Painting

According to the door tag, my car is Wimbledon White (M1619/45900). I can source this in aerosol form therefore I have decided to repaint the panels I painted in Antique White over the last 5 years (when I was sorting out scratches etc). I will also use a 2K clear coat which should give me gloss I’m looking for.

Update: I just bought some 2k M1619a aerosol paint & 2k clear gloss. I can now start prepping the car for paint, which I have decided to do in sections. As the paint must be used within a few hours I really need to get all my ducks in a row before starting.

The prep, including some small areas of filler (to ensure an even surface) took a few hours. I also used some plastic sheeting that came with tape (normally used by interior painters) and this worked really well, althoug in hindsight I should have covered more of the car as the overspray was quite bad, however I was able to remove it from the windscreen and blue stripe with very fine sandpaper.

Covering the chrome, lower stripe etc took over an hour but it was well worth it. I used sugarsoap to wipe down the panels and then a tack cloth to get them as clean as possible before activating the first can of 2k paint. I started with the area behind the rear bumper and to my great suprise the colour was nearly a perfect match.

Using even overlapping passes I completed the first coat, let it dry for about 10 minutes and then gave it a second coat and then a third. It looked really good, far better than the flat paint I had applied 5 years prior. Once it was dry I went over it all with the tack cloth and then applied three coats of the 2k clear gloss. I was wearing a mask and safety googles but it was still very strong smelling so I think much better PPE is required. I really suffered with a migraine later in the evening!

I am thrilled with the result though, it looks much better than I expected!

The following day I started prepping the other half of the car. I’ve made the decision to lower the car and reverse it into the garage so that I have more space to paint the driver side

After lowering the car I was able to drive it out and reverse it back into the garage. It was a great feeling, especially as the engine had been out of the car!

Another hour or so of prepping for paint before I was able to lay down the 2k white.

The following week I masked the centre white stripe and painted it along with the door jams and rockers. I was then able to install the headlight buckets and surrounds which felt like real progress.

It was very satisying reinstalling the sill guards as they look good against the new paint.