MGB & GT Forum

My experience having cars painted over the last 40 years, is to go to your local auto body shop, and have them do the final urethane color and clear coat, which has been used on modern cars for quite a few years.

I do my own preparation, stripping all the paint off the MG down to bare metal. Then, I take care of all the dents, rust holes and other problems, and then prime the car.

Next, use body filler, as appropriate to take care of all the defects, and carefully work on making the body's outer surface perfectly smooth.

I painted my first car in 1955. That was a 1929 Model A Ford Sports Coupe.

The most recent paint preparation of my 1977 MGB, that was painted first in 1985, and then it suffered a $4000 deer hit in 2014. I chose to buy the body parts from Moss in Goleta, CA, and installed the Heritage (body parts from the original tooling) and install them myself. I purchased a new hood, right front fender, and a new door skin for the right door.

Then, I made one extra step, just to see if it could be done. I applied body filler about six inches wide on each side of the different body panels, the hood, front fenders, doors, rear fenders and the trunk lid.

Then I used a Straight Line Air Sander, which uses a standard sticky back abrasive, available at the stores sell auto paint and all other items necessary to paint a car. This sander is uses a 2-3/4" x 15-1/2" sanding pad. This is the Eastwood version for $70:

http://www.eastwood.com/straight-line-air-sander.html

This is the Harbor Freight version for $35:

http://www.harborfreight.com/air-inline-sander-62528.html

The Harbor Freight may not last, if you used it every day; but, mine has lasted for very many years, painting more than a few cars.

My more recent paint job on my 1977 MGB, that I have painted twice, once in 1983, and again in 2014, with 79,000 miles of fun between those years, now has a gold metallic urethane paint with clear coat (applied by professions at the local body shop, because the urethane is very toxic and requires fresh-air breathing equipment. The external body is as smooth as my much newer Mercedes.

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Roger N. Tanner
Professional Engineer, Retired