Painting and Gelcoat repairs

I took my CMC Flareside to one of the high end body shop nearby. The cost to fix the gel coat cracks, some minor chip, align the doors ,hood and trunk and the refinish/paint was a $6600 estimate. OUCH!!! I only paid $5500 for the car I am not paying $6600 + for a restoration. Any suggestions regarding repairs to gelcoat? I plan on doing the glass repairs.
Joe S.

Joe, I just started writing to tell you how to do this, and it would have been a book, instead read the book by the pro's. Look up on the web "Gudgeon brothers", Epoxy resins, or "Fiberglas Evercoat", and call their customer service people. If you explain what you want to do they will be very glad to direct you to the products and the process. Gudgeon brothers even has a very comprehensive paperback, that you can get a boating (West Marine) stores. I just did an old CMC body that has been laying in an open field for years....no big deal. About $50.00 of resin, body fillers, some sanding blocks, and elbow grease ( 15-20 hours), a lot of sanding dust and you can make it perfect

I noticed also on my speedster that there are no supports for the front body nose to the chassis. The previous owner did not install bumpers. I was planning on glassing in some metal brakets directly to the bodies underside and bolting them up to a fabricated inner bumper. I is obvious that the nose gelcoat cracks were cause by the glass flexing. You look everywhere else on the body were it is properly supported and there are no gelcoat cracks. The other option is to glass in some tubing w/bolting flanges across the front for support. The body shop estimator did point out a lot of support issues on the car. Any further suggestions? Anyone else have the same problem?

That's really not so outrageous, depending on the quality of the paint job.

I think what Joe was saying is why put a hundred dollar saddle on a fifty dollar horse? The DIY approach is the best idea. I too have one of those fifty dollar horses.

A great paint job with block sanding work is roughly $3500. Theses guys see an $$$$ opportunity they go for it. They painted my full size extra cab pickup that turned out with a show car quality. They had to sand down the entire truck. The truck was exposed or spray accidentally with solvent which ate through the basecoat clearcoat onto the primer sealer. These guys took everything off the truck including the rear bed. The total for that paint job was $3670. I can prep the body. Paint/supplies would cost around $800.

I found a guy to paint my speedster for $3500. He does it at home on the side. I was also quoted the $6000-$8000 price at a few shops.

For $3500 he is going to....

1. fit up the gaps in the doors, hood and trunk
2. fix my "hack" body work :)
3. block sand the whole car
4. base coat / clear coat (2003 Chrysler Atlantic Blue)

Jerome

Jerome,

I wish you nothing but luck. Most of my bad financial moves so far in life have started out with "I know a guy who...". $4000 sounds about right for good quality paint- its a lot of work.

(Message Edited 5/8/2003 5:11:49 PM)

He comes highly recomended from a couple of guys I trust.

Jerome

A quality paint job has all to do with the prep before and the
rubbing out after. I've painted a couple of fiberglass cars in the
past and presently working on my speedster. Block sanding etc...
is very labor intensive, but the payoff in proper prep is 10 fold.
Good Luck with your choice, Bruce
p.s. I'm too cheap to pay someone for something I "think" I can do. But as previously mentioned its a large investment of time/effort. Good Luck