also anyone know how hard it is to paint own doors black. mine got keyed. both sides
I don't have much to say about the suspension but painting the doors won't be that big of a hassle. For the paint you can just get some black touch-up paint, but a full coat usually looks better. I'll tell you the cheap way to do a decent basecoat/clearcoat job. It'll probably cost you around $100 for all the paint and tools. Still way cheaper than getting them done professionally.
What you'll need:
*Some trash bags to use as masks for windows and like.
*Some masking tape
*Flat Black or Gloss Black paint in a spraycan. Flat or Gloss is your choice. The gloss will be shinier but even if you go with flat the clearcoat will add a little shine to it. I'd say 2 cans for each door is a good estimate. Get it from a paint store, like Sherwin-Williams. Make sure you tell them you're going to be painting doors for a car with it, they will get you the right kind of paint.
*Clearcoat in a spraycan. Again, I'd say about 2 cans for each door. Same as above applies, make sure they know you're going to be using it to paint car doors.
*Black primer in a spraycan. You'll probably only need one or two cans per door. Again, same as above applies.
*Sandpaper. Some 300 grit should do fine but I'd ask someone that works in autobody. Buy alot.
*Microfiber cloth, to clean the doors after sanding.
*A couple cans of compressed air, to clean the doors after sanding (get it at the auto parts store or electronics stores like Best Buy)
*Buffer pad
*Buffing Compound (get it at the auto parts store)
Here's how to do it. First pull off the doors, obviously, and remove whatever you can to make things easier (door panels, mirrors, handles, window skins if they are half doors.) If they are full steel doors the masking tape and the trash bags will soon come in handy.
You need to put them up on something, like a set of sawhorses, facing up. They need to be level -- don't just eyeball it, use a torpedo level. An old table of some kind that you no longer care about will work fine in a pinch, but make sure you watch for drip running back towards the doors. If you don't have either you can build some sawhorses relatively cheap using 2x4's from Lowes or Home Depot.
Once the doors are on their platforms and nicely level you can mask off the windows if you need to. This is pretty easy. Simply take the trash bags and lay them on the windows then tape them with masking tape around the outer edges of the window seals (you don't want to paint the seals and you'll also get blow-by on the glass if you don't mask them off.) You also want to mask off the hole in the door where the handle goes. You might also want to mask off the holes on the inside of the door (where the interior panel goes) to keep blow-by down. A little bit here won't hurt anything though.
Now we get to the hardest part. Sanding. This is a real pain in the ass if you do it manually by hand. The idea is to sand down the existing paint a little. You don't need to go down to bare metal, you just need to make the existing paint rigid so the new paint will stick. You CAN go down to bare metal if you like but it'll be a lot more work. Once everything is sanded you'll want to clean off all the trash from the sanding. Hit them with the microfiber cloth first to get rid of the majority of the trash, then use the compressed air to finish up (it works great for the nooks and crannies.) It doesn't need to be perfect, just get it as clean as you can.
Now it's time for paint. Here's a couple tips on that. It takes a little practice to get an even coat so I'd try painting some piece of scrap you have lying around first to get some skill. Generally you hold the spraycan about a foot or six inches (ask them at the paint store) away from the object you are painting. You spray left then right up and down the door. Try to get the coat as even as possible.
First we start with the black primer. You only need one coat per door and it needs to be pretty even. Once you've primered them, let them dry for about an hour in a well ventilated area with good airflow (a garage with the door open and maybe a box fan just to move the air will work fine.) After they have dried, you should LIGHTLY sand the primer so that the basecoat will stick good. Clean the doors off again.
Now we move on to the basecoat. This stuff will be the real meat of the project and it will need lots of time to dry. You'll want to do at least two coats of black. You can do three if you feel like doing the extra coat and time isn't a problem. After each coat, give about two hours to dry just to be on the safe side. Once you've got two even coats, LIGHTLY sand it and clean it again.
Now, clearcoat. This can also be a real pain in the ass, because clearcoat is harder to get an even coat with. Add the fact that it is clear and hard to see as you're applying it. In any case, you want to do the same thing you did with the primer and basecoat here. Slow left and right motions up and down the door. You only need one coat of clearcoat.
Once the clearcoat is done, let the doors dry for about four hours (overnight is preferable) to be safe.
The next day, you'll want to use some buffing compound and a buffer to bring the shine out in the clearcoat. After that you're done!
