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Magazines Car Mechanics Magazine 16 September 2022Prepping, painting & buffing

Prepping, painting & buffing

5 min read

Project Kia Sportage 2.0 CRDi

Prepping, painting & buffing

PART THREE: Rob Hawkins follows the paintwork repairs being completed on our Kia Sportage.

Paintwork repairs can consume a vast amount of time and our Kia Sportage was one such job that was much bigger than we had initially expected. In the last issue of CM, we made a start on the repairs to the nearside rear door, which were a lot more involved than expected. Consequently, we decided to not only blow in the adjacent rear quarter panel, but also the passenger door as well. Along with the repairs to the nearside half of the front bumper, only the nearside front wing escaped a lick of paint.

There’s nothing quick about any aspect of bodywork repairs, whether it’s prepping, cleaning or masking-up. Even the application of paint and lacquer (three coats of paint and one of lacquer in our case) requires drying time, which was reasonably quick thanks to the use of a heated spray booth. When the paint had dried, Rob thought it would all be over after an hour or two spent flatting, buffing and polishing. Not quite. Some four hours were spent on this before a rinse and a soapy wash.

So, our Kia Sportage is almost looking as good as new. Well, down one side at least. A replacement driver’s door in Techno Orange is all we need to complete the refreshed look.

In the meantime, Rob is back on the road and has been left wondering why the fuel consumption has dropped to below 30mpg. Hopefully he’ll find the answer soon.

BUMPER SCRAPE

1 The nearside corner 1 of the front bumper had an unsightly scrape along it, which seemed to have only removed the paint and not resulted in any gouges in the plastic. Gareth at Elite Accident Repair Centre was confident it could be rubbed back, and it wouldn’t need any filler.
2 Before Rob was let loose with a dual action sander, he was asked to mask over the wheelarch trim and the front edge of the front wing to protect them, just in case he went too far.
3 Armed with a dual action sander and a P320-grit paper, it wasn’t long before the damaged paintwork had been sufficiently sanded down to a smooth finish.
4 However, Gareth pointed out that there were now several scratch marks, so he gave Rob a bucket of soapy water with P600 and P800 wet-and-dry papers. After a few minutes, the scratches had been removed.
5 The paint repair to the front bumper would need to be blown in around the whole front half, so Rob masked around the trim, fog-lights and headlights in preparation for using Scotch-Brite.
6 He also had to remove the nearside headlight washer cover, which is clipped on to the washer jet. This was a good opportunity to clean the paintwork behind it and have it repainted.
7 Apiece of grey Scotch-Brite soaked in water with a little cutting compound was used to take the shine off the nearside half of the bumper. Al

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