I’m planning to get by 73 Chevy Nova repainted because the old paint is o.k. but some places are bare metal and the hood is covered in little circles of rust as big as a pencil tip. my plan is to get it painted in viper blue and to get white racing stripes similar to the car shown here just without the hood logo.
http://den…_nova.html
roughly, how much should i expect to pay for this, and do you have any suggestions on how i should go about doing this? thanks
Sweet. But be aware that the car in the photos is a showpiece and good paintjobs like this do not come cheap.
Unless you’re doing a rehab, you might want to consider a MAACO job instead. Since it has surface rust, it’ll need to be sanded and primed first. Again, it won’t be cheap. Be careful that the paint job doesn’t cost more than the car is worth.
Best way to find out it to drive the car to several body shops, picture in hand, and ask for some estimates. You’ll get numbers from $500 to $5,000 and up.
Costs will vary widely based on the quality of work (especially prep) and your geographic region. Another factor is how long it will take. A cheap price sometimes means you get the leftover time slots and it takes forever. I’ve gone with friends to liberate their cars from shops that never seemed to do any work or did so little that it would take 5 years to complete.
You want to drive your car to a number of local shops to get estimates. A good shop will ask a lot of questions about what you are looking for as well as describing levels of service and materials they would choose to use based on this information.
To refine your search, it would be a real timesaver to talk with local car enthusiasts who have first hand knowledge with a shop or know someone who has used them. Local car shows or gathering places are a good place to start.
With all due respect, I would advise against Maaco. they tend to not R&I trim and tape over badges. To many shortcuts for a quality job.
thanks for a reply. would it be a good idea for my father and me to strip the paint and put the primer on ourselves, or would that provide a slapdash job.
Don’t worry about the primer, the paint and body guy will pick a primer based on what kind of base coat that you want to use, but you can save money by prepping the car on your own!
Josh is right, you might want to search for some painting prep tips, much of the cost of the job’s in the prep work.
It depends on one’s goal.
The only way to do a really quality job is to remove trim, inner door panels, remove hood & trunk lid, etc. That gets expensive. A real restoration requires dissassembly of the body, such that the seams come out proper, as well as stripping and priming. But that can get into thousands of dollars.
My impression from the OP was that he was just looking for a decent cosmetic renewal, and I’ve seen some pretty decent MAACO work for very low cost. If I had an old car that I just wanted to look decent I wouldn’t hesitate to use MAACO based on what I’ve seen.
when you way preparation, do you mean taking the emblems off and taking off the quarter panels. because my father and me are taking off everything except for the windshield and the back window. is this enough preparation or could something else be needed? thanks.
Parts removal is the first step. Here’s a web site with lots of pointers: http://www.learnautopainting.com/surface_preparation.htm Take it as far as you feel comfortable.
Wow, if you’re willing to put that much work in to it, more power to you. The closer you can get the car to being stripped down, the better you are. Texases has a good link, there. The better job you do in preparation, the better the paint will look. You might be inclined to think that paint will cover your blemishes, but it won’t and they’re locked in for good once the paint is sprayed.
Dent removal, rust removal, and surface consistency are the things you’re looking to achieve. Good luck!
Normally, you would not want to take the body panels off the car prior to heading to the autobody shop. The prep work involves stripping and then fixing any imperfections. Typically, you want all of the character lines matching on the car when you do the fixing, primer and blocking. I think most shops would prefer the car intact so they can control the quality of the underlying work prior to painting. Primer does not block moisture so you want to shoot the paint soon after the last coat of primer is applied and it’s ready to paint. Timing that with the shop could be difficult. The shop will do the reassembly and they may want to take it apart to insure that they have all of the shims and hardware and know where they came from to make reassembly easier. Of course, a lot depends on your level of proficiency and your relationship with the shop doing the remainder of the work. As I said before, you should discuss these aspects with each of the shops you’re interviewing to do the work. They will tell you what they prefer and what level of sweat equity they feel comfortable having you provide.