new $70 paint job!!

Me and a friend have been busy the last few days painting my 96 riv! when i bought the car it looked horrible. the passenger side fender had a huge rust hole in it and the paint was faded to hell. not to mention the car was black with a purple hood Since i only payed $900 for the car we decided to do the best cheap paint job possible but still make it look far better than before. the paint we chose was gloss white tractor implement paint from fleetfarm! it cost me roughly $30 for a gallon which covered the whole car. another $12 for hardner and some other crap(sandpaper,tape,primer in a rattle can.....) and somehow i had a total of $70 into the project.

Now before i get to carried away i need to say that i have absolutly no experience painting or doing body work. for that matter i have no idea how to do any of this and probably wont be able to answer many questions. my friend on the other hand has been painting and restoring cars for 20 years and he realy knew what he was doing.

Im sure you paint guys are thinking who in there right mind would use tractor paint on a car. or maybe its normal i have no idea! he added mineral spirits to the paint to thin it out so that it was actualy sprayable out of a gun and did several coats. he assured me it tractor paint was what would be best for this project so i just let him do his thing. according to him we used a lot of paint but in the end it turned out pretty good!


CAN SOMEONE SHOW ME HOW TO POST PICS PLEASE???? i tried and could figure it out. i have a mac so it confusing lol. thanks in advance guys

We've seen the "incredibly cheap paint job" before, although you've got a novel take going with the sprayer. Most involve extreme levels of thinning and a buttload of sanding between coats, to knock down the dust that gets in the paint.

Lots of people have gotten very good results with this technique. It isn't a professional quality paint or paint job, but you're 18 and you kept a car on the road that sounds like it was getting ready for the crusher. That ain't bad, and I doubt more than 10% of the people out there will notice the paint anyway.

Looking forward to seeing your pics! Once you have them hosted somewhere, you take the url for the img (which will be in the form of "http://www.yourserver/yourfolder/yourpic.jpg", click on the sixth button over from the right in the post editor, and insert your code.

Another member will have to recommend an image host.

WOW! and why the f..k not? as long as you have a good time doing it,thats what counts. sounds to me like its an enamel oil base single stage. high gloss? im guessing it is. have a great time. im not good at posting pics either,but do a search right here and there is an explanation that sums it up nicely. good luck!

these two are pictures of the prep work we did. as you can see the car had seen better days!








and the finished project! haha well sorta. i still have some spots to touch up. like i said it aint perfect but not bad for $70 bucks

jack the R- Im glad you said that about it being ready for the crusher! because thats exactly were it was going had i not purchased it. the previous owner thought the supercharger was junk and ruined the engine. turned out to just be the coupler in the charger. cost me $11 to fix!!! his loss, my gain and now it looks a lot better too

looks dynomite!

robotennis61 wrote:

looks dynomite!

thanks a bunch man! i think so too

I really like the fact that you went ahead and painted the spoilers. Imo it makes the car look fuller.

Looks great! You decided to paint the Riviera script on the sides?

One question: Why did you leave the Riviera emblems on the rear quarter panels.?
I would have just taken them off, they are only held on by double sided tape. They come off easy when you are prepping the body for paint.

EDIT: I was typing too slow for Rick.

You said you had some more work to do, maybe you will consider taking those emblems off, do a little sanding and priming and shoot those area's again.

Good for you making it all work for $70.00.

Where did you find an $11 coupler for the SC?

Paint job looks just fine, BTW.

Looks great from here, what a classy ride!

I'll buy the material and pay $70 for labor if you wanna do mine next. That looks amazing. And you know, I bet the tractor paint will hold up better too.

Looks great, but there seems to be a bit of overspray. I love when people think the S/C goes bad. Easy to take advantage of that!

HEY!!! were you at the subway on central entrance in duluth a few weeks ago? i was going to post on here saying ive never seen an all white riviera with white trim and i saw one there with WI plates. i was in my silver park avenue but i had the winter steelies on.

Pretty good Tim , looks like you did a lot of prep work. Do you plan on wet sanding and polishing? Anyway, please post updates of the car finished!

this could have been a faster way
http://www.2dayblog.com/2008/08/07/a-black-bmw-has-been-taped-to-white/?lang=en

My anti-spam/anti-virus software doesn't care much for that site.

Car looks sweet,the paint will last,stuff ware's like iron!!!

1998 Riv wrote:

My anti-spam/anti-virus software doesn't care much for that site.

tanks! i aint goin either

dude for 70 bucks you cant go wrong for the results you got. looks really good..

Hey yall! Thanks for all the compliments. I am verry pleased with the way it turned out. Like I said I'm still not done yet. I have to do some detail work incuding painting the riviera emblems silver. I also have one more major thing left to do but I won't tell til I get some pics of it. I've never seen it done on a riv before.

-97 park ave- I wasn't near that area by the way. Haha and my car has temp plates on it right now

- also for whoever asked about the coupler I bought.I got it from rock auto and I remember paying either 11 or 13 bucks plus shipping if that helps you.

Again thanks for all the great compliments guys!

Looks really nice!

I know it's a $70 paint job, but if you didn't use the proper prep on the lower plastic pieces, that paint is gonna crack and flake off in 6 months.....

Abaddon wrote:

I know it's a $70 paint job, but if you didn't use the proper prep on the lower plastic pieces, that paint is gonna crack and flake off in 6 months.....

That's a good point. I'm not done yet. I plan on sanding the paint of there and spraying grey bedliner on the plastic trim pieces. It was faster to just paint them white rather than taping them off.