24 Key Paint & Body Tips

Even if they’re old and rusty, you may want to reconsider chucking the factory trunk hinges in the trash. Typically, removing the surface rust from old hinges and spraying them with a fresh coat of paint makes them look as good as new.

A big fuel pump that hangs beneath the bumper might be OK in a drag car, but can ruin the rear profile of a Pro Touring machine. To help tuck the fuel tank and pump closer to the body, the trunk floor on this Camaro has been raised several inches. This required building a custom trunk pan, which took between 7-10 days.

Flat-sided cars like Tri-Fives and Chevy IIs make poor bodywork look even worse. A common rookie mistake is relying too heavily on body filler. This makes it very difficult to straighten out the panels, and once painted, the result is wavy-looking paint. Likewise, body panels should be blocked with all the sheetmetal attached on the car. If the panels are blocked individually on a stand, too much material will be removed from the edges of the panel, where they will curve inward.

Prepping bumpers for chroming is like prepping body panels for paint. If the bumpers aren’t completely smooth in bare metal, they’ll look even worse once chromed. Chrome that lacks sufficient nickel content will start looking dull in a short period of time.

Media blasting a car always reveals its ugly secrets. When rust holes are filled with body filler, they’ll eventually sink into the body panel and create a low spot. The proper fix is to fill in the holes with metal so only a very thin layer of Bondo is required.

Smoothing the firewall can yield a clean, modern-looking engine compartment, but there are certainly some pitfalls to avoid. Someone has attempted, unsuccessfully, to smooth out the outside perimeter of the firewall on this ’57 Chevy. In situations like this, Cameron says that it’s easier to replace the entire firewall with a custom unit instead of trying to fix prior mistakes one section at a time. When doing this, it’s imperative to reinforce the body with X-braces under the dash and in the doorjambs to prevent the car from flexing.

Cars like the ’57 Chevy have studded trim pieces that run the entire length of the quarter-panel. They attach with nuts on the back side of the panel, and over-tightening them can put waves in the paint and destroy the panel. Furthermore, sealer should be used around each nut to keep moisture from penetrating into the quarter-panels.

There’s no way around the fact that poor metalwork results in poor bodywork. The rockers on this Tri-Five have already been replaced before in a prior repair, and now the filler is falling apart. The reason is because the pinholes in the welds were not ground flat, so the body filler never adhered to the metal properly. Consequently, over time pinholes in the welds resulted in pinholes in the body filler.

When inspecting body panels, the condition of the inside of the panel is just as important as the outside of the panel. Although this Tri-Five fender has some surface rust and Bondo, overall it’s in good shape and its inner structure is very solid. At times it doesn’t always make sense to salvage an original body panel from a cost standpoint, according to Cameron, it’s often worth the effort.

Cars might roll into the paint booth in fully assembled form on TV, but that’s not how things work in real life at high-end body shops. After assembling all the body panels and block-sanding them, the paint should be applied only after all the body panels have been taken back apart. This enables getting paint evenly into all the nooks and crannies like the doorjambs.

Fiberglass cars like C1 Corvettes are completely different animals from steel-bodied machines. Since they’re more prone to flexing and cracking, they must be supported on special fixtures with additional reinforcements all around the body. Although there are cheaper alternatives on the market, Cameron prefers quality brand paint guns that can cost up to $700 each. According to Cameron, cheap paint guns might work well if you’re lucky, but sometimes they won’t spray anything at all. Generally, primer guns have bigger nozzles than paint guns, and sealer guns fall somewhere in-between. CHP

Fiberglass bodies are particularly susceptible to pinhole formation. It takes patience and a trained eye to sand all the pinholes out, especially in the doorjambs and trunk. Using a Scotch-Brite pad is a no-no.

Granted, some backyard hot rodders can get surprisingly good results from painting cars in their garage, there’s a reason why shops spend tens of thousands of dollars on paint booths. Not only do they filter out dust and assorted contaminants, they also supply a steady stream of air to prevent blisters from forming in the paint. The painter’s suit and mask has its own separate air supply.

Paint guns are powered by compressed air, so it’s very important to remove water from a paint booth’s air supply. Dooley’s facility features two separate water traps, a primary trap near the air compressor and a finer secondary water trap inside the paint booth.

Although there are cheaper alternatives on the market, Cameron prefers quality brand paint guns that can cost up to $700 each. According to Cameron, cheap paint guns might work well if you’re lucky, but sometimes they won’t spray anything at all. Generally, primer guns have bigger nozzles than paint guns, and sealer guns fall somewhere in-between. CHP