Thefireball

I don't think I've ever shown off my car on here, except when I was tearing the motor out. So I figured I would upload pics here as well when I do on Instagram from time to time.

First pic is what she used to look like:


Lots of the clear coat coming off. Don't have pics of before I started modifying it. I do have a pic of me sitting in front of it the day I bought it though. I just have to find it.

Then a pic of some one breaking my driver side window and failing to open my trunk:


Had a new window the next day. Thankfully the yard has a CL.

Then a pic my friend took with his really nice camera at Slammedenuff with my girl's car behind mine, and his behind hers:

I plan to do some more work with him in the future, because he's good at pics and editing.

And now my recent pics I've taken:



Heavy on the filters, was trying to make them a little colorful with these night shots.

Oh, and the engine bay:


And just a raw shot of my car's ass because I like it:



I've still got some plans to make it look different/better. I'll post pics when I do them. Sort of using this as a 'Where I was' vs ' Where I am now' sort of thing. Probably won't be doing the looks portion until after I obtain a 6 speed transmission though.

619rcr

The pics definitely highlight the emphasis on then vs now. Not bad really, I like the black hood, I've done a similar look with flat black body and cleared black hood. Looked okay to me, but everyone else was like wth ? That was 20yrs ago, funny cuz the flat paint jobs are more common now.

I will admit at one time I considered a professional paint job for the CLS, but the estimate was $1600, so that was a no-go... My rationale is I'm old and I have no one to impress, lol

Thefireball

My friend loves talking about the bad paint on my car when his Lexus' paint is immaculate. I'd like actual paint, but too much money for me. So the hood, roof, and trunk are all vinyl wrapped. Done by me & me girl ourselves. I still have to do the sides, which I'll be doing in a blue. I was supposed to do it awhile back, but then the whole engine blowing situation happened.. sooo, yeah.

Oh, and I should mention that I tried my best to freshen up the rear and front bumpers myself. You can see in the first pics on the corner that it kised something with the previous owner. Left a tear and some black marks. I sanded them down, cut the tear off, filled in the hole, and tried repainting and clear coating the whole thing. The hole I fixed is hard to tell it was ever there. However I didn't do enough sanding, and the clear coat is coming off in spots now, oh well.

I also backed up into something once upon a time, and left a crack in the rear bumper on the corner. Tried repairing it 3 times, but the epoxy just keeps coming off, exposing the tear half way down it. I just got fed up and left it. Either a new bumper, or I'll try heating up some pieces of a coat hanger and melt it into place to hold it still and prevent it from coming apart again. Painting was kind of fun to be honest.

Fun fact; Electron Blue from the auto parts store matches blue Aegean pearl almost exactly.

jonah.r7

What is the process you went through to prep it for wrapping? I've looked at a lot of options for mine since it is severely sun damaged and thought about wrapping it myself if I could learn how well enough.

Thefireball

Well for me, I didn't want the clear coat that was still there showing through the wrap. So I went sanded as much of it off as I could on all three parts. I'm sure it would have been fine to leave it there, but I did it anyways. Then I cleaned it up real good with some soap and water, and waited for it to dry.

I'm good at laying the wrap down, but it's definitely a two person job. I'm bad at actually rubbing it down. I tend to cause a lot of wrinkles. My girl is good at doing that part. I'm good at actually 'tucking' and hiding the wrap in crevices.

Vinyl wrap is very forgiving, as long as you're not using a wrap that's complicated like a chrome wrap. If you mess up or cause a wrinkle, or have something underneath, simply unstick it, grab whatever debris is underneath it, if there's a wrinkle, just heat it up with a heat gun for max 2 seconds, and it's back to normal. Then just lay it back down with some tension.

The three parts that I did were the easiest. My girl's car is completely wrap, and there's only one major eye sore, which is the front bumper. You can see it coming up around the grill. Admittedly, that's probably the hardest part on any car. I'm hoping we learned from her mistakes when it comes time to do mine.

Vinyl wrap isn't that hard. Just order a kit on Amazon, find a wrap on metrorestyling, and watch a bunch of CKWraps on YouTube to get an idea on what to do. Things like wrap the indent for the license plate, he can show you how. Sort of just cover the indent with a little bit of slack, but don't fully stick it around the edge completely. Heat up for a second, then slowly stick it inside the dent. Vinyl wrap can handle a lot of tension, but if you run the heat gun for too long, you WILL burn a hole through it. I did it two times, and it happened instantly after about 5 seconds. Thankfully, the wrap we had was cheap and was only $50 to cover the portion we did. Just hope they don't run out of stock.

Oh, and make sure you wrap the part while it's on the car. It needs to be holding onto something because you need to tension it. Otherwise, the part will just move around and you can't 'glass' it properly. Also, wrapping the car on a hot sunny day makes things Soo much easier.

