1979-1993 & 94 Conv [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Well as far as painting - if you have access to a compressor you should be able to get good results with some practice. I've never really done any painting with compressed air or gravity feed, but from what I hear it's not that hard to pick up ;) Heck, you can get decent results just putting the paint on by hand! I'm not joking either, take a look at what this guy made happen using rustoleum and high density rollers: http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html. Pretty decent if you ask me.
For sanding/prepping, there is a school of thought saying it is really only necessary to go to bare metal in areas where there is known rust or even a hint of rust - only by stripping everything will you be able to tell the extent of the corrosion. By going to bare metal on all the panels, like for example if the roof is in good shape or something, you will probably not get as sturdy a finish as by using the base that came with the factory. The saab factory finish from what I have seen adheres very well to the metal - I haven't seen too many cars that just started flaking, usually the paint holds up decently well for the age. Not sure what method they used originally, though. In other words, if the factory base coat has held onto the metal that well for a few decades, why mess with a good thing? ;) It would be hard to get as good results using only simple painting methods, I would think.
As far as dent repairs go, you have the right idea. For small impact damage, you basically want to "do the opposite of what caused it." It's kind of a hit or miss, 'feel' thing, it might be worthwhile to practice on a few samples of sheet metal other than your baby. What makes it hard on the fenders is that they aren't removable - ideally you want to be able to knock them out against a flat surface, if you just do them in place you risk pushing out or adding curvature to the panel as a whole. So then you have to get inventive and maybe use something to back the dent you are hammering. In a perfect world, you'd be able to bang out the dents to perfect factory lines, but this world is far from perfect - well whatever "perfect" means - it's perfect enough for me ;) Basically what you'll want to do is get it pretty close (without overworking the metal) and then use the filler - just enough to smooth out the curvature.
As far as price goes, if you do most of the work yourself I think it should fall well short of $1000. Not sure about welder's fees, but they can't be that bad if you have everything already cut out, shaped, and ready to go.
I would really recommend getting a book or finding an online resource - I'm not terribly experienced beyond a minor dent or ding here and there, but it was great to sit down and read about it - builds confidence and all. I have this one very general car restoration book that has decent sections on body repair, paint, etc. (and a lot of other cool info, it really tries to cover 'a little of everything'). It's the "Collector Car Restoration Bible" by Matt Joseph. Some of the info is directed towards older cars, but I have found it helpful. I think I got it at borders for $30 or so. And I've gone back to reference it more than once. I'm sure there is good info on the 'net, though, if you don't want to spend the cash.
Anyway, hopefully some of that was helpful
Andrew
posted by 208.59.115...
, Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:33:42
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