2001 Mustang GT

Hello, new to the forum, and thought I'd post my project. I bought this car back in late June or early July, and it was immediately apparent that I'd have to do some rust control. Here's a before picture:


Unfortunately, I never remember to take pictures. Ever. The only before pictures I have were ones where I was trying to hide the flaws.

I researched cheap paint jobs, and found the Moparts Rustoleum thread. After reading, I decided to experiment with rolling on Rustoleum. After much frustration and many setbacks, my car now looks like this:



The car is nowhere NEAR done yet. I've completed 6 coats of paint. I have yet to wetsand and polish. However, I will upload some of my stories, pictures, and experiences while experimenting with this process.

Looks great. What Rusto color is it?

Please keep posting those pics!

I actually mixed the color myself. Got a gallon of smoke gray, mixed in 2 oz black and 1/4 oz blue. Experimented with a couple other mixes first, and finally liked this one

When I first started this project, I was pretty wary. I had quite a few rust spots, but I could've just removed the rust and recovered just the spots with paint. However, there were several other spots on the car that someone else had attempted to repair. Looking at the dull, rough, peeling repairs is what finally made me decide to try the rustoleum project.

I started off by testing with my spoiler.



My first batch of paint (mixed myself) looked way too much like primer. As that wasn't the look I'm going for, it of course had to be redone:



Note to those who plan on doing panel-by-panel: don't try to paint inside your house, especially if you have animals. Even if you close the door to the room you plan on painting in, scrub, and vacuum, there WILL be hair in your paint.

By the time I'd practiced on the spoiler and gotten the method down, I had to drive down to Maryland to register the car (I'm a student at RIT, but still a MD resident). I ran into MANY car problems along the way, and painting the car was the furthest thing from my mind. As a testament to how much rust the car has, here's a fun picture of the exhaust before I replaced it:



After thousands of dollars of repairs (not including labor), I almost decided to completely abandon the car. I guess I don't like leaving projects unfinished, though, because I finally began painting the car when I eventually returned to Rochester.

I'll be continuing the saga, with more pictures, very soon.

It'll be a good car soon, it just needs a little attention. It sat at a dealership for a year, and probably never had general maintenance. This is the filter I pulled from the car after I bought it:



I'm actually going to do mach 1 stripes in flat white. Just started by painting the spoiler (fifth different color on the spoiler, haha). Can't decide if I like the flat white, or if I should go with a darker gray. i'll take a picture in the morning and post for an opinion.

EDIT: By the way, that's a BBK filter, so it USED to be blue. In that pic it's the color of... an animal.

When I eventually made it back it Rochester, it was finally time to start painting the car. I did only very minimal prep (scuffing the clear coat, removed rust) and got to work on the first coat:



The paint was pretty patchy and thin, but it laid down well.



Even with just one very thin, patchy coat, I was able to see a great reflection.

Good start! Looks great so far.

looking really good so far......