First attempt at body work/paint on this car

[Jamos]

**** I'm sorry I posted this in the wrong section! Admin please move to E38? Sorry ****


First time trying body work on ANYTHING but I have some experience doing paint, just not on my car

So I have this "black" hammered spray can, it comes out dark grey almost charcoal, and is PERFECT for the OEM grey skirts. It looks wet in this picture, but it's just the way the clearcoat was sprayed. You can see PURPLE at the top, but that's how the paint looks without the clear on it. The clear brings out the pearl too, I looove it. The blue I got (317) is a perfect match to the car, I'm so happy the PO used factory code paint to respray! Here's the blue and "black" on the busted bumper:



I really love the colour combo! There is all kinds of crap on the blue, once I had the colour I didn't care about the quality, so I taped it up and sprayed a few coats of that hammered, you can see the streaks (didn't want to waste it all incase it WAS going to work) and the ripped up clear coat from the paint. No biggy, was just for testing.

THEN I moved on to body work once I knew I had colours down:



You can see the bulge on the rear under the light where the guard rail wire went under, and then the rusted streak where it rubbed against the corner - which actually stopped the car!

I started grinding away the rust and OH LOOK:



Turns out the PO had a bunch of body work done back here! Hmmmm... explains why the paint CRACKED and wasn't flaking, the entire part was covered in crap. I managed to remove it all, and it was just a few dents, no broken metal fortunately.

Moved over to the passenger rear fender that has been growing since day one of ownership:



So far it's looking good, nice "clean" solid metal underneath!


Oh WAIT A SECOND. Nope, turns out it's all covered in crap along the entire well, it was rebuilt and instead of a nice sharp line it's very rounded and "hand made." Hmm never noticed before. I cleaned up all the rust in the well, and found quite a bit of bubbling towards the rear of it too:




I've sprayed rust converter on all the areas I grinded down - quite a few back there - and they've all turned a nice darkened - near black - colour, ready for primer.

Long day today, went through a few grinding pads, and a couple masks. Perfect weather for it though, I'll update once I've completely ruined the car by trying to paint hahah!

I figure even if I screw it up, I can still take it to a shop and pay a guy to do it right with the right equipment and experience, but hey if I don't need to, what an experience and accomplishment it'll be!