was no way near as nicely prepped as yours. POR-15 is a b*tch to scuff. I went over the POR-15 with their recommended cleaner, then the self-etching primer, then Omni single stage to save a few bucks. Omni was crappy stuff, but it did the job. I've had no peeling or adhesion issues. POR-15 says you can go over their self-etching primer with "any paint".

[green69rt]

Thanks Bill, what you described is close to my plan.  The only question I had was what process to use to coat the POR15.  Under the car is a combo of POR15, bare metal, EDP (from AMD) and maybe some overspray epoxy primer when I did the top parts.  Since I got it on the rotisserie, scuffing the POR15 got a LOT(!!!) easier so that's how I will start.  I do have to sand and clean the bare metal so I was just going to continue over the POR15.  Then a couple coats of epoxy primer.  I have heard about the self etching primer but was worried about how the PPG paint would react to it so was going to stick with the PPG epoxy primer.

You can use PPG epoxy primer over the bare metal, that's great stuff. For the POR-15, based on experience I would use their self-etching primer.
Check out this thread, shows how I painted the underside of my '69. The black parts are all POR-15:
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,18080.0.html

My undercarriage was no way near as nicely prepped as yours. POR-15 is a b*tch to scuff. I went over the POR-15 with their recommended cleaner, then the self-etching primer, then Omni single stage to save a few bucks. Omni was crappy stuff, but it did the job. I've had no peeling or adhesion issues. POR-15 says you can go over their self-etching primer with "any paint".

I do have some of POR15's self etching primer, just never used it.  The area covered in POR15 is very confined, under the trunk floor, rear fender wells and rear frame rails.  Maybe that's the way to go.  If I use that then the PPG SS over that it will hold up 

[green69rt]

Eastwood makes products for coating the inside, comes with a straw to get in there. I think a shiny bottom car would be sick... Especially the green..

Looks like using the eastwood stuff inside the frame rails etc will be a first step.  Just ordered two cans to cover the frame rails and the rockers..

[green69rt]

Found a new toy.   When I was in the Navy, these were used to clean stuff off the ship hulls.  Stuff like rust, barnacles, old paint.  Got one the other day to use cleaning up some old brick that had mortar on it.   Then I thought  "why not try it on the Charger?"  I used it on the old sections of frame and it did a pretty good job.   It got the rust off down to a very thin film, then I just sprayed it with phosphoric acid and was able to wipe the rest off.   It's called a needle scaler.   I tried it on the POR15 I have on the bottom and it didn't touch it.  Didn't do much on the EDP or other primer under there.    I don't know if I would use it on sheet metal that you want a nice finish on, it might leave dimples.