Painting my Outback thread

I've been drooling over the JDM Legacy's since I bought my first Subaru. I'm big on the aesthetic appeal of a car in order for me to really like a car and from the beginning my Outback wasn't doing it for me. The car has the aesthetic appeal of a grandpa wagon. The two-tone paint scheme is severely dated and to top it all off my car suffered from terrible clear coat damage that no matter what I did, it was rapidly failing.

 

What to do Steven? What to do?

 

I started out on my quest for a new paint color and really liked the appeal of a single color, none of this two-tone crap. I Google Image searched my ass off and noticed in Japan and Australia, they got a variant of WR Blue for the Legacy we didn't get. On the Legacy/Liberty, it was a one tone. On the Legacy/Liberty Grand Wagon (the US Outback equivalent), they got Rally Blue with a Silver undertone.

 

I took it a step further. I introduce to you, Blue Quartz Metallic Matte:

 

 

The color kind of shifts depending on the angle and the lighting. In the evening, it looks more of a brilliant WR Blue. In the daytime, it's a shiny metallic blue. Some say it looks like Mustang Grabber Blue, but it's much darker than that in person and depends on the light. Some say it's Ford Blue, but it's lighter and more shinier than that.

 

I didn't want the hood scoop and mirrors blue, I wanted a nice contrast. The wheels, mirrors, hood scoop, and grille will be painted a dark grey metallic. The mud flaps are going to be painted flat black. I have some thoughts on other color matched parts of the car, mostly interior, but those will come at a later date.

Nice!

Is that plasti dip or actual paint?

Is that plasti dip or actual paint?

 

It's plastidip. I didn't want to go full on paint, in case I didn't like it

It's plastidip. I didn't want to go full on paint, in case I didn't like it

 

I was wondering how you could still see the dividing line of the two tone but it still looks really good, plasti dip is really tricky to get it to look right.

That dividing line is actually a vinyl stripe that's nearly impossible to remove without damaging the paint underneath. The two tone section is actually a very sloppy paint line when you remove that vinyl.

My leggy has always been plasti dipped. Ive removed 3 different colors now. This new camo green being my favorite. Plasti dip is cool but after about a year it really starts to wear down. The dark grey i had was super faded and patchy. Luckily you can remove it and make it look like new.

 

Best methods to remove the stuff. If you care about the paint beneath a pressure washer with a careful hand not to chip that actual paint beneath cuts through the stuff like butter. If you really don't give a damn about the paint beneath, gasoline melts it better then any paint thinner. (Stuff literally melts so careful getting gas lol) helps a ton to have a really absorbant sponge with an aggressive abrasive for removal also

(Stuff literally melts so careful getting gas lol) helps a ton to have a really absorbant sponge with an aggressive abrasive for removal also

 

I was actually contemplating putting a sponge under the filler nozzle so that gas doesn't overflow onto my new dip. I have seen some videos of what it does and, while it is a bit worrisome, it is easily remedied if an accident does happen.

Ive never had issues getting gas, i just shake the nozzle on the pump before i pull it out so it doesnt drip

 

This last week i did a fuel pressure test and i didnt have the fitting on all the way. Started the car, ran to help my brother, then when i got back to my car my fender paint was melted off. Just cleaned it off and resprayed it, couldnt tell the difference

That looks great man, I do have a couple dip questions because I just bought a Wagner power sprayer to dip my own Gt.

 

How long did the prep take before you sprayed the dip on?

 

I assume that you bought it by the gallon and used a powered paint sprayer? How much dip did you end up using? How many coats?

 

What was the final cost for the dip?

That looks great man, I do have a couple dip questions because I just bought a Wagner power sprayer to dip my own Gt.

 

How long did the prep take before you sprayed the dip on?

 

I assume that you bought it by the gallon and used a powered paint sprayer? How much dip did you end up using? How many coats?

 

What was the final cost for the dip?

 

I bought a Wagoner HVLP on Amazon as part of a Black Friday sale. It is actually the same sprayer and gun that DYC uses, so it seems that DYC contracts Wagoner to make their gun and sprayer.

 

I did it in 2 stages over 2 weekends. I got a little ahead of myself and looking back, I'd do it in one weekend, so I'll share my experiences after discovering my blunders on the first weekend.

