Happy Holidays all! So, as it turns out Santa Claus was pretty good to me this season. I have owned an '88 Formula since the summer of '96. In recent years, the paint (red) has finally begun to break down. My wife bought me a new paint job for Christmas! In her words, "If we are going to continue to drive the Fiero, it better look good!" So I have some research to do in terms of a reputable body shop to perform the work. My question is, due to the different style plastic body panels does the Fiero require more care as to have a quality finished product? Also, are there limitations to what paint can be used??
Fieros use standard automotive paints.....but depending on condition, they may need more surface prep than a steel body...(but at least there is no rust to fix!)
I had mine repainted this past summer. I guess you are staying with the red--the code should be 81U Chevrolet Bright Red. Prep is the biggest part. I took my car apart so the painter could paint the pieces, the job he did is great! search the threads here on PFF you can find some good stories and some scary ones--basically you want to "scuff" the remaining clear coat off--and that's it. at that point you should be able to take it in for paint. Also I did color and clear coat.
I had mine repainted this past summer. I guess you are staying with the red--the code should be 81U Chevrolet Bright Red. Prep is the biggest part. I took my car apart so the painter could paint the pieces, the job he did is great! search the threads here on PFF you can find some good stories and some scary ones--basically you want to "scuff" the remaining clear coat off--and that's it. at that point you should be able to take it in for paint. Also I did color and clear coat.
It looks great! Actually I think I will change up the color. Have owned my Formula for 22 years. The '84 Duke I had prior to the Formula was also red. So I think I am going to change it up!
I had mine repainted this past summer. I guess you are staying with the red--the code should be 81U Chevrolet Bright Red. Prep is the biggest part. I took my car apart so the painter could paint the pieces, the job he did is great! search the threads here on PFF you can find some good stories and some scary ones--basically you want to "scuff" the remaining clear coat off--and that's it. at that point you should be able to take it in for paint. Also I did color and clear coat.
Ive been a professional body and paint shop owner for nearly 50 years. I did restorations and customs mostly. Just a few points:
1. You only have to remove bad paint, as in cracking or peeling. Good paint can be just scuff sanded, color change or not. Remove that bad paint by sanding...DONT use chemicals. Sand using blocks as its easy to sand finger grooves and waves in the body panels.
2. You use all the same paints and products as any other car. The only things different are the filler materials. Use the correct fillers for the specific panels. There are several different plastics used. For long term, you CANT use bondo on any panels.
3. If ANY shop talks about all the special products (other than above) and paints they have to use and special prep, RUN AWAY...they have no idea what their doing.
So I stopped at a body shop today. One concern he has deals with fasteners while removing the panels. No Fiero experience but he has experienced prior trouble with Saturns. Can anybody chime in?
If capable I would remove panels yourself and take them to them. The hardest to remove without breaking the part is the forward part of the roof which includes the windowshield frame, second is the rear body clip. They may not be as careful as you. Maybe ask them what happens if they break any of it. The clips are available which you will need from the Fiero store.
A lot of shops dont know the construction of a Fiero. Most fasteners are Fiero specific, and are plastic. Most break with disassembly. I prefer doing an all over job WITHOUT removing panels for that reason. For a Fiero, I only remove rear wing, tail lights, headlite doors, and wipers. Very careful taping can be indistinguishable from a body off paint job. Most clips are available thru Fiero specific suppliers like the Fiero Store, but most body shops wont have that information or wont bother with that. Pontiac closing all the dealerships shut them down as a source. About the only way to get anything OEM from a dealer now is if you know of a Pontiac dealer that switched to Chevy or Buick that may have left over Fiero parts stashed somewhere.