Thefireball

Also, just a seperated tid bit about the stickers on my car. I know some people hate stickers/decals on cars, but I only throw them on that actually relate to it. So all the mods I have on it that had stickers, I threw them on each back side window, and the Japanese Kanji on the rear windshield is from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. In succession, like how I have it, it means a 'menacing' noise, like when the antagonist shows up on the show. For my car, it's related to the exhaust, because I think it sounds 'menacing'.

jonah.r7

Yeah I think what I will do is try a cheaper wrap and just mess around and learn it myself, was already planning on blacking out my chrome with a black gloss vinyl wrap, and yeah I would definitely sand down my peeling clear coat, which nicely enough is all the way off the hood and sun damaged in very even patterns so It won't take a lot of random touchups I believe. Just wondering did u or are you planning on de-badging the car before you wrap the rest of it? My CL-S badges are already off, but I'd like to save the back logo and letters to paint and put back on at some point.

Thefireball

I've only got that mesh grill I made myself with the Type S badge glued to it, along with the Acura Logo badge on the trunk. I can't help but get the feeling that when I beat a V8, that they think my car is an Integra. I like keeping the mysteriousness of it, but I want people to at least know it's an Acura.
Also, having it say '3.2CL' doesn't fit anymore, because I have a J35A3 swapped in. Now I need a 3.5 badge and carpets to match. Eventually it'll be a 3.7L with a super charger. Just need to get a manual transmission first lol.

​​​​

619rcr

I know what you mean about the 3.2 lettering. Have the type S 6 speed shift pattern trim still, but instead of getting a 3.5 logo, opted for a 7GA 'V6 Hybrid' badge instead. Keeps it a bit vague and leaves room for future mods. lol

Thefireball

I've thought about using the cheap badging auto parts stores sell, but it's too tacky. Acura Logo is enough for me.

But I would love 3.5CL embroidered carpets.

CLtotheTL32

iTrader: (3)

ABP is the best color

Thefireball

It's what I was looking for when I totaled my '99 CL. I would have taken any color though because I need a car ASAP. Thankfully, I came across this one with only 2 owners. Unfortunately, the clear coat was damaged, bad, which is normal for these cars. But the vinyl wrap makes it look much better I think.

I have plans to vinyl wrap the rest of the car, and I'll be sticking with a blue. Not sure which blue yet, but I have other things I want to do before dropping another $500 on vinyl wrap.

CLtotheTL32

iTrader: (3)

All in good time! It'll happen

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

I agree...I love to see humble beginnings and a member that isn't afraid to learn and get his/her hands dirty.
Kudos for that.

Thefireball

Ayy, I learned a lot of expensive lessons in my J35A3 swap thread. At least I feel confident enough to build my friend a B20 for his del sol now though, lol.

Thefireball

Pretty big storm the other night. Decided to bust out my tripod and take some videos. This was the best one of the night. Video is up on my Instagram. Can't be arsed to upload to YouTube.

Thefireball

Figured I'd update with some pics of what I recently did.

The rear bumper on my car has a crack on the driver corner from where I backed up into a co-worker's car at night. His car was perfectly fine. They were not happy because it was a brand new Kia Stinger. No scratches, just a warped piece of a plastic lip that popped back into place. But my bumper? Damaged.

I tried fixing it with epoxy three times. But every time. It would crack again. On top of that, I repainted it, but used clear enamel, and never a proper clear coat. I've done this for all my paint jobs.

Finally a silver CL came into the junkyard a couple months ago with good body parts, paint and a clean interior. So I pulled the trunk, bumper, seats, etc.

I recently got around to trying my hand at properly painting a body part. I'm pretty happy about the results. I'd say 70% of it turned out really good. For a first time, I'll take 70%. All done with rattle cans and my Ryobi orbital sander, as well as hand sanding and such. Wet sanded clear coat, cutting compound, and using my drill to polish.



Can you spot the imperfections? Well of course, I have to point them out. You see, the issue came to when I was wet sanding the bumper to get the peel out. I accidently went to far and got down to the primer in a couple of spots. Keep in mind, I was using a rattle can of 2K clear diamond finish from O'Reilly's. So I went back, repainted the whole bumper again, and laid another 2 layers of clear. Wetsanded again, same thing happened. So this time, I masked off areas, sanded down to primer, related primer, paint, then sanded down lightly, remarked, back it off a little more, then recleared, and wetsanded.

Now, I've should have just lived with the imperfections, because I only made them bigger. Eventually, you gotta stop obsessing with the small details, and just say fuck it and move on.







​​​​​​ I've learned from my mistakes. I'll use what I've learned to do better on the next body part. I'll be doing the front bumper here next. Going to start sanding it down today. Thankfully, it won't take as long to sand down, because half the clear coat is missing on it lol.

For anyone curious, I used duplicolor sandable grey primer (3 cans), Duplicolor Electron Blue (5 cans), and 2K clear diamond finish (5 cans). I'm hoping to bring down the amount of cans used on the front bumper. Using what I've learned, this next time, I'll be laying down a minimum of 4 layers of clear, as that was my issue before. Too thin of a clear coat layer that caused me to get down to the primer. Going to try for 6 layers. However, clear coat, paint, and primer, are EXPENSIVE. I just spent $161 on 2 cans of primer, 3 cans of paint, and 2 cans of clear. Keep in mind, my friend spent $250 for some one to professionally paint his bumper, and I spent way more than that on this rear bumper.

