This isn't really a " how - to ", I just thought you guys would find this interesting. We have a '07 Grand Cherokee at the shop that I painted today. I took some pics to try to show you fellas the process. We replaced the left fender, front bumper cover, and repaired the left front door.
The insurance company, instead of writing it to replace the door skin, wrote it to repair the door. They allowed 7 hours labor for the repair on the door. As you can see, the door was disassembled. We remove everything, door handle, belt molding, lower side molding, window channel, emblem, and side mirror. This makes for a much nicer job and I don't have to worry about sanding around everything and trying to tape up everything.
I sprayed 4 coats of primer surfacer on the repair. The primer acts as a final top to the body filler. The filler is very porous and the primer fills the sand scratches and caps off the repaired area.
The primer takes about 1 1/2 hours to dry and is then sanded with a D.A. sander with 500 grit paper. The rest of the panel is sanded with 800 grit paper. The surrounding area is then masked off and it is ready for the booth.
The replacement parts are attached to parts racks and the bumper is scuffed with a red Scotch Brite pad and the fender is sanded with 500 grit paper. All replacement parts are painted this way. Some shops still " trim - in " parts and then bolt them on the vehicle, then paint the parts while on the vehicle. Doing it my way makes for a much nicer, cleaner job and takes way less time to do.
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