Hey all! for a few of you frequent visitors you may be aware of the various problems that have plauged my SIII over these past few months, for those unfamiliar following a fender bender, a 10 hour trip to a scrapyard that had an SIII with a fender with minimal rust, Weeks of Stripping, sanding and taping, it has finally been done.
The SIII has been painted, i know for most a crunched fender on one of these cars would usually render it to a scrapyard, but as value goes up and of course with my everlasting love for this car (lets not forget the fact it only has 20k miles on it) i decided id do whatever necessary to get her looking even better than she did before the accident,
Ladies and Gents, Let me introduce you to the new and improved Lillith

Shes not COMPLETELY done, still have to remove tape and reattach bumpers lights etc i was just to excited not to share with you all!

For someone who has NEVER done body work let alone prep and paint an entire car (let alone an XJ6) i gotta say i dont think it came out too bad! plus the cool 3-4k i saved myself in trade of a few imperfections i think it was worth it.
FINAL NOTE: For anyone who wants to paint their XJ6 (i forget what year exactly but i believe its all xj6s 86' and before) make sure if your paint is original you strip the ENTIRE care down to bare metal, i was about to paint after i removed all the damaged areas only to just for good measure google what painting this car specifically was like, THANK GOD I DID, these cars were painted with thermoplastic acrylic which will not keep a new coat ontop of it for very long. my best suggestion is to get an angle grinder, some good stripping disks, and go to town, chemical stripper worked alright, but imo the mess and time it took to clean took longer than just angle grinding it down. Let me know what you guys think!

 

Given you're a novice painter/body worker, That's Not Bad!!
I'm not personally a fan of Semi-gloss but it will Certainly Not show every little imperfection like High Gloss does.

But the most important thing, If YOU'RE happy with it, that's all that counts.

Good Job!
(';')

 

Thank you! it made me glad to hear you say that as nix helped me make up my mind on what color exactly!
I too like the high gloss better but you hit the nail on the head I went semi just for that reason as i knew it was bound to have a few mistakes i figured the semi would hide it better
Thanks for your reply!

 

Good for you for doing that, it's inspiring and I'm gonna have a go on my '86 too. Yours looks nicely menacing now--I like it.

 

Well done, goodonya for having a go!

 

Yes!
Menacing!
That's the word!
And even if it isn't exactly Menacing, Presentation Counts!
(';')

 

Haha thank you! And for sure, I think it was definitely worth it not only to learn but also for how much it would’ve been to have someone else paint it, if you do end up diving into this project just make sure you take your time, having a plan/goal day to day helps too like saying okay by the end of today these two panels will be stripped sanded etc, All in all it wasn’t very hard just tedious! Here’s the final product without tape and all externals back on if you’re interested! It honestly came out a lot better than expected!

 

Good on you for jumping right in and trying!!

I'm in the same situation. I'm currently sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding.....
Will be painting base/clear Jaguar Deep Blue.

Jeff H.

 

One of the guys in our car club has some immense Mercedes limo thing from the 80s in that sort of semi gloss black. Matches it with some sporty looking wheels. Drives the resident purists nuts, which is part I really like.

 

Purists EXIST to be driven nuts.
(';')

 

Looks really cool. Yes, menacing in a Darth Vader way. You've gone this far, might as well put some 18" black chrome wheels on. Great job!!

 

Snarly! That's what, Snarly and Menacing (close but not quite the same).
That will get the attention of Anything you come up behind!
The more I look at it, the more I like it.
(';')

 

Yes, definitely interested...what paint stripper, spray guns, primer, and paint are you using? Anyone else know about this stuff? I'm planning to remove the paint with stripper (anyone tried soda blasting?), front and back windows out, including the door jambs.

 

Rustoleum aircraft stripper, $30 harbor freight spray gun (no need to break the bank here if youre only planning on doing this once in 5 years ,again i mainly used the stripper on the flat surfaces (roof,Hood,Trunk) as it make a mess on the side, and also didnt work wqell at all on my mismatched fender. i used DTM paint from albert-kemperle so no primer, and i didnt do door jambs etc, i wanted to try sandblasting but didnt have the tools if you do LMK how it goes! (again if you find yourself frustrated with the piles of goop and paint, anglegrinder and stripping discs were my favorite to use.

 

Thanks for that. Currently descaling and painting with POR-15 the chassis of my '05 Tacoma. OMG I've never gotten so dirty working on a vehicle.

 

haha i had been looking like i worked in a coal mine for weeks, dont forget to use a good respirator kicking up that paint dust is terrible for your lungs!
eyeprotection too i got soo much stuff flung in my eyes but a pair of old sunglasses did the trick fine while keeping my face somewhat cool.