Shaggimo

lol, no prob man. Yeah I can help with a list of things you may need and offer up a few tips that I've learned through my own mistakes, lol. For starters, on picking your color, there's a lot of cool colors being used on various vehicles currently especially centering around gun metalish colors. What the gf and I did to pick the color out for her car (the blue one I pictured in my previous post), drove around to various car dealers just to look at colors. You can look at paint chips all day online, but you really won't know what that color will look like on a vehicle out in the sun, that's why I could never pick a color from a book. Anyway, take a drive on a nice day, look at some cars and trucks, if you see a color you really like, write down the vin and take it to the parts dept and ask for the paint code (obviously gm vin to gm parts, ford vin to ford parts, etc, lol). It doesn't cost thing to get that info, plus you won't be second guessing whether or not that color will look good.

As far as the metallic vs solid color debate, if you want a gun metal type color it's going to be a metallic. Are they harder to spray? yup, easier to mess up? indeed, but they look much nicer in most cases. Solid colors are much more forgiving, in terms of mistakes, you van easily wet sand out runs, bugs, dirt nibs, etc, where a metallic not so much, try knock a dirt nib down and you end up with a dark spot (hence why I always stress, cleanliness, lol). Dirt wasn't my issue on the cherokee, but bugs were, they leave spots just like a dirt nib would. When spray a metallic it's very important to lay down consistant even coats, don't try to cover a spot with a little blast of paint, your metallic will distort and give you a almost marbled looking spot (I still make this mistake every now and again). Don't go to heavy with your coats, doing that may not make the paint run, but your metallic will, and it will leave funny streaks. If you lay it down to dry your metallic will sit on top rather than sink into the paint, this will cause the color to look lighter than it should. This poses the issue you mentioned about people try to wet sand a metallic color and expossing their flakes which further distorts the color (hence they put their paint on too dry). My cherokee, is a mixture of three different metallic paints, and as I said no clear, I was able to wet sand the heck out of it without exposing any metallic, my last few coats I went as heavy as I possibly could without running the flakes, that made them sink in nice so I had a good color coat at the surface to work with. Will I be able to go farther with it down the road, most likely not, so any scratches I get from here on out, are pretty much there to stay, I may have a little to work with but not much.

That brings up the question of clear coat. The benefits you will get from it, you'll have harder suface that just acrylic enamel alone, and you'll be able to wet sand/buff without the worry of going anywhere near your flake, as long as you don't sand through the clear, lol. As long as you see white residue as you're wet sanding your still in the clear coat, you will be able to maintain a nice finish much longer if you chose to clear. I checked out the link, that's not a bad deal, never had any experience with that product though. What I can tell you, that being a regular base coat clear coat system, you will have to clear your jambs, door backsides, underhood, etc, etc, etc, the basecoat basically will go one flat, the shine comes from the clear. One kit will not be enough to do everything. I see it gives one gallon of paint, and one gallon of clear. I would plan on using at least 6 quarts of materials, that's about what mine took, there's a lot of sheet metal on these things especially when you do the backsides. So take that into consideration. Still not a bad deal though, for roughly $400 you can have the paint to do it.

It's up to you what type of paint you go with though, price it up both ways, if you have a bodyshop supplier near by, talk to them and see what they have to offer. Usually there's at least one guy that's like a walking encyclopedia for materials and can answer anything you would want to know. They could really help you out with compatiblity between primers, paints, and clears, the place near me has helped me out greatly over the years and has never steered me wrong (though I do buy my materials soley through them, lol).

As far as a gun goes, gravity fed hvlp, period, lol. Again check with your local bodyshop supplier, I bought mine throuh them, great deal on a kit which included a primer gun, a paint gun, different size fluid tips, pressure regulator, and tools, maybe some where around $125 for the set. They work great though, hvlp guns will save you material, basically it puts more paint on the vehicle rather than waiting it in the air, so your paint goes further than with a traditional syphon gun. Another little tip, practice on other things, many times (again at the bodyshop suppler, lol) they will have mistake mixes they sell for very reasonable, may be worth picking up some cheap stuff. If you have a buddy with a beater car that's multi colored or what not, take a weekend to familiarize yourself on proper painting technique, and gun adjustment by bombing his car for him (maybe they'll throw in for the paint even). That way you won't be doing trial and error on your own that you want to look nice (wish I had done that prior to painting my first car).

Oh one more thing about the windows, remove the ones in the quarter panels and hatch, they come out easy. The moldings that surround the windows in the doors pop off easy too, by doing this yo can mask off just the window and a little bit of weather strip over hang and have no tape lines. On the inside of the door, you can fold the weatherstrip back into the window channel and virtually eliminate a tape line there as well.

Kamaran

I think I'm going to end up paint my jeep Colorado Red, which is the factory color. That way I don't have to redo the door jams and interior and such, because all that paint looks 100% fresh from the factory..Its the actual body thatsucks...clear was baked off from sitting in a barn for 6 years. I could litterally peel big chunks of clear coat off the jeep when I got it..like shedding skin.

Doing this would make it much easier, and I actually like the red. Then just paint my engine bay a flat or satin black. I'll probably go buy a small amount of the factory red, and then a trash fender from a junk yard and prep & paint it..if it matches my door jams then I'll do my whole jeep lol.

1ABrian

wow what a build. This is awsome. Hey do you have any picks of your modified stock control arms?

Shaggimo

That's a good plan, sometimes it does make much more sense both financially and time wise to stay with the factory color. You can always just eliminate the two tone. The solid color will be much easier to learn on too.

Shaggimo

Thanks! I don't really have any good pics, but I can get a couple and post them up tomarrow.

Shaggimo

As I said I would, I got a couple pictures of the modified arms today, please excuse the rusty vision, lol, I haven't had a chance to repaint them yet. I made these probably about 4 years ago for my 97, they've held up well with no issues, just threw new bushings at them, and slapped them in the 88.
The uppers I just extended about an inch and a half to try to keep close to factory caster after making the lowers.

The lowers I cut in half, Cut out 4 pieces of 3/16 plate with the angle I wanted, Determinded my ride height, and lengthened them as needed to center the axle back under the jeep to eliminate the fender folding issue that happpens with lifting and bigger tires using stock arms. The angle was just to allow for more droop.



They stuff nice with no wadded fenders (after a little trimming of course, lol).