Painting a few body parts...

[Colema62]

Hello everyone. I am a COMPLETE novice at car painting. I have never attempted anything before. I have a 1991 Toyota Celica. When I bought it, it had some rust, and a mildly crunched front fender and torn bumper. The guy I bought it from had a new bumper, front fender, and rear decklid for the car and was going to paint it. I took those parts some day thinking I'd get it painted. I am really interested in painting the peices myself and putting them on my car. All I want to do is paint them black like my car and put them on, I don't want to repaint the whole car. Can anyone give me some tips on what to do. I would like to see if maybe I can just spray paint the parts with PPG paint, I looked on their site and they sell the paint to match my car in 12oz spray cans. Would painting the parts that way work? I'm not looking for a professional job, just something to make my car look halfway decent. Also, if it will help you guys out, the bumper is black plastic, never been painted, the fender and rear decklid are painted red, from a different celica. Could I get some help on what to do, how much it might cost, etc. Thank you all so much!!

[Rod&Custom]

Can you use the 12 oz. cans? If you do not have an air compressor and spray gun, then that is probably your only choice. You said your bumper was "plastic", so I am assuming its fiberglass? If its fiberglass, then just give it a light sand, shoot some primer, and go to town! After this, You will need some clear to go over it. Like I said, this would be extremely easy with a spray gun, and an air compressor, but hey its still possible this way. OK, now with the metal parts. What kind of shape is the red paint in? If it is in pretty good condition, just get some high grit sandpaper(220) and sand down the clear coat until you start seeing the red bleed out in the water. When sanding, make sure to use a sanding block, plenty of water, and be even with your strokes, or you'll see it in the black paint. Now just follow the same intstructions as before. Primer, paint, and clear. When all done try to rub out the surface with some rubbing compound, because a buffer will be too much for the little clear that would be on there. Post some pictures of your progress if possible. Hope she gets painted soon!

[ghostguy6]

For the platic bumper, you will meed to sand it lightly with a 320 grit paper to scratch up the surface so the primer will stick. Spray on a thick coat of a FLEXABLE PRIMER, if you use regular primer it will crack and cause the paint to peel. Sand the primer with 320 grit wet sandpaper to remove the high spots and create a smoot but very lightly scratched surface. Apply the colored paint in thin coats, once the first layer becomes tacky apply the next coat, continue to do so until you have a nice build up of paint. The next step is to WETSAND the paint with 600 grit sandpaper, sand just enough to make smoot, DO NOT OVERSAND! apply clear coat and polish to obtain a smooth finish.
For the colored panels this will be harder, you will have to wetsand off ALL the clear coat with some 400 grit paper, this will take you some time. You will know the clear coat is gone when you start to see red in the water. Wipe clean with wet rag. Take a clean white rag and pour a small amount of laquer thinner on it, DO NOT USE LAQUER SOLVENT< rub the rag on the paint, if you get some of the paint on the rag you have a laquer based paint, if no paint gets on the rag you have an enamal based paint, DO NOT MIX PAINT TYPES!!! Once you have determined the paint type, you may paint over the old paint provided you removed all the clear coat. Sand and paint as mentioned above. If you feel the paint is not suitable to be painted over, post back and ill help you with starting from bare metal good luck