 

The amateur videos that show minimal masking job, ignore them. They're really meant for cars that are newer have less weathering to them vs a 20 year old wagon.

 

The first weekend, I didn't mask off any of the trim around the windows, didn't mask my headlights. They say it's easy for it to peel off later, so I didn't bother with the extra work.

 

I bought the gallons from DipYourCar, but I found out that they have a thinner in them so that all you need to do is pour it in your gun and spray. That's great, but gives you a much lower yield versus buying the dip direct from Performix and mixing it yourself. If you're doing a color that is available from Performix, do not buy it from DYC, buy it from a reseller and mix it about 85% plastidip / 15% xylene. If you want a specialty color that DYC provides, I found that their small kit is more than enough. I have about 1200 mL left of blue for touch-up work later.

 

The second drawback of spraying it is that if you've already painted other surfaces that you plan on peeling back later, DON'T! I refinished my headlights about 6 months ago with about 4 or 5 coats of clear. Following the videos from DYC, I didn't remove them or mask them off. It killed my clear coat and dulled my headlights. I also had trim pieces that I repainted flat black and the paint came off when I peeled it, not to mention it was a royal pain in the ass for some of the trim pieces as over time, they develop rough spots that the dip gets into and doesn't make peeling easy (more on that later).

 

At the end of the first day, I laid down about 3 full coats of the avalanche gray base coat. It took me about 3 hours total on the first day doing minimal prep, but at a cost of another 2.5 hours the next day cleaning up over spray, etc and there was still over spray on the car.

 

I drove the car around for the next week as I gathered newspaper and information on what to do for the next step. I found removing all window trim was very easy. The rubber door seals are held on with 10 clips total in the door jams and are just pressed into the metal frame. Once you remove the door rubbers, there's about 20 Philips screws that run along the roof line. Once removed, the black window trim simply pulls off. The lower window seals on the doors were a little trickier. On the front doors, there is a single Philips screw near the back of the door you remove. Roll the window down, remove the screw and gently pry outward to pop the clips. The back doors have two Philips screws, one in front and one in back of the trim panel. Again roll the window down and remove the two screws and gently pry outward. The lower window trim on the back side windows just pop off with a trim removal tool. The upper trim on the back side windows I was unsuccessful on removing, so I left them and masked them really good.

 

For the hatch, I didn't bother removing the trim, just masked them good. I removed the mudflaps from each fender. I removed the fog lights, headlights, corner lights, grille, side mirrors and hood scoop. The grille, mirrors, and scoop will be color matched to the wheels. I removed the center roof rails and just dipped over the side rails with the intent on removing the dip later, but I found I liked the look of the side rails matched to the body color, so I left them. I masked the front where I removed the headlights and grille so the dip didn't get in the condenser and masked off the opening in the hood for the scoop. I threw some large black trash bags over the wheels and tires.

 

Once masked off, it kinda looked like this:

 

I touched up some areas on the base coat that I didn't particularly like before laying down the top coat. I went over it about 5 times. On the 4th and 5th pass I laid it on a little heavier for better coverage and focusing more on the areas that were lighter than the rest.

 

Once done, I removed the masking job. One thing I want to stress the importance of is that Plastidip is not like paint. Tape lines will lift at the seams when the dip sets. To overcome this, I used a fresh blade of a box cutter to lightly go along the tape line before I removed it so that it comes off without lifting the dip before it's cured.

 

The next day should have been straightforward reinstalling all the trim I removed. Instead I spent most of the day with mineral spirits with a green scrubber pad removing overspray from the nooks and crannies of the window trim and door rubbers. Again, if I had done this all this way over one weekend, instead of rushing it, I could have saved a lot of prep time. Also, put down some drop cloths under the car. The overspray on a concrete driveway is removed with mineral spirits, but again, more prep that wouldn't have taken much longer.

Here's some more pics of the process:

 

After the base coat. The over spray was horrendous which was the fault of lack of adequate prep and a bit of a breeze.

 

Shortly after the top coat was done and masking removed

 

 

And some progress pics:

 

Before-

During-

After-

Thanks a ton for all this info, I really appreciate it. I'll be tackling this when the weather turns back around in the spring.