How to: Prep a car for paint.

First Step-Finding a Place to Prep and Paint a Car

The first step in considering how to paint a car is deciding on where to paint the vehicle. There are a few options. You could rent a paint booth, this would provide a dry, clean, temperature controlled area in which to paint the car.

You could also either paint the car in your garage or in your driveway. You should do some research in your area concerning where you can paint a car due to the fact it is illegal in some areas.

Second Step-Preparation

The second step in considering how to paint a car is proper preparation. Proper preparation of the car is a very important part of the painting process. If the cars surface is not properly prepared for the application of paint, defects in the finish of the car could occur. Proper preparation begins with using a good wax and grease remover in addition to washing the car thoroughly before sanding.

Third Step-Sanding

The third step in considering how to paint a car is sanding the vehicle. Proper preparation also involves sanding the car. Most people do not enjoy the sanding process, but it is what separates the men/women from the boys/girls when it comes to a successful paint job. Everyone is anxious to apply the paint to a car but don't want to put time into a quality sanding job.

If your hesitant about putting the proper time into sanding a car you really shouldn't even start the job. When applied properly, a quality sanding job will make the difference between a show car and a average paint job almost anyone could produce. So think about this before you follow the next steps.

You want to make sure the car has something for the paint to adhere to. So taking your sanding block and 600grit wets sand paper go over the whole car. Making sure to take the shine out of the clear coat. You can keep the sand paper wet by using a bucket of water with a little baby shampoo in it. This will help in the sanding process.

Once you have gone over the whole car with 600grit and the clear is now dull, go over the car again with 800grit wet sand paper. This is going to get arid of the deep cuts that were put into the clear by the 600grit. But you do not want to go any higher then 800grit at this point, if you do this will not give a rough enough surface for the paint to adhere to.

Sanding is really about feel and discovering imperfections. You should be meticulous while sanding, trying to discover and correct all the mistakes, scratches and small dings until you can inspect the entire car body without finding one. You should then invite a friend or two to inspect your work to see if they can find a flaw in the body of the car. Just remember the end result of your paint job depends mostly on the quality of your sanding.

What do you do about small dings? Fill or try to pull out? I'm talking about something smaller than a dime....

do they have a crease in them? If not you can usually get them out with dry ice.

Nice right up

Paint and body work is something I really think I don’t have the skill or attention to detail to produce quality paint results on anything more then a brake caliper or undercoating. Still very nice rite up


On my currant project the paint and body guy I have know and hired for several projects over the past few years used the fallowing tech using black spray paint to help find hi and low spots along with small dings and dents then filling them in with body filler then sanding everything flush with the body lines. Then end results look very good it’s just too bad I had to fire him two months ago for dragging a project out for way too long. It took him over 6 months to prep the Z I am working on for paint. Granted good help is hard to get now a days but with constant no shows, excuses, and one day work weeks one can take only so much. Sorry to drag my business in to the post just hade to vent.

Z_trbl_mkr wrote:

do they have a crease in them? If not you can usually get them out with dry ice.

good one! thanks!! do you just place it on till it pops back up on its own? or is there more to it than that? ill have to try next time i remove my sound deadening in the toyo w/ dry ice.

Some of my dents have creases, some don't...

well the crease dents will need to have "body work" to get out. The ones without you can use dry ice.

Apply the ice to the center of the dent, the cold will cause the metal molecules to contract, then let the car either sit in the sun or use a hairdryer and heat the metal. This causes the metal molecules to expand, this is turn pops out the dent. You may have to repeat the steps once more but it works quite well. Here is a video I found on youtube about it. Hope it helps.

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