Oh yeah, I also have a project I'll be starting soon. We will be J35 swapping my friend's Honda Del Sol. Thinking of starting a thread on this journey. But I'm not sure. Anywho, that's all for now.

zeta

iTrader: (1)

^
Nice Job.
Use the plastic welder below to burn a few reinforcement clips on the underside of the crack line to keep the repair strong?

Thefireball

That was something I considered doing. I just laid down some mesh on the back side, took a bit to my rotary tool and grinded down the middle of the crack a bit, then sealed it up with epoxy, then sanded it down. But every time, it would just crack again. Did that 3 times before I gave up.

CLtotheTL32

iTrader: (3)

Well done overall! We're our own worst critic sometimes

Thefireball

It's easy to get lost in the details when it comes to paint.

Good news is that the front bumper is coming along nicely. Finished laying primer & sanding it smooth, and then laying a good couple layers of paint. Going to clearcoat it later it tonight, and start wetsanding tomorrow. I'll be uploading pics of it when I'm done. Hoping for no imperfections this time.

Thefireball

Front bumper is done.



Before

I forgot to take pics after sanding it, so starting with primer:



Primer'd & sanded




Base coat




2K clear coated with 3 full cans.



Dull wetsanded clear coat vs Cutting compound




Polished




Vents put in




On the car

Now I did make some very slight mistakes. I had some slight run with the clear coat on some issues. Not noticeable unless you look for them, and even that's hard to find. But when I was using the drill with the cutting compound & polish, I was a little reckless, and must have hit the plastic portion that holds the bags on an edge. Went down to the plastic on one edge, and down to the primer on another. Very small spots. Not noticeable. The one that went down to the plastic will be an issue in the possible future. But I'm not worried and leaving it as is instead of trying to repair it and making the issue bigger and more noticeable. You can also see where I didn't mask very well, nor sanded, around the edges of the grill. Again, don't care.




For anyone who has noticed, the paint job is lighter on color than the rest of the car. My guess is that Acura either used a black primer, the base coat is lighter (it does say electron blue and not blue Aegean pearl), or the paint on the rear of my car is just old, damaged, and has faded into being darker.

Alas, I will probably paint the rest of my car. I'm thinking fenders next. Then maybe doors, and working the way around my car. The black vinyl on my hood, roof, and trunk are over 4 years old. They need to come off. Underneath, the paint has been sanded. I'm thinking of repainting then as well.

My question is this to anyone reading this. Should I paint the vinyl wrapped areas? If so, should I go with the same blue, or black? If I paint, should I leave it unwrapped? I personally like the matte black look, and it matches the theme I'm going for. I'm thinking of painting blue, then rewrapping black. The vinyl will help protect all the paint underneath, while also keeping the matte black color and matching the style I'm going for. But what's y'all's opinions?

Anywho, that's it for now.
Edit: excuse the spelling mistakes. I don't care to go back and fix them right now. So use your best judgement as to what I said. Like saying 'bags' when I meant 'pads' lol.

zeta

iTrader: (1)

Nice results!

Just curious, you are employing the type of mask protection below when spraying the base coats & 2K clear?
3M 53P71 Disposable Half Face Respirator Facepiece Mask:

Thefireball

Absolutely. I've been using a harbor freight respirator that's rated for the chemicals used in the clearcoat. I checked and made sure. I've been swapping out the filters between each stage.

Also, bad news. Unfortunately, the gate was left slightly closed when backing out of my fenced in drive way. Fucked up the rear bumper down to plastic & primer. Upset about it. I'll be cleaning it up with cutting compound to get the scratches out. Considering doing a quick patch job with what I have left over. The can of 2K clear is still half full. It's still a liquid when I shake it. It's been way more than 48 hours since activating, but it might be good enough to use for a quick patch job. But I'm also considering saying fuck it and just living with it. I did want to repaint it in the future to fix my fuck ups, but I wasn't wanting to do it so soon. This painting shit is expensive. I want to move onto to the rest of the car. So I might just fix it at a later date.

619rcr

You know my thoughts on body work already. But, doesn't look bad from what I can see with my old phone and aging eyes. Stop lingering on the blemishes and go drive that thing.

Thefireball

At this point, I'm just trying to find things to do on my car. Engine rebuild soon? Just need to find some J37 crank & rods to match the heads. But driving, I have been. Hittin' the highway tomorrow.

Update:
Used cutting compound on the scratches. The large black mark turned out to be something that was rubbed off from the gate. Edges are down to the plastic though. Accidently got to aggressive with the cutting compound, and accidently went down to primer. But it cleaned up pretty well, all things considered. I'm leaving it and moving into the fenders. But I'm going to take a break from painting for a bit. Gotta focus on the J swap Del Sol project.

619rcr

Doesn't seem like anyone's biting that 'del sol' hook. Not too late to cut bait and try something else.