| Message |
I removed the wiper and antenna myself and welded sheet metal in their places. As far as that goes, it only took 2 hours to do, but the wiper hole was a real PITA to weld up because I had to use a magnet to hold the sheet metal in place (you can't get to the hole from underneath to hold it up). And using magnets close to a welder means your arc is going to pull towards the magnet and not neccessarily go where you want it. Also, the hatch was much thinner than I thought at first and I blew through it the first time. After turning down the starting voltage on the welder, there were no problems besides the magnet pulling on the arc and making it hard to control. Also, you have to take your time when welding the body pieces to keep the heat from warping them. So you need to do the welding in short sections letting it cool between sections.
For prep work, I took my moldings and trim pieces off (except for the ones I was having the shop replace with new ones I bought). I sanded down most of the hatch and the fender where I had shaved the antenna and wiper. I just took it down to the primer. I wanted to prep the entire car myself, but the shop had an opening less than a week from when I took it in for them to give me an estimate. So I didn't get around to prepping the whole car like I wanted.
The paint job itself was $1800 after a 10% off deal. They took the paint down to the factory primer in as many spots as they could. They didn't respray the engine bay or hard to reach parts of the door sill, etc. But I wasn't expecting them to. For the price, I'm happy. The paint looks beautiful and is pretty much what I expected. They did an exceptionally good job smoothing over the shaved areas, the body lines flow perfectly. They actually covered the spots in fiberglass first for strength, then used very thin layers of bondo to smooth it over. Every other shop I took it to was giving me estimates starting at $4500 and some were ridiculously more expensive than that, if they even wanted to paint it. Some shops around here were so busy doing show cars with custom fab. work that they told me it wasn't worth their time to paint my car.
|
 |
