Have you painted your land rover?

I am thinking of treating my old s3 to a full repaint. Just wondered if anyone could give me any tips? What is the best paint to use? Has anyone used the little 1.5hp spray compressors?

Should I just give up and brush paint it?

Its 3 shades of green now (sprayed mainly, door tops are brushed) but short of the occasional door mirror with a spray can I have never done any spraying.

Any advice would be good!

Mike

Use a good 2K Acryl line of paints, from primer to finish coat, like Sikkens or Dupont. In addition, the body being aluminium, you have to use a special aluminium etch primer anywhere you will go to bare aluminium when sanding down the old paint.

1.5 HP is a bit short of power for a full respray. Minimum should be 2 HP/50 lt tank, unless you choose to do the work panel by panel.

The latter is an option, especially since LRs are all bolted-on, and it's easy to disassemble the whole body and rework the panels individually.

This also allows for better finish, as you can concentrate on one part at a time, and if there is some mishap it's no big deal to start over again on a single panel.

Do tou have any experience in painting, or do you need to know the basic process including preparation, filling, sanding?

Philip

I'll probably get shot down in flames by everyone for this, but here goes.....

A lot I think depends on how much effort you want to put in & how precious (I DO mean that in a nice way) you want to be about the finish.

Obviously spraying gives a superior finish, but I bought my III handpainted in
Landrover green with a cream roof & except for close up (the brush marks are minimal) she looks tops.

It's easy to re-touch if you get a scratch or knock & I just don't find I get too..........well, precious about it!

One technique I've used on motorbikes and on a 25' boat with great success for the amount of effort is: Wet & dry (used wet) to give a key. Wash then hand paint in enamel (1 or 2 coats gives a good build up of paint). Then "flat" the brush marks with wet & dry (again wet) used fairly lightly. Then finally polish back up to a good sheen using T-cut.

It DOES work & again is easy to re-touch. The final thickness of the paint is really good & the finish is really hard wearing & although it doesn't gleam like a top spray job.............this is a rufty, tufty III we're talking about!