No!! It wont suit chrome.........

steady on Dan, it was only an offer lol

Lovely, m8!

It's been a while! been very busy with work, and still am!! but hopefully I'll be back on the polo in the next couple of days iv'e put it back on its side again which will make it easier to finish the prep in the engine bay.

Bought a few goodies over the last couple of months! to include a brand new compressor which I got yesterday as I'm now gonna paint the car myself Iv'e gotta lot to learn as Iv'e never painted a car before!!!

Luckily there's no rust on the bodywork (just a few spots on the passenger sill, and the very bottom edge of both doors) there's one or two small carpark dinks around the car, I shall use a dent expert to remove these. I'm going to be using a single stage cellulose which will give a closer look and finish to the original factory look.

The compressor is a 100ltr tank, 3hp 50hz motor, 14cfm air displacement, 8bar(116psi)

Any good advice and tips would be much appreciated

Cheers

Awesome stuff man!
I can come and 'supervise' when you paint it haha!
But no, really. can come lend a hand when you do.

Get some cheap paint and a spare panel or something and spend some time practising. Will get you used to the gun, find the best setting for the gun, andd ull find out how long before you run out of air. (good to know as you dont want it happening mid panel if you can help it)

Got masks, heaters, plenty of clear plastic sheeting etc?

you can't relly go wrong with celly based paint. Very easy for a diy user to get good results with if just painting in plain gloss colours. One thing I will point out is that celly paint is very sensitive to surface contaminants, so you need to make sure anything you paint is really well degreased. It can also react with other paint types, so make sure any primer used will be compatible. Don't panic if you get a run or if the finish straight from the gun has an orange peel effect. The beauty of celly is that you can wet sand it smooth and buff it back up, so the most important thing to achieve is to build up a good layer of paint.

Clearly you want to get it on as well as you possibly can, as it will reduce the amount of time needed to wet sand and polish. That's a point. It will also be adviseable to wait a good week or so before wet sanding and polishing (especially important when doing at home rather than in a spray booth) as the solvent can take some time to completely flash off. Wax the paint before all of the solvent has gone and it will become trapped and the paint will lift.

My final tip would be to make sure you don't scrimp on thinners. Make sure you use high gloss thinners. Std thinners are fine for cleaning your gun out with and thinning primer, but the top coat really will benfit from being thinned with high gloss thinners.

Awesome stuff man!

I can come and 'supervise' when you paint it haha!

But no, really. can come lend a hand when you do.

Get some cheap paint and a spare panel or something and spend some time practising. Will get you used to the gun, find the best setting for the gun, andd ull find out how long before you run out of air. (good to know as you dont want it happening mid panel if you can help it)

Got masks, heaters, plenty of clear plastic sheeting etc?

Cheers Toby, I shall be prep-ping over the next month or so (time permitting) and would like to get it in paint before the end of march at the latest!!

Yeah.... iv'e got masks, a gun, plenty of plastic sheets, I can get hold of a couple of heaters.

Do you or anyone know of a good professional dent remover in the Wolverhampton area?

Edited 14 January, 201412 yr by tominator

you can't relly go wrong with celly based paint. Very easy for a diy user to get good results with if just painting in plain gloss colours. One thing I will point out is that celly paint is very sensitive to surface contaminants, so you need to make sure anything you paint is really well degreased. It can also react with other paint types, so make sure any primer used will be compatible. Don't panic if you get a run or if the finish straight from the gun has an orange peel effect. The beauty of celly is that you can wet sand it smooth and buff it back up, so the most important thing to achieve is to build up a good layer of paint.

Clearly you want to get it on as well as you possibly can, as it will reduce the amount of time needed to wet sand and polish. That's a point. It will also be adviseable to wait a good week or so before wet sanding and polishing (especially important when doing at home rather than in a spray booth) as the solvent can take some time to completely flash off. Wax the paint before all of the solvent has gone and it will become trapped and the paint will lift.

