Painting An AMC Rambler - Learn to Spray Your First Paint Job

The Rambler trunk was perfect... 

   

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The Rambler trunk was perfect for a practice spray. We needed to remove the old seam sealer (arrow) and the rust before spraying any new paint. All we needed to do was scuff the existing paint rather than take the trunk down to metal. Topcoats will stick better to original paint than to sheetmetal.

We're going to paint one of our project cars in the next year. We're going to do it by hand, in the Car Craft shop, from car wash to final color-sand and buff, all while you watch. Though we've painted a few cars in the past, there has always been a shop or professional gun at work at some point in the project that has kept us from proclaiming 100 percent ownership of the work, good or bad.

If you've had the same idea, you're going to need to know all the little details about picking the right paint, sandpaper, reducers, and a list of other items that conspire to bog you down. You're also going to want to start your first job in an out-of-the-way place, like under the hood or in the trunk, in case you make a couple of mistakes, like we did. Trunks also don't require color-sanding and buffing to look right, so they're a great place to get some practice on good prep work and spraying techniques.

The CC/Rambler had some surface rust in the trunk and some areas where the seam sealer had retreated and the original paint had started to bubble. All that was required was some simple sanding and application of some primer to get the area paint ready. That allowed us to spend more time on paint mixing and experimenting with paint flow, air pressure, and spray pattern before we tackled anything like an entire car. Try it.

Regulators
Because we don't have a wall-mounted pressure regulator, the pressure at the inlet regulator is well over 100 psi. We had to pull the trigger halfway to relieve the initial pressure spike on each stroke then pull it all the way to get the paint to flow. A wall mount is next on the grocery list. A cheater valve regulates by restricting airflow. Think of it as kinking a hose to temporarily stop water flow. Straighten the hose, and water blasts out. A proper wall-mount regulator vents off excess pressure, therefore holding steady at whatever pressure you set it to.

There was some rust where...        read full caption There was some rust where the car had been damaged and repaired; the stock paint had been cracked when somebody beat it back into shape. We used a 36-grit Rol Loc on an angle grinder to get rid of all the rust.		We also chipped off most of...        read full caption We also chipped off most of the old seam sealer from the joints between the wheeltubs and the trunk floor and anywhere else it was missing. After the big chunks were removed, we sanded the area smooth with the Rol Loc.
Using a rubber sanding block...        read full caption Using a rubber sanding block and 150-grit, we sanded the paint and rust from between the ribs of the trunk floorpan and to feather the edges of the areas where we used the 36-grit and the angle grinder. We used dry paper instead of wet for this job. The rule of thumb is to use dry paper for feathering edges, taking down filler, or sanding primer. Use wet paper for jobs that require grit over 320 like when you are prepping for paint. When using water, the finer grits are less likely to clog, and any debris that might scratch the finish is washed away.	For the big jobs, we used...        read full caption For the big jobs, we used a Matco pneumatic DA sander with a 220 pad and sanded everything within reach just enough to just take the shine off. You want a dull, even surface for the primer to stick to. If you find any crack larger than normal paint checking, sand until you start to see the primer underneath the paint (assuming it is factory) or until the crack is gone in the case of body filler.	We taped off the taillights...        read full caption We taped off the taillights and and filler neck. The only advice we have here is that you can use the cheap, yellow masking tape instead of the blue or green. Works the same.