Its finally done!

[Whut]

I think I am in the minority on this too but I like the car with the emblems on. I polished it up too.

Its so nice to have it looking complete again. It took since April to have it looking the same but better than it did last summer.

 

[BlackMetal]

Looks very nice. Paint is beautiful.

 

[Whut]

Thanks man, I cheaped on the paint so I am very happy with the results.

 

[GNBeswick]

I agree, it looks very nice. I like emblems on myself as well.....how did you "cheap" on the paint?

 

[BlackMetal]

I agree, it looks very nice. I like emblems on myself as well.....how did you "cheap" on the paint?

Yeah that's what I'm wondering, it looks fine to me.

 

[tb3]

Beutiful Car!

I can never get tired of looking at a nice kept stock grand national! I just don't think there is anything else buick could have done to make the car any better cosmetically on the outside. Wheels, trim, everything is just perfect. If there was one thing I could live without would be the "buick" emblem on the front grill. I understand there needs to be a buick name on it somewhere, but just think there might have been either a better place for it, or, a better looking emblem.

 

[Whut]

I agree, it looks very nice. I like emblems on myself as well.....how did you "cheap" on the paint?

My paint was REALLY bad, it appears it was kept outdoors and rarely washed. Although there is not any rust it was in really bad shape. Here are some examples,

I had comments like "what do you use to dry the car with, sandpaper?"

The car was in rough shape when I got it all around, the interior was near perfect except for the headliner but the paint was shot, the motor was having issues even though it only had 57,000 original miles on it and the tires werent right as well as the front brakes turned to dust when I pulled them off.

All the local body shops were quoting anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 to "restore" the car. The cheap came when I decided to do a lot of it myself. I took it to a local guy that worked for a Maaco, I knew the guy was good and Maaco was simply his paint booth. I talked to him about what I wanted and what my budget was and we came to a deal. Basically, I pull everything off the car, if its left on he will just tape it off and a line will be there. He will chemically strip from the body crease up and block sand the heck out of the sides (the sides werent bad, knicks and scratches and stuff but no cracking). He would then prime the whole car and paint everything with a single stage urethane paint. He would also paint to order, trim parts were semi-gloss while anything I specified was gloss with the body.

I paid $1,300 for the body work and he went beyond what I expected. I wanted a couple of dents fixed on the deck lid and one big dent fixed on the front where a lady hit it backing out of a parking spot. He fixed those along with all the other dents, the hood, the doors, the trunk, fenders, all the dings and dents were fixed. I then paid about $250 for the actual paint, its not thick and there is a bit of orange peel but I am not complaining, it looks great to me and its now ready for the good paint when I am done with the motor.

 

[Whut]

Oh yeah, I ended up pulling everything that could be removed off the car with the help of a buddy. That car was barebones when I dropped it off and a week later we were back at it putting it all back together. The car has no paint lines which is nice. I also just paint the wheels and put on new center caps, this car is getting to nice to drive.

 

[BlackMetal]

Sounds like you got a nice deal. Can't beat doing some of the work yourself to save a few bucks. Definitely an improvement from what you started with. :biggrin:

 

[GNBeswick]

I see....well Im glad it all worked out good for you. Those old pictures are just painful to look at

 

[91rangerturbo]

:biggrin:

Looks very nice. Paint is beautiful.

 

[jdpolzin]

Glad to see you got your car painted! Good price too. I, for some reason can't see the pics though?? They just show up as a red X. ------Jeremy