Ok got the lump and loom out of my car at the moment done some welding and I've got to paint the the engine bay apart from the bulkhead as it's fine and I don't want to strip it I've had to remove some surface rust so I've got a few spots missing paint and a couple that will be filled. In genral the paintwork in the bay is very good aprt from the spots I removed rust from and the seams that have been welded!

My question is do I paint over the original paint or shal I just strip the whole lot down to bare metal? If painting over paint can somone give me a breif run down of the steps and in wich orderto do them so do I fill and rub down rust spots and filler etch prime filler prime sand back with 1000 untill all blended ? Rub down original paint with ???? Grade paper then etch prime the whole lot filler prime rub down again colour coat x2 then rub down and cutting compound ?? Not after spectacular finish just want it to look ok it an engine bay at the end of the day !!!

Thanks for any help of you pain guys I know f all!! I've done the front panel and it went realy well but I did that down to bare metal oh and some guy scratched it a few weeks after I done it can I just flat back the tiny scratched area and top coat it again ??? Thanks all :)

firstly grind out all the rust, make sure the rust is taken care off first

then done all your filling you need to do, once thats done a quick coat or 2 with etch primer over the bare metal bits and the fillered bits

you'll then want to 180-240 the whole bay, working throw the grades 400-600

then i'd put a few coats of normal primer over the etch primered spots

then personally i'd wet flat the whole bay with 800-1000 grit wet and dry

clean the bay and your ready to paint

when painting i'd do around 3 coats atleast, maybe 4, depending on what paint you use you might want to think about lacquering it aswell

Edited 14 May, 201016 yr by mirrorblanks

Thanks man, I realy ain't after a great finish think I did 3 coats on my other panel n that was ok but I'll try 4 on this one . That other panel I've done that's got a scratch in it you can't realy feel it with your fingernail but you can see it can this just be wet sanded then topcoat over it a couple times or will I have to blow over entire panel again??

Forgot to mention the car is apine White wich isn't metalic so ididnt think it needed lacquer am I wrong ?? Just thought I used cutting compound on it when done and it came out alright. Is this correct

it won't need lacquer is its a solid, best thing to do is wet sand with around 1800-2000 grit and then machine polish with compund

it won't need lacquer is its a solid, best thing to do is wet sand with around 1800-2000 grit and then machine polish with compund

Ok thanks what about scratches on front panel ?

same, wet flat and machine polish

same, wet flat and machine polish

Ok cool so it's not nessesary to remove all the old paint then that's a bouns saves me a load of time . Thanks for your help