pulling the trigger on painting

must paint my 85 318i 4 door, clear coat is flaking and some dumb ass ran into it with a mower at the golf course, they are paying for the repairs, how many coats of primer should i use? how many coats on color and at least 3 coats of clear coat?
i use to work in prototype plastics shop but that was back in 79-85, lots has happen since then forget some of the steps
any help would be great, thanks guys
chris

I just painted the hood on my '98 Neon (I know not a Bimmer) and I used a HVLP gravity flow gun, shot at 40 psi with Sherwin Williams auto paint. I used four coats of base with reducer at 4:1 at +70 "F" and and three coats of clear with hardener same mix as base, and she looks great. This was my first experience painting an auto and I amazed myself. good luck.

bear, i was gonna get an hvlp gun, 40psi is ok ? not much overspray?
what grit sandpaper did you finish with?

I bought my gun at Harbor Freight and 40 psi worked well. I would test the pressure out the spray end by test shooting against a bord or piece of metal and adjust the pressure accordingly. I had no significant over-spray and no orange peel. I did not need to use any primer as I had no bare metal, I first sanded with a #400 wet/dry paper and finished with a #600 wet/dry ( all you need to do is ensure that there are no glossy spots). I washed her down with de-greaser I bought at Sherwin Williams and the first coat I shot was a tack coat (a quick once over at about 12" above the surface, the rest of the coats were shot at about 6" above the surface and a little slower movement). I waited about 10 minutes between coats and after shooting all the color, I cleaned the gun (paint thinner), waited about 45 minutes before starting the clear coat (not over 1 hour) and did the same routine as the color, both in a tack coat and the finishing coats. The trick I guess is to keep the gun moving and give a little overlap on each coat. I will admit I had a neighbor who restores Older VW Beetles looking over my should for the first shoot and then he told me I was doing fine and walked away. I was nervous, never having done this before, but the reults were great. Any more qyuestions just ask or email me at [email protected].

If you clear coat is flaking you need to sand with 320 to get flaking area as smooth as possible. the sand the areas around the it with the 320 as well to get adhesion when you put primer. I use 2k primer to cover the flaking area,if you dont in about a year the flakes will come back thru I dont care how much base/ clear you put down. Once you have it covered good enough sand with 400- 600 the whole area you plan to paint so the base will stick and the spray the base then clear.

One last thing, I shot at 40PSI with a HVLP gun and I thi9nk a little less pressure would be right (maybe 25 PSI) as I did get a little bit of Orange Peel (almost invisible). The Sherwin Williams folk did provide and entire printed sheet of what ratio to use for both reducer and hardener and also what pressure to shoot at, I did all by the book except for the pressure, so I guess when all else fails red the instruction sheet.