When I found someone to take the car to he wanted the car completely stripped, even though I was keeping the same color--so we stripped the whole car--to make life easier, we removed panels (lots of bolts) the most difficult is removing the mid belt without breaking them. Many vendors here on forum have those in stock. My first guy backed out on me 2 weeks before Carlisle, and the new guy I found painted and got me ready by midnight Friday the 23 of June, the show was on the 24.I got to Carlisle at 0400, and woke up to go to the show at 0800! we did not remove the A-arms and bow of the front section of roof. I have found that area to be fragile. but that was getting painted black to match the T-Tops. I also found when doing the body-off method, you can find out how your car is doing in the hidden areas
With over 10 years in the body buisness I do a complete disassembly of the fiero. It is a much better way to assure my warranty. I can have the car fully dissasembled in a day and ready to start body work. Yes original clips break no matter how carefull you are but the ones that break are easily obtained through the fiero store. other than the side molding clips, door screws and a large pile of rivets needed its a much easier way to ensure all the jams and edges are correctly preped and sprayed, especially on a color change. The only panel I leave on is the front roof skin due to it breaking very easily, but i do remove the windshield. many people may argue with this but ive seen failure time and time again with panels painted on the car, and I ask the question "How does one prep the body seams fully assembled?" but then again my standards and opperations may be a little higher than most. I go though and fix any and all flaws, there is no such thing as just a paint job. All cars will have stress cracks in the glass that should always be addressed before paint, so that being said evey all over job gets a complete prime and block after all body work.
I don't think you have to sand it back to plastic it is never going to rust all you really need to do is to strip off the paint so nothing is going to crack as you will spend so much time building it back up with filler primer. Spent ages stripping mine right back and don't feel it was necessary to get a great finish as still had enough problems with paint fry etc anyway.
Most cars that need painted have issues with the paint that failing material needs removed to prevent it from coming back. not completely to bare plastic or glass but in most cases it needs removed. Here is a prime example, the previous owner decided to just prep, and prime over what we call chicken scratches. Their attempt failed and from the looks of it had to paint it twice more. By the time this was done there was so much paint on the car that it looked horrible.
as far as the stress cracks go, again one doesn’t have to fix them, but I know everyone has seen them. they are the reason the paint flakes away around the sun roof. Basically, a hairline crack becomes present in the fiberglass and allows moisture to seep through and cause adhesion failure and ultimately cause the paint to flake away. The hoods usually get them around the headlight area. Now i would agree with you on saying "plastic panels" Urethane panels don’t need blocked but an extra 5 min on a panel can ensure that I don’t have any nose marks from my DA sander that can cause blemishes in my final product. also repair areas should always be blocked no matter what the material is.
Originally posted by AWautoworks: ... to assure my warranty. I can have the car fully disassembled in a day and ready to start body work. Yes original clips break no matter how careful you are but the ones that break are easily obtained through the fiero store. other than the side molding clips, door screws and a large pile of rivets needed its a much easier way to ensure all the jams and edges are correctly prepped and sprayed, especially on a color change. The only panel I leave on is the front roof skin due to it breaking very easily, but i do remove the windshield.
All cars will have stress cracks in the glass that should always be addressed before paint...
Thanks for sharing your experience. I also thought the result would look better if all the molding & siding were removed. But I was kinda surprised when you’d recommend removing windshield. Oh boy! It's gonna break for sure. That means I will need to have a new one on hand before I take on this project.
When I bought my car few years ago, I noticed it had stress cracks all around the windshield. The previous owner said he had it painted and it was a decent paint, not great.
I plan to paint it myself in the near future. I was gonna remove the window seal all around the windshield before painting. From your picture, I see you left the windshield on. Is there another way around it instead of losing a good windshield?
So, the front top piece stays on. What about the rear fastback piece?
I already bought an air compressor powerful enough for a paint job along with professional paint sprayers.
My Fiero is black & I’ve decided to go with yellow. Any advice?
Thanks.
[This message has been edited by Fiero Vice (edited 01-14-2018).]
i leave the windshield and pull the molding around the windsheld. sometimes though you have to pull the glass back out to put that windshield back in its kind of a 50/50 shot. the one in the picture has been replaced and has a universial molding so it slips back in pretty easy. I do take the Rear clip off too. Its really not much more work to get it off. It makes it a lot easier to get the back sides and edges when spraying that way you dont have to lean over the edge to spray them and risk getting into the paint. The only difficult thing about getting the clip off is the interior but its not horrible. And yes i leave the front half of the roof on. They tend to break very easy where the a pillar meets the roof so i just leave it on.
