Dateline – 02/01/2014 – I had a day off during the week to
take care of some house issues and decided to run down to the paint shop that
was recommended to me by my late neighbor “Bob the Cop.”
The shop is called Showcase Collision
Specialists (
http://www.showcasecollision.com/).
They are one of the few paint shops that
still do full car paint.
I talked to a
really great guy there who has seen many project cars.
He showed me a Ferrari Dino that they are
restoring, a 69 Nova that just came out of the paint booth, a couple of mid 80’s
vets, and a 944 that they are working on.
All great work, so I know this is the place to go.
Plus, they are only about 4 miles away from
my house!
So talking to the guy I asked him if it was better to bring
the car in all together, or in pieces.
He said it was up to me, but if I want to best paint possible, bring it
in with all the doors, fenders and hoods off.
That way they can paint each without needing to mask and they can get a
clean shot at all the nooks and crannies.
So, I’m pulling everything off.
He also said that all the primer needs to come off the car since they
are going to spray a sealer coat on before they put the blocking primer
on. Since they don’t know what the
surface below the primer is like, they can’t tell how well the paint will
stick. So I need to go back over the car
and get the primer off. Shouldn’t be too
bad.
So, the entire process is, 1) Sealer, 2) Blocking Primer, 3)
Blocking, 4) Finish Coat 5) Baking.
Price? Well, that depends. Materials are around $1,000. If I decide to let them do all the work, it
will be about $8,000 for the entire car.
However, he recommended that, after the blocking primer is spayed, I
take the car back and block it myself.
That will take about 60 – 80 hours of labor out of the equation and will
bring the cost down to around $3,500 - $4,000.
So, I will need to have to car towed four times, but that is going to be
a lot less than the $5,000 difference!
And I get to have my hands in the work too, which is also nice. So, definitely moving forward there!
On Saturday, I really didn’t feel up to sanding so I decided
to put in the sound proofing. So I took
all the doors off the car and removed the seats:
 |
| Doors and fenders off! |
Next I vacuumed and washed down all the interior surfaces
and after they dried, I started putting in the soundproofing that I bought from
Eastwood a couple of years ago. (
http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-thermocoustic-material.html).
This stuff is amazing, but it is no pleasure
to install!
You have to cut each piece to
fit, than press it into place trying to get all the air bubbles out.
Considering that there is really no flat
surface inside the car (even the floorboards have ridges in them), it is a lot
of work and in eight hours I was only able to get one half of the car done!
The driver’s side should be a little easier
since there are not as many curves, and I’ve got more experience working with
the material.
It really does deaden the
noise in the car, and with padding and carpets on top, it should be really
quite inside!
Here are pictures of the inside that I got done:
 |
| Passenger side looking forward through back window |
 |
| Front Passenger floorboard |
 |
| Rear Passenger Floorboard |
