Hammerite vs powder coating vs regular spraying

[fish]

Anyone out there have any good practices or horror stories on painting.....?

Am looking at respraying my chassis parts, i.e. the suspension parts/cross member/brace, that kind of thing.....purely for aesthetic/prolonging their life etc....

Certainly one member has suggested that powder coating has been very successful.

I was going to get the items all shot blasted, more out of habit than perhaps necessity. Then; its either;

http://www.wilkinsonspowdercoating.co.uk/contact-us.php

1) Get shot blaster to respray
2) Get shot blaster to powder coat
3) Red oxide them myself and then "spray" with hammerite
4) Red oxide them myself and then paint" with hammerite

or Do not shot blast, simply wire brush down and then...

1A) Red oxide them myself and then "spray" with hammerite
2A) Red oxide them myself and then paint" with hammerite


I have used hammerite spray cans and you do seem to get a very good finish, so long as you gradually build the layers up etc.

My other concern was whether or not to leave the old bushes/ball joints in during the shot blasting or not? i.e. if I remove them after, the thickness of paint where they sit would be "as is" so when I add new ones, I am not having to fight against several layers of paint....or are the parts unpainted where they sit?

Ultimately, I only want to be doing this once, so want the option that will last longest.....of course, 10 years down the line, it "may" all happen again, but that's life....car is summer use only....

Just after any general nuggets of information or key do's and dont's etc.....

[Robert T]

I have had some parts on my sprite powercoated by a company in Stockport and am very pleased with the results. It doesn't work well with badly corroded metal, but anything that is in reasonable condition gets a hard waterproof coating that should protect it for many years. It looks smart on ancillary items like the heater box and ducting for the heater (on the sprite!), but I don't think it would look right on anything that is supposed to be body-coloured. For suspension components it should work very well.

For anything that is body coloured, my understanding is that the Z3 is "fully galvanized", so the chassis as well as all the body panels have a zinc coating before any paint is applied. If you shotblast or wirebrush anything before you paint it, you will remove the galvanization. I know it is possible to get classic car chassis "dipped", but I would doubt that this is as good as the original BMW galvanization, and obviously you are only going to be able to do this with removable parts, unless you are going to strip the car completely! So I'd try to avoid doing anything radical with the bodywork and chassis.

Cheers R.

[Southernboy]

All just MO of course...
...One thing comes to mind in terms of powder coating...If you leave bushes in place, they will need to be replaced afterwards, since the heat applied to "bake" the powder paint is around 200 degrees. In the process of replacing them, you may end up chipping the newly coated objects. Also, powder coating is considerably thicker than painting, so you may have issues fitting components together afterward.
It seems most practical to shot blast vs wire brush, since brushing is serious labour, and possibly not as thorough as blasting in removing all "old" material.
Hammerite, spray or painted is a good finish which can easily be "touched up" if needed.

[t-tony]

If you have heavily rusted parts to paint my recommendation is a product called Vactan. Available on eBay which coverts the rust into a very durable and easily overpaintable surface.

[Del]

If you have heavily rusted parts to paint my recommendation is a product called Vactan. Available on eBay which coverts the rust into a very durable and easily overpaintable surface.

Thanks for the pointer Tony - good to get a recommendation from somebody in the know.

[fish]

http://www.loctite.co.uk/uke/content_da ... t_2009.pdf

Thanks for feedback…some good food for thought in attached too…..