Primer & Paint used on Avanti II's

[Mike Sal]

What type of primers did they use on the bodies? on our RQA 0330, the paint (Meridian Green I think) is worn thru and chipped in a lot of places. In some of the chipped areas you can see the glass fibers, but in a lot of places you can see what appears to be a paint or primer which is somewhere between brick and red in color. It looks shinier than I would expect primer to look.....but I don't know what the factory used originally. The car has not been re-painted since new.

thanks,

Mike S

Edited June 29, 2016 by Mike Sal

[silverstude]

Your 69' was painted with Lacquer, about 6-8 coats and each coat was hand sanded between applications. When new, looked like you could fall in it. The primer was a standard red clay colored lacquer primer (NLA) and sticks to the fiberglass pretty well. When removing the lacquer for a repaint, you could (carefully) use a razor blade, but some nicks are inevitable. Glazing compounds can still be used on lacquer based primers, so it's not a hard job, just a bit tedious.

If you had to remove it, then sanding would be the only option.

Sanding will allow glass fibers to stand up and after the car was completely devoid of paint, it would be varying tones of ash gray depending on the density of the resin mixed with it. To recapture the fibers, you'd have to heavily epoxy prime the entire car, block sand it smooth, then apply sanding primer, 2-3 times and again block it to make a uniform surface. After that comes the paint, either acrylic one stage or base/ clear, two and three stage.

If you're looking to touch up lacquer, it won't be easy to find something that will be compatible. Many modern solvents are too 'hot' and will curl the lacquer. You could try Acrylic, but a custom mix would be costly for a quart of stuff you may only use 2-3 ounces of.

My 1970 came with a color called "Emerald Green Metallic" and while neat looking for a few years, was a bit loud with the yellow/black houndstooth interior. It only lasted about 4 years before I painted it silver.

[Mike Sal]

Our car is Monterey Green, but it looks emerald to me. About half of the spots where the paint is gone shows primer & the other half shows fiberglass. I'm going to try to contact a guy in our area who also has an Avanti & used to run a body shop to get some advise on how to proceed.

How long would it take to razor blade the paint off of the primer? It sounds like a tedious long job.

thanks,

Mike & Sonya

[Avanti83]

How long would it take to razor blade the paint off of the primer? It sounds like a tedious long job.

thanks,

Mike & Sonya

I did that with my 74 and the best I can figure it took better than 40 hrs. The 74 is not lacquer so my advice would be to buy on of these

which I found at Home Depot and try a section. It was the best holder I found and along with 150 blades finished the job. That will tell you about how long it will take.

You will nick the glass quite a bit but I just sanded the body down lightly and sprayed on high build polyester. Just sanded it smooth while using about three gallons of polyester. After all that, I primed it again, sprayed on about four coats of Acrylic Enamel which have now been sanded with up to 1500 grit. Just 3000 grit to go and then two to three stages of polishing.

I don't even want to know the hours I have in it since I scraped of the paint but I sure know know why quality paint jobs go over $10,000 quickly.

Bob

[regnalbob]

I also used razor blades and it was easier than sanding or using paint remover. I used a small pair of needle nose vice grips to hold the blades. The angle was perfect and helped to prevent nicks. After two layers of primer and paint were removed I removed the remaining traces of factory primer by wet sanding with 320 for a smooth finish.

[Mike Sal]

Now another question regarding the paint itself. Were the paints formulated for Studebaker / Avanti Motors, or did the use available colors the big 3 were already using? Our car is "Monterey Green" (don't have the paint code in front of me at the moment). Can I find out if this was a big 3 color, or do I have to have the body shop color match it & blend it up from scratch?

thanks,

Mike S

[WayneC]

I don't think Avanti used any specially-formulated paints, and in fact the customer usually specified the color, usually something being used on other American cars. In fact, a quick Google search says there was a color called "Meridian Turquoise" used on 1968 Pontiacs (and possibly other GM cars), although that looks more blue than green. It should be possible to order a small touch-up spray container of the colors you find from web vendors, to verify the color you want; also, automotive paint stores often have old paint chip books you can peruse.

http://www.autocolorlibrary.com/aclchip.aspx?image=1968-Pontiac-pg01.jpg

But, you are not likely to find a shop that will spray lacquer paint anymore, the EPA has pretty much stopped that, and even finding lacquer paint is near-impossible; chances are you'll have to use a one-part enamel or a base-coat/clear-coat system. So, paint-matching by the paint shop is the most likely solution, anyway.

http://www.paintforcars.com/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-choosing-automotive-paint/

Edited August 15, 2016 by WayneC

[Avanti83]

Now another question regarding the paint itself. Were the paints formulated for Studebaker / Avanti Motors, or did the use available colors the big 3 were already using? Our car is "Monterey Green" (don't have the paint code in front of me at the moment). Can I find out if this was a big 3 color, or do I have to have the body shop color match it & blend it up from scratch?

thanks,

Mike S

If you have a spot on the car that represents the color you want, just go to any good auto paint store and they will use their paint analyzer to get the formula from the spot. They will also be able to get the metallic content and type if the guy with the analyzer is any good.

Bob

Edited August 16, 2016 by Avanti83

[silverstude]

Monterrey Green was a Cadillac color.... "Monterrey Green Firemist" was the original GM name for it. My car came with that also. Along with the Avocado dash, Pea Green carpets and the the ((((Yellow/Black)))) Houndstooth seat materials......

[Mike Sal]

Our RQA 0330 has lime green carpet & green vinyl seats A portion of the color has worn off of the vinyl seats.

I've been told about a body shop with corvette experience that I'm going to take the car to for an estimate if it ever stops raining. It will be interesting to hear their opinions regarding scrapping vs sanding vs stripping the old paint.

thanks for the Cadillac reference. I think that will help the body shop source the right paint (maybe I'm old fashioned, but having a data base to start with seems to be more secure than scanning & analyzing with a machine).

BTW, how do you edit your tag line....I'd like to have my vin number listed along with the model year like the rest of you, but I can't seem to find where to do it.

thanks,

Mike S

[Gunslinger]

My '70 was a Cadillac brown when built according to the broadcast sheet. It seems a lot of Avantis from that era received Cadillac colors but maybe that's not so surprising as that was the market Avanti Motors was catering to...Cadillac owners and similar who wanted exclusivity and could afford it.

[fred88]

What is your goal--perfection or fixing? If your goal is to make it look better it can be repaired. Although getting an exact match in acrylic lacquer will be very difficult, it is not impossible, it is still produced and used in restorations. Although it may be illegal to use it in your state, it is available. Trying to spot in an area with a different type paint will not work, thus suggestions on repainting complete. The hardest part in spot blending the original acrylic lacquer, will be getting the color close enough to what is currently there, not what it was in 1969. Since the toners are not available to most local body shops anymore, making the original formula "match" your current color after years of fade would be tough. Can it be done-yes, would you be happy with it? As you can see here the material is available but a match by "name" won't be. Even with the actual color code ID it would still only be "close"-maybe. http://www.tcpglobal.com/Automotive-Paint/AL-Acrylic-Laquer/?range=145%2C168%2C952#/?_=1&filter.custitem_item_attribute_color=Green&page=1

http://www.autocolorlibrary.com/aclchip.aspx?image=1969-Cadillac-pg01.jpg

http://images.tcpglobal.com/chips/1968-Cadillac-pg01.jpg

You can go through the years before 1969 and try different makes to see if you can find your original

Edited August 31, 2016 by fred88