paint prep help

[MasterOFDrift]

Ok I am going to get my car painted at maaco. I know what you are all going to say about that, but the shop i am going to does a decent job a low price and I need a paint job bad and body work done also.

So I heard that one reason maaco is not good is because they do not prep the car well for painting. So i decided to do the prepping myself before I take it in.

I just want to know what steps I should take to use to prep my car for painting and what I should use. This is my 240 and I don't want to mess it up so if anybody is an expert or experienced with painting cars please enlighten me

[s13cruzer]

well your gonna wanna sand everything down until there is absolutely no gloss to that paint what so ever , after that sand some more , then take care of your dents and what not , you might wanna let them tape it up since i can see pronblems with driving a taped up cart down the street , most of it is making sure the surface is clean , which is done by special degreasers and wax removers , that are usually put on right before hand , so there isn't too much you can do yourself , but that just me , i haven't painted in awhile so if i'm missing something , someone please help this guy out.

[SaintlyCharBoy]

just a note, when sanding the paint and bondo (i'm assuming you have some fills to take care of) bring it to 10 times as smooth as you think it needs to be; especially if you plan on using a metallic or pearl finish, as the paint has a "grain" and brings out even the tiniest imperfections.

on my camry i went all the way to 2000 grit wet sand paper to make sure that it was smooth, it still wasn't perfect, but... it was a camry wagon, c'mon

bottom line, take your time, if you rush you'll see why people say that cars have personality

[rampid360]

Umm..pretty much just sand it down with 180 then 400 then 800 then 2000.    You can skip some steps in between I suppose.  Just take your time sanding then bathe the car in laquer thinner when you are done.  

-Al

[MasterOFDrift]

so do I sand until there basically no paint left on the car?
Like until it is silver? and where can i buy large amounts of paint lacquer

[rampid360]

Sanding all of the paint off isn't necessary.  Just sand until its all been scuffed up.   There shouldn't be any glossyness left to the paint.  You can buy gallons of laquer thinner at Autozone, Napa, Hardware store, K-mart...any place that sells paint.

You will only need a gallon and you'll have most of that left over.

Just wipe all of the dust off of the car with the thinner.

-Al