The “$50 Paint Job”. (Not so much $50)
After 6+ hours of picking, heating and peeling decals and with 20 sore fingers it was time to prep and get ideas for the paint job. We were going to take it to a body shop and let them do all the work. I called 5 shops in our area. 3 of the shops could not fit such a large van in the paint booth. The one shop that could fit this behemoth in the booth gave us an outrageous quote of $4,000. We just wanted something simple. Nothing crazy. Just way to much for our budgeting. And the last shop told me they would get back to me, and to this day I’m still waiting for them to call back. So we searched the web and started planning to paint it ourselves. Surfing the web we found many articles and YouTube videos of the “$50 paint job” and decided to give it a whirl.
We have never painted a vehicle so we didn’t have any of the supplies to do so. We spent around $110 for all the painting supplies such as foam rollers, tape, lacquer thinner, all different grit’s of sandpapers, etc. The prep work consisted of removing the 4 hazardous material placards and filling the wholes with body filler, removing lights, taping everything up and finally scuffing up the surface with some 220 grit sand paper on a dual action orbital sander. When the sanding was complete it was time to wipe her down with mineral spirits.
With 10-15 hours into prep work it was time to lay down the paint. We choose to paint the van in a smoke grey color. The paint we used was Rustoleum oil based paint. They make this paint in a whole array of colors. We used a little more than a gallon and a half and 16 cans of spray paint in the matching color. We started off by spraying all the edges, indents and areas that we would not be able to reach with the roller, half the van at a time. After letting the first coat of spray dry we then hit it with the roller. Be sure to only mix a little at a time to prevent the paint from drying out and going to waist. Your going to want to thin out the paint with lacquer thinner or mineral spirits, 3 parts paint to 1 part thinner. It may seem like a lot but it really helps the paint go down smoothly and dry quickly. Using a high density foam roller applying the first coat will shock you. It looks like complete garbage! Very blotchy and what seems to be dark bubbles it the paint. It will take at least 2 to 3 coats before it starts to look semi-decent.
So before applying every new coat with the roller we would go back and reapply the spray to all the same areas we sprayed before to ensure that we don’t see the over spray and different finish on the surrounding area from the spray. We finished off with 5 coats total. We painted all the trim, bumpers and rims with flat black.
This is after 3-4 coats.
After removing all the tape it was time to wet sand. Starting off with 1500 grit very lightly, then moving up to 2000, then finishing it off with 3000 grit to remove any final scuff marks. After the wet sanding was complete it was time to buff it all out. Using a dual action buffer, paired with a microfiber buffing pad and using Meguiar’s Ultimate Compound it was like magic. It really brought out the finish of the newly painted surface.
Wax on, Wax off. Waxing after the compound.
The whole process took 35 hours, or about 3 weeks for us. It really did take a lot longer then expected, but with both of us working full time jobs we did what we could when we could. Total cost for all the paint and supplies ran us almost $250. Sure does beat the old white paint and FedEx markings. After we were happy with the outcome it was then time to start on the insulation process.
Click here to see how were going to stay cool in the heat of the day and stay warm in the cold of the night.
Finished product pictures.
