I Need Tutoring on Bondo/Body Filler

The paint on my Prelude is decades old, sun-scorched and cracking. There are portions of the roof and hood that look like the fractured mud flat of a drought-stricken lake bed.

Give me some tips to address the paint issues and then apply a filler before I go to primer and paint. And, yes, this is a noobie project so don't assume I know a lot; I do know some things, though.

My thoughts are to deal with the cracking, painted surfaces and then rattle-can the entire car before resorting to PlastiDip or Elastiwrap for the finishing touch.

Ready, set, go......

this sounds like you don't need filler, you need to sand out of the cracked paint

Yep, if the paint is that far gone it's got to come off.

sounds like lots of sanding to me. Maybe even consider paint stripper if it is localized on a specific panel.

Agree with all of the above - time to take it back to bare metal.

I was going to post something similar tonight, but only about which brand/kind of body filler is easiest to work with. I swae, sanding concrete is easier than bondo brand....

In reply to Dusterbd13:

I think the stuff my friend uses is called Evercoat gold. It stands out really nice.

I second Evercoat. I've heard that the Gold is good but I've only ever used Z-Grip and it almost just falls off with good paper.

Just wanted to chime in and offer this: If I ever give anyone on this forum advice about paint and body work, please know that I'm likely drunk and disregard any and all words that I type.

I have tried 6 or 7 small body repair jobs. I sand, apply filler, block it out until its perfect. I close my eyes and caress every square inch until its flawless. Then I paint it. The bondo looks like it was put on with a paintball gun and the paint looks like I applied it with a Hershey bar.

Never ask my advice on body work. I can do darn near anything I wish to learn. Two things I can't do: Body repair, and land a plane. I can taxi, take off, maintain flight, and even flips. Can't land. And can't do body work.

In reply to curtis73:

A regular Hershey bar, or the one with almonds in it?

Planes with striaght, untapered wings are called Hershey bar wings. Coinsidence?

Sand it off. Bondo won't fix bistered paint.

Dusterbd13 wrote: I was going to post something similar tonight, but only about which brand/kind of body filler is easiest to work with. I swae, sanding concrete is easier than bondo brand....

The lightweight gold stuff from paintforcars.com is $19 a gallon and is comparable to the $60 a gallon evercoat rage gold i'm used to working with. I make large orders to keep shipping cost per item reasonably low.

How much time, energy and $$$ are you wanting to spend on this paint job?

"Decades old paint" tells me that the car ain't worth much and new paint is not going to make it worth more, or even recover the cost...so you are doing this for own pride.

On a ghetto basis for a car that would look reasonable for the least effort, I would use some durablocks to scuff the car with 180, wipe it down with grease and silicone remover, then shoot featherfill over that and finish with a 400 grit. On top of that I would shoot single-stage NAPA paint. That assumes you have a compressor of some sort and about $666> $888 in the budget.

In reply to curtis73:

I feel like I should ask exactly how you know you can't land a plane, but then again...

...never mind.

Not being able to land a plane must be like ski diving: you need to be good at it if you want to do it twice.

Go through the appropriate grits of sandpaper, prime then tape it off and try your hand at PlastiDip.

*be happy that it's a broad, mostly flat area and not a rocker panel where a flare tapers into it.

You need to a Renaissance sculptor for that to look right.

NOHOME wrote: "Decades old paint" tells me that the car ain't worth much and new paint is not going to make it worth more, or even recover the cost...so you are doing this for own pride.

"Decades old paint" means, to me, that the car is worth fixing...

Knurled wrote:

NOHOME wrote: "Decades old paint" tells me that the car ain't worth much and new paint is not going to make it worth more, or even recover the cost...so you are doing this for own pride.

"Decades old paint" means, to me, that the car is worth fixing...

The car in question is an '86 Prelude Si; no, it's not worth a whole lot. But, it is a fun car and something one doesn't see in west central PA, or anywhere else for that matter. For a thirty-something car, it's actually in good mechanical shape and I'd like it be more presentable than it is now. The cracked paint on the hood and roof covers about a combined square foot.

You guys have pretty much convinced me that the affected areas need to go to bare metal so I now I have decide between sanding or stripping. As far as paint, I really want to just get the surface good enough to accept a dip job that can be removed with "relative" ease should I ever choose to do so.

Keep in mind, this a car that stays in the garage when there is even a trace of brine on the roads.

oldsaw wrote: The car in question is an '86 Prelude Si; no, it's not worth a whole lot. But, it is a fun car and something one doesn't see in west central PA, or anywhere else for that matter.

That's a fun old car that you don't see much anymore. Definitely worth putting some time in to make it nicer. I think others have covered the bondo lesson. If you end up needing any filler for surface imperfections after removing the paint, I'd also recommend Evercoat products.

Listen to NOHOME. He sounds smart. Jeff

Jcamper wrote: Listen to NOHOME. He sounds smart. Jeff

Not really...He plays with old cars and sinks a lot more money into them than they are worth.

I also thought you were painting an entire car, not just the one panel.

In reply to NOHOME:

Reading comprehension; it's a good thing.

oldsaw said: Give me some tips to address the paint issues and then apply a filler before I go to primer and paint. And, yes, this is a noobie project so don't assume I know a lot; I do know some things, though. My thoughts are to deal with the cracking, painted surfaces and then rattle-can the entire car before resorting to PlastiDip or Elastiwrap for the finishing touch.