The rear filler panel and the mirrors were mounted onto brackets and a body dolly so that they would be at the correct orientation for the finished position. We've sprayed enough metallic colors to be cautions, even though this should not be necessary with a pearl base. This is our first time spraying a pearl paint. Time to learn something new.
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The doors were mounted onto half of the rotisserie, same as we did for Betsy and the Wagon. Rally Girl was pushed outside while we were spraying these pieces. I hope the rain holds off until these are dry.
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My son sprayed the color as well. The first layer was a sealer to ensure that all the sand through spots would not show through the base coat.
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The mirrors in sealer. Way too plain of a color.
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The rear filler panel in sealer. Surprisingly the sealer went on very smoothly.
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The driver door in sealer. There is one flaw - there is a very long hair from the top of the door to the bottom. Oops. I'm still not sure how that happened.
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The inside of the trunk lid in sealer. Some debris blew out of the holes, but it wasn't enough to worry about. Time for the first round of color.
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The new color I choose is 2012 Mazda Indigo Lights. I renamed it to Liquid Sapphire. Those flecks are the pearl - red, silver, and purple said the shop that mixed this for me. We are shooting this as the base coat, then spraying clear over the top. Once my husband saw the color, he knew why I had chosen it.
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One coat of base coat.
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Three coats of the base coat.
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Now with three coats of clear. And now my husband finally agreed that this is a much better color. At which point he suggested that Rally Girl deserved a website.
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The rear filler panel with base and clear. These indoor pictures do not show the color well. But since we are spraying between rainstorms in the wettest July on record, we will have to wait so show this in sunlight.
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One mirror in clear. This is a better representation of the color, but still lacking something. We let these pieces dry for a few days before taking them inside the house so that we could prep the next round.
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Once the garage was cleared, we brought Rally Girl back in and taped her off again for spraying color. By removing the doors, we could now easily spray the door jambs.
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The popup fuel door was removed so that we could spray around the filler neck area.
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When we sprayed the filler, she was on ramps. But they made getting an even coat on the bottom of the rockers difficult. So we put her up on jack stands, removed all the wheels, and taped the floor drape so that we could easily spray the edge of the wheel wells.
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The rear filler panel covers this green area, so it did not have to be smooth. I also didn't want to have to sand inside all those uneven areas, so we choose not to spray the filler in here. However, the sealer will make sure the color is even all over.
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We almost forgot to tape off the gas cap.
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Ok, no fangs this time. But she is starting to smile again. This round of spraying will just be the whole body.
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The sealer sprayed on well, except for one run in the front bumper. We sanded that off and continued. The same spot had a run in all three coats of base. We are stil not sure why.
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The sun came out, so I took a few minutes to get at least one picture of the color in the sunlight.
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The body sitting outside in the sun. This is a great color for this car. Finally the family agreed with the extra work to change the color.
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That tailgate reflection shows just how deep the shine is. And this is with minor orange peel that has not been buffed out yet.
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I do apologize for the blurry image, but this was the only shot of the trunk lid taped off for round 3 of the color spraying. We taped off the inside that had been sprayed days ago, then scuffed the edge to get a blend rather than a hard edge.
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The inside of the hood was taped off as well. The plan is to rebuild a spare engine for her over the winter and next spring remove the engine, clean the engine bay, and spray it. We'll spray the underneath side of the hood at that time, rather than now.
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The hood is ready for the sealer.
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So is the trunk lid.
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The headlight covers were also prepped for spraying so that they would match the hood.
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The sealer was again sprayed first.
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The trunk lid in sealer.
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The hood with color and clear.
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The trunk lid with color and clear. It's very late and we are tired at this point.
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One of the headlight covers in color and clear.
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It was near 10pm when we finished and the bugs were being attracted by the light. By the time the spray gun had been cleaned up, a moth had landed in the top layer of clear on the trunk lid and went swimming. Needless to say, he did not survive the attempt at the backstroke in fresh paint. We had hoped we would not need to cut and buff, but now it will be necessary. Still, we will wait a few weeks for the paint to fully harden before that.
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