[This message has been edited by AWautoworks (edited 01-15-2018).]
Figured Id show off a little here. its my current progress. the sides have been painted as well, I will finish up the roof and rear clip as well as all the side moldings later this week
[This message has been edited by AWautoworks (edited 01-23-2018).]
With over 10 years in the body buisness I do a complete disassembly of the fiero. It is a much better way to assure my warranty. I can have the car fully dissasembled in a day and ready to start body work. Yes original clips break no matter how carefull you are but the ones that break are easily obtained through the fiero store. other than the side molding clips, door screws and a large pile of rivets needed its a much easier way to ensure all the jams and edges are correctly preped and sprayed, especially on a color change. The only panel I leave on is the front roof skin due to it breaking very easily, but i do remove the windshield. many people may argue with this but ive seen failure time and time again with panels painted on the car, and I ask the question "How does one prep the body seams fully assembled?" but then again my standards and opperations may be a little higher than most. I go though and fix any and all flaws, there is no such thing as just a paint job. All cars will have stress cracks in the glass that should always be addressed before paint, so that being said evey all over job gets a complete prime and block after all body work.
Want to come to SC and finish painting a Mera? It is prepped and had a first coat of paint that was then wet sanded. The the shop went just belly up with some/a lot of my money! Now I need someone to finish the car so I can potentially take it to Daytona this March.
Nelson
[This message has been edited by hnthomps (edited 01-25-2018).]
Ouch.. I turned a Mera down here because I wasnt 100 percent sure on hardware and if Mera hardware was even available if anything were to break. 30 year old plastic clips tend to break very easily.
So you said it had its first coat of paint and wet sanded? are you going for a show finish? thats usually the only reason for this to get 6 or 7 coats of clear on for a mirror finish. or they screwed up and had major runs and/or excessive dirt. Or are you doing a two tone of some sort? and even then I do all my two tone before any clear goes on. I know some guys do the first color. clear and do the second on top but that usually leaves an excessive hard line where the second color was sprayed. Sorry for all the questions just trying to get an understanding as to whats going on.
Every pro...and amature ...has their way of doing anything. I still prefer a body together for a paint job. I have no problem getting into jams and other hard areas. Ive owned many show winning cars and painted several Pebble Beach Concours and Bloomington Gold winners. Most newer glamour colors, like pearles, will not match with panel painting. The grain can lay wrong, and the color can vary even painting with the same can of paint. Atomic Orange is one of the bad colors. I painted my own Sebring that color when it came out. Several Corvette colors like Anniversary Red, require a complete all over paint job when any damage is repaired. The factory specified that in a tech bulletin. I NEVER put on more than 3 coats of urathane clear...even with lots of color sanding. You only see the shine on the top coat, so any more is just a waste of material and time. Candy kolors MUST be painted together...and I mean every panel...panel off will NEVER work. The only cars I did as panels off were all solid colors, and my price was usually doubled because of all the extra space, time and material it took to just paint it. Those spectacular 40 coat paint jobs on early customs were done in lacquer...which did require many more coats. 40 coats in urathane would make the finish 1/4" thick.
Every pro...and amateur ...has their way of doing anything. I still prefer a body together for a paint job. I have no problem getting into jams and other hard areas. I’ve owned many show winning cars and painted several Pebble Beach Concourse and Bloomington Gold winners. Most newer glamour colors, like pearls, will not match with panel painting. The grain can lay wrong, and the color can vary even painting with the same can of paint. Atomic Orange is one of the bad colors. I painted my own Sebring that color when it came out. Several Corvette colors like Anniversary Red, require a complete all over paint job when any damage is repaired. The factory specified that in a tech bulletin. I NEVER put on more than 3 coats of urethane clear...even with lots of color sanding. You only see the shine on the top coat, so any more is just a waste of material and time. Candy colors MUST be painted together...and I mean every panel...panel off will NEVER work. The only cars I did as panels off were all solid colors, and my price was usually doubled because of all the extra space, time and material it took to just paint it. Those spectacular 40 coat paint jobs on early customs were done in lacquer...which did require many more coats. 40 coats in urethane would make the finish 1/4" thick.