My final tip would be to make sure you don't scrimp on thinners. Make sure you use high gloss thinners. Std thinners are fine for cleaning your gun out with and thinning primer, but the top coat really will benfit from being thinned with high gloss thinners.

Thanks for the info Jon, much appreciated!

How many coats would be considered a "good layer of paint"?

And thanks for the heads up on the high gloss thinners!

Can anyone recommend a particular brand of paint to use?

The nearest auto paint store is Jawel paints, are their paints any good?

auto colourmatch in banbury are good for paint supplies and advice. Fairly sure I used some jawel branded paint to do a mates bumper. Went on well from memory. To answer your question about paint thickness, I normally go for 4 or 5 coats, but I normally judge it by eye. You can kind of tell if the paint looks thin, the more coats you put on, the more glossy the finish will go. When you have a go, you will see what I mean! Not being able to see the sanding marks from keying the panel is a good indicator too. Don't go too mad though, you can put too much on. This can result in the paint sagging and can also leave it prone to stone chips as it will chip off easier.

Finally, found my way back to the garage.....and hopefully would like to see it finished before the end of May.

May last year was the last time I did any work on the car, so Iv'e got a lot of catching up to do.

Upon closer inspection of the primer in the engine bay there was loads of imperfections on the bulkhead.... small chips and scratches. Iv'e spent the last couple of sundays rectifying these, prep-ping and priming under the scuttle and the top and underside of the slam panel.

I'm hoping to have the bay sorted, and ready for paint by next weekend, then I shall move on to flat wet sanding the rest of the car.

Few pics from today....

Edited 23 February, 201412 yr by tominator

FairPlay mate you've done an Awsome job so far!

FairPlay mate you've done an Awsome job so far!

Thanks mate.

I'm so glad I don't prep and paint for a living!

It's so difficult to get the panels flat and true without any imperfections, I thought I'd finally cracked it until the white primer went on, which has now highlighted more work to do

Highbuild....

And a couple of coats of white primer before I ran out!

The spot welds on the passenger side suspension turret look really untidy, I can't decide whether to fill and smooth them out!!!

What do you think, smooth or original looking spot welds??

Edited 16 February, 201412 yr by tominator

get the "stopper" out and fill them, cant do it after paint and the fact your now asking the question gives you the answer.

After four weekends, body filler, a tube of stopper, three cans of high build, loads of sandpaper, four tins of white primer, loads of elbow grease and sore fingers,.....the engine bay is finally ready for paint

When the white primer went on in my last post last weekend, it showed up even more imperfections and I decided to fill the spot welds on the bands on the suspension turret's.

looking superb mate! well done on brilliant looking engine bay. the effort thats gone into that shines through!

Amazing job! I cant wait to start refurbishing my mk1 , thanks for the inspiration

Blimey, can't believe it was February when I last posted on here. Not touched the yellow polo since march but definitely getting it painted before the summers out.

The gold polo has been off the road for the last 2yrs, so spent the last couple of months getting the carb stripped down and sent it off to have it ultrasonic cleaned, rebuilt it with a new gasket set, had it tuned, serviced it, MOT'ed it, dropped the coilovers and the ATS classics on, and have been enjoying driving it the last month or so.

And picked these rare beauties up a couple of weeks ago

BBS RS 14" 242's

Edited 17 July, 201412 yr by tominator

The polo has finally gone in for it's respray

Don't suppose those 242's could taken odd your hands?

The yellow 86 looks immaculate - great find and top work mate. Great thread

Sorry mate 242's will be going on the car!!

Here's a couple of pics of the engine bay........

I knew it was a long shot!!!

Car will look ace mate - the paint work looks immaculate. Big thumbs up!

Edited 30 August, 201411 yr by CharlieW

I knew it was a long shot!!! Car will look ace mate - the paint work looks immaculate. Big thumbs up!

cheers mate!

That's better I can see photos better now lol ..Fantastic boss

Superb !!!