The Rude HB's - Hawaiian Panda Civic

[The Rude HB]

I'll start off by showing you what my car looked like in the beginning.

I'm going for a fun custom/JDM hybrid look. You'll see at the pics progress.

It started off as a Teal *Blaeah* colored Civic. I waleays wanted a white one, but I could never understand why I settled for this color. I guess I got impatient. But know that I have it. I decided to get experience painting myself, and Im glad I did because I got to get experience and test out somethings with paint.

Flat black paint in particular. And this is my "guinea pig"

I'll be posting a lot of pictures as I do body work and tons of pictures about my paint job to show all of you what I wen through to make a successfull color changing paint job. And this is my first time painting a car (with the help of taking a community college class & instructer)

Here's how she first looked when I got her...





Notice the crappy paint job that was done before. Bad prep work because they didnt even sand it down right. As time passed, the paint got faded and became flat in appearance. Also, the car got hit on the C pillar. Notice the plastic filler crap job as well.






I guess whoever did the crappy paint job decided to spread the bad work on the rear bumper as well. It also got flat through time.

 

[The Rude HB]

FIrst class I took. I only got a chance to paint one of my front fenders as you can see below. The first fender was actually sanded down to bare metal (mostly)




My first mod was for projector headlights as well, so I started to take apart the front end.







My car's a pirate! (I only got one projector on at that point.

 

[The Rude HB]

After some body work. I primed my fender.






Sealer was applied after primer was sprayed ans wet sanded. Guide coat is an essential tool for wet sanding
primer. Then you spray sealer

 

[The Rude HB]

By the end of my first semester learning body & paint. I finally finished my first fender...

I painted and clear coated the last day of class...


I put the fender back on....


THat's it for my first time painting my fender.



One year later....I finally decided to tackle a full paint job. A color changing paint job that turned out to be more of a pint in the ass than I'd expect....

 

[The Rude HB]

Last summer I enrolled in class again. I started off sanding the car down. Being as hot as it gets in southern California, my car started to over heat. I had to replace the radiator by myself because the mechanic wanted $400+ to do it.

I said forget it. how hard coudl it possibly be? Ive never done it, but it took a lot of U-tubing and a whole weekend. to figure out..

I'll save the details on the radiator replacemend for a tutorial by itself. But here's some shots when I replaced with an aluminum radiator...

 

[The Rude HB]

The radiator was leaking from the cap and coolant was getting all over the place. I didnt realize how small the radiator was...


Replacement parts from ebay & autozone...


draining the radiator...


The old (aging) radiator



The new one.


radiators side by side to see the difference. I got my radiator off of E-bay by the way. I got the cheapest one I could find. It worked out great by the way.




New radiator is in...

 

[The Rude HB]

Since I already took care of my overheating problem. I proceeded with the paint job...On with the sanding.

Since its a color change. I had to sand the jams which was the worst part of it all. sanding takes forever. FOREVER! id end up sanding one door jam for the whole day to make sure it was done right and all corners were sanded enough to get the clear coat off.

I basically spend the whole summer class sanding alone. I was very dissapointed as I thought Id get the paint job done within 2 months.. I was wrong. Im almost into a year of my paint job at this point and im still not done. This is becaause I only work on my car on the weekends here & there. not everyday all day. I had things to do (job & school) car time is for whatever I can it it into my schedule

 

[4bangincivic]

looks good! can't wait to see the finished panda!

 

[The Rude HB]

Not much to look at while I was sanding so I didnt take much pics during that process. kind of a depressing state if you ask me.

 

[The Rude HB]

I had to start gutting everything out. I mean EVERYTHING. I started off by leaving a few things on here & there, such as the carpet and some trim and even the door handles. It basically got in the way every time I took it to class, so eventually everything was taken out and packed into seperate plastic bags just to keep things organized.





The rest of the interior was gutted eventually..

 

[The Rude HB]

 

[tnk]

im diggin the pictures/progress

 

[fwdpower]

Great progress.

 

[The Rude HB]

I decided to put on fog lights for kicks....

 

[The Rude HB]

I decided to go with a variation of color and went with a White (main body paint job) with contraasting blacks (trims & molding & some flat black on the rear bumpers and hood) and blue lights as a theme color.

Heres pics of me messing with blue LED's

 

[253eg]

There just might be hope for this build...

 

[The Rude HB]

After a full summer of sanding I finally got around to priming the car last fall. Thats where the semester ended. I was glad I finally got past sanding.

Still a depressing state as it wasnt the most prettyiest thing to look at. I alsmost lost vision. but persistance is the key

I primed and first sanded with 400 grit to start making the primer smoother. afterwords I finished the wet sanding with 600 grit to make it even smoother.

This other guy in in my class with his 1970 Nova used 1200 grit on his hot rod.. It was emacculate. I didnt take pics of it.

Anyways here my car when I sprayed it with guide coat before I sanded.

For all you beginners, guide coat is sprayed after primer and tells you where you should sand. You wet sand until you get all the guide coat off, that way youll know for sure that your surface is as smooth as possible before you seal & paint

 

[The Rude HB]

Here are shots of my car within the last 4 months....



my car from the inside. Its looks like a junker car ...




After all the wet sanding, the guide coat is now gone....almost ready to spray sealer

 

[The Rude HB]

Ok. last month, I was finally able to prep my car well enough to start spraying the sealer. The sealer helps prevent a chemical reaction from occuring with the paint job. It also helps promote adhesion as well. fortunately I was able to spray most of the car's main body.

I got tons of pics. Things are looking much more promising at this point... I bought a gallon of sealer and it barely enough to cover the hole car.

The following are pics after I sprayed sealer...

 

[The Rude HB]