Anyone know about removing rust spots and repainting an older car?

[Bignate603]

I have this 1980 caddilac fleetwood that i'd like to get lloking nice, but i have to learn a little bit about what i need to do.

Problem #1
It has some rust spots. Like all older caddilacs, the engine runs hot, it currently has a very large buick engine that dumps out alot of heat (and I thought my T'bird was hot...). There used to be insulation under the hood but it has a few gaping holes now and the heat has made the hood rust on both sides in a few spots, but it's not all the way through the sheet metal. I assume I just sand the rust until I get to bare metal. What would I use to sand it and how would i get the nice smooth painting surface?

Problem #2
How do I prep the rest of this car for painting? It currently has gray paint over most of the body, which is fairly sun worn and doesn't have a shine at all. The only exception to this is the fenders, which happen to be covered with gray paint peeling off to show gold paint underneath. (The car got rebuilt once with parts from a gold one and they did a nasty paint job). I know I have to get the peeling paint off and I need to prepare the rest of the car but how would I go about this?

Thanks for any help you can give. Oh yeah, this car is about 3 years older than I am but runs great. The engine has about 20,000 miles on it while the rest of the car has 80,000. I figure fixing it up would be kind of fun. Thanks again.

 

[amdskip]

Bead blastin to get the paint off because sand leaves pitts in the body. You may have to use some bondo but avoid using if at all possible. Let someone paint it that knows what they r doing so it lasts.

 

[Emulex]

you need to cut the rust out, its like cancer, It will not stop without removal or a chemical reaction to turn the rust into something else. Probably easiest to cut out the rust and keep the good metal painted.

 

[Bignate603]

I'd like to avoid cutting it, i figured since it was just on the surface i could sand it off or something to remove it. The sheet metal underneath the rust is fine and the metal isn't flacking apart, the paint has just come off and the metal is a lightish rust color.

 

[amdskip]

Sounds good to me!

 

[Soybomb]

If its a real light rust the beadblasting might just take the rust off too with the paint. If you try to do the inital sanding by hand you're going to have a really really tired arm. If you need rust stopping paint, there is no better than www.por15.com

 

[Angrymarshmello]

2) You'll need to sand it down (to get all the paint off the car), slap on some primer, then paint it. (If it's an entire car it'll probably be easier to let someone else do this)

 

[Bignate603]

i got a friend that has painted cars, i'm going to look over a few cars he did and decide whether to take it to a shop or have him do it.

 

[Bignate603]

where would i get the equipment to bead blastit anyways?

 

[LordMaul]

Drive the beater over a cliff...


Or...not.