lol that’s what i was trying to figure out, why the color sand for another round of clear. haha. as far as the color match on orange pear being painted panel off. everything gets laid out as it sits on the car and sprayed. Yes I did separate into two different batches but I don’t have any adjacent panels that are painted at separate times. other than the lower molding but they sit at a different angle on the lower of the door so therefore even if the color is off no one will notice due to the reflection
oh, and not to mention the change of substrate materials will cause the metallic to lay different too. and what the Fieros have 4 different types of substrates haha? rockers are one. all the side panels are another, the bumpers are even yet another type of urethane, and then the smc on the top sides. haha things aren’t looking good. I’m not concerned by any means though. most of the times those changes are so minute that the untrained eye cant spot the difference unless its pointed out. Every customer that comes into our shop we have to point out that their bumper is a different color to the car before we do any paintwork.
Yep, I agree with about all of that. In the early days of painted bumpers, they werent even in the same ballpark as the body color. In the old lacquer jobs with dozens of clear coats, lots of top builders would put on 5-10 coats at a time, let it cure for a month, wet sand and put another 5+ coats on till they built up what they considered a perfect surface before the final color sand and buff. They may have put 40 coats on, but in the end there wasnt much more than 5 coats of it left after the final buff. Clear lacquer was also only $10 a gallon. Now clears are up to $200 a gallon. To get some matches, like on say yellow Corvettes, the panel must first be painted a white basecoat. Some OEM parts come prepainted that white base.
[This message has been edited by rogergarrison (edited 01-25-2018).]
Ouch.. I turned a Mera down here because I wasnt 100 percent sure on hardware and if Mera hardware was even available if anything were to break. 30 year old plastic clips tend to break very easily.
So you said it had its first coat of paint and wet sanded? are you going for a show finish? thats usually the only reason for this to get 6 or 7 coats of clear on for a mirror finish. or they screwed up and had major runs and/or excessive dirt. Or are you doing a two tone of some sort? and even then I do all my two tone before any clear goes on. I know some guys do the first color. clear and do the second on top but that usually leaves an excessive hard line where the second color was sprayed. Sorry for all the questions just trying to get an understanding as to whats going on.
It was supposed to be a show car paint job in single tone black using base coat/clear coat process. Primer used was PPG K36 epoxy and the base coat was PPG DBC black. The car had the first coat of black on it and has been wet sanded so it looks a bit ugly right now. It certainly needs a new base coat and then some layers of clear to make it appear nicer. I am having a wrecker pick it up tomorrow and take it to my house until I can find a good painter. The vehicle runs but is minus a lot of the interior, side view mirrors, all lights,no windshield wipers, etc. so I do not want to drive it on the road and likely get a ticket.
Most of the basecoat paints Ive seen require the clear to be applied within 24-48 hours. Sanding the black before clearing is fine if its got defects, otherwise your going to sand the clear to buff anyway if its a show job, so its really not necessary. I put clear on just like another coat of paint, within minutes of the last coat. Waiting too long will cause the clear not to bond to the base. What you have is a good base...you just need to make sure you scuff ALL the dried paint and reapply at least one coat of basecoat before clearing to assure the clear will stick to it. Just a tip if your doing a show job from a long time customizer...single stage black will be far blacker and deeper looking that basecoat black with clear. If you look into a can of clear youll see its really not clear. It will add a milky, 'off ' black look to it. Without clear over it, black is rich and pitch black. Single stage paint with catalyst in it can be color sanded and buffed just fine and look like glass. Both of my Mercedes SL show cars were single stage red, sanded and buffed and looked a mile deep.
Now clears are up to $200 a gallon. To get some matches, like on say yellow Corvettes, the panel must first be painted a white basecoat. Some OEM parts come prepainted that white base.
