Repainting Carb Zen - Brick Red Colour

[ss80]

Tasks promised to the customer:
1. Full body painting (inside & outside) except engine bay
2. 3M anti rust coating for the inner floor
3. Tinker work for the rusted holes in the body
4. Fixing indicator issues (right side)
5. Installing Dashboard back in the right place with all missing screws
6. Cleaning Blower fan
7. Headlamp replacement - LH
8. Wheel RIM painting (both sides)
9. wiper arm painting - black colour
10. 4 door top portion Vinyl stickering (frame around the glass)
11. LED cabin lamp


The estimate given by me for this car is Rs.13,000/- for the above tasks. Initially I was asked to just spray a layer of red on the existing bodyline without any tinker/putty/finishing etc. But then I refused to do that kind of a job. So once I met the owner, I convinced him to go ahead for the above tasks.

The lowest quotes I got so far from outsiders:
Professional repainting costs for this Zen - 26,000/- (in temperature controlled paint booth)
Usual Painting at any garage - 21,000/-

The above charges were quoted excluding the non-painting related things (only body tapping, no patch work, no dashboard work, no headlamp replacement, not removing door pads, wheel liners etc).

 

[Sam Dinkar]

Perfectly reasonable. What paint are you going for? You are surely not sanding down the body before painting it, aren't you?

 

[ss80]

I am sanding the old paint, but definately working hard to reduce the number of soft dents on the body panels. Excessive usage of putty will spoil the paint after sometime, also it adds weight to the body panels. The car has plenty of sharp lines on left side of car (paint is intact but its a deep dent), which are becoming a kind of challenge.

Although someone is ready to teach me body tapping, I cant do that work outside my home (due to excessive noise generated). Infact few days back I parked the car on a wide lonely main road & beat up the lose bitumen sheet on the floor. Once done I came back home to do the cleaning.

As of now, this is what I am doing.
1. Scratching areas where I pushed the dents out & removing paint from a few bumped up areas as well.
2. Removing the old putty on the bonnet wherever there are cracks (small or big)
3. scratching the spray can paint (which is in plenty) wherever it exists
4. Then I need to start applying putty to the low lying areas (including the scratched ones)
5. Drying time for the putty
6. Then a clean water wash for inside & outside

After this my painting guru has to guide me on how to go further. Whether I need to apply surfacer/ NC paint etc. I also need to buy new paint gun & the other spraying gun (for underbody coat).

Paint Booth update
I have almost got a location to start the paint work, a weigh bridge owned by one of my friend's relative. The only issue is I need to make a temporary plastic enclosure, may be I will wait for all the preparations to finish & then will scout for materials for the tent.

 

[jarpickle]

Anand instead of painting the rims get them powder coated.Paint will chip off when the owner get the alignment and balancing done.This needs to be done as painting adds weight to the wheels.

Suggest the owner to change the rims, they look bent at places.The zens rims were notorious for getting bent.

If the owner wants a different kind of paint job, why not paint the roof like a chess board or paint it white and the rest of the car red.

Also add door moulding.The car will look really good.

Some pics of my friend's old E-zen.It 1.3 carb engine from the Esteem in place of the 998cc stock engine.

 

[ss80]

Jarpickle:
Good idea indeed, the owner was asking for the roof to be in white colour. I had no idea about how the car will look, those pictures gave me a good idea now. I will try not to complicate things this time. Instead I might try to paint the roof white & then the rest in red.

Yesterday, before leaving to work, just applied a automotive primer on to the tinkered areas. Just to prevent rusting on the fresh sheets of metal. Here are a few pics.






Regarding the powder coating:
The owner is planning to get alloys sometime later & is not interested in doing anything to the rims as of now (in fact the rim painting thing was suggested by me, as the rims would look ugly on a freshly painted car). But I fully agree to what you said about paint chipping etc.

 

[jarpickle]

I think the best option would be to change to alloys now else once the rims are painted and if he doesn't do the balancing and alignment the tires will suffer improper wear.The Yokohamas that he has are softer and hence wear faster.

 

[Sam Dinkar]

Some pics of my friend's old E-zen.It 1.3 carb engine from the Esteem in place of the 998cc stock engine.

Off topic: I always wanted to do this. The Esteem's free revving, sonorous 1.3 engine in a light Zen would smoke many cars four times its price. Keith, could you get more gen on this mod? How does it drive? Is the suspension upgraded? What about the brakes?

And ask your friend to add your swoooosh signature on the bum of his lovely Zen.

Thanks for sharing.

Anand, I agree with Keith on the bent rims part. The Zen rims would bend if you as much as sneezed on them. Get them replaced. Would not cost much.

 

[jarpickle]

Sadly he sold off this car to make room for a Beetle.

He's the same guy who owns the Honda Accord.

Will get more info on the mods he did to accommodate the 1.3 engine.The car was mad fun though.It would pull like crazy in all gears.Overtaking other cars was crazy, it would just surge and keep going.

 

[Varun560061]

Wow the white roof looks cool. SS80 please try to get it done on this car.

 

[jarpickle]

Sam:The engine(carb)and gearbox came from a first gen Esteem(Japanese).

Everything else is stock.The engine and gearbox was a straight bolt on.

He did say the engine was a bit heavier but not so much that the suspension needed to be beefed up.

The brakes discs were also stock from the zen.

 

[Sam Dinkar]

Thanks Keith. I always knew the Esteem 1.3 was a bolt on job inside the Zen. Somehow never got around to doing it. My bad.

@Anand: White roof on a red car looks cool. Would you be painting it or vinyling it?

 

[jarpickle]

With the kind of suspension that the zen has it won't be difficult to upsize the brake discs either.There is a lot of choice when it comes to uprating stuff like the good ol SS80.Sad the had to rain on the SB308 parade though.Localization killed the ability of the Indian 800 to really shine.

 

[ss80]

Today prepared the whole car so that I can apply body filler tomorrow. Here are a few pictures.

Removed the glass channel rubbers, the black metal thing at the windows, roof plastics broke when I tried to open them. A big mess to clean, storing anything that I remove itself is a big problem as of now.















Today while I was working on this car, a guy from the neighborhood came to me & asked if I could help him with his car issue. I asked him to bring the car & he came with a Ford Ikon 1.6 (petrol) ZXI (old shape). He had a few doubts about the lights in the dashboard & also about spares prices etc. I just shared whatever I knew about his car & then test drove his car for about 2 kms & came back.

The 1.6 motor is a rev happy, very torque engine. Impressive Acceleration is guaranteed!
The ford Ikon 1.3 & 1.6 are totally two different worlds.

Oil leak from the rack & pinion part, broken bumper, fading paint on most panels were the issues I could find in the car. He wanted a to do a DIY for a small rusted hole in the door & near the windhshield area. He had already brought some metal paste. So joined with him, did a small DIY & the result was too good to believe. He took my number & wanted to contact me later if I was willing to repaint his car as well. I just stored his number & was glad to meet someone who had noticed me working on my First car, then Palio, new 800 & now the Zen. He also insisted me to give him a call as soon as the Zen is ready for delivery, I said ok & by then it was 2hours already! So just packed for the day.

 

[ss80]

Thanks to the mild rain (last night) the car is free of dust & ready to take the body filler. So started off the work early morning & applied body filler to one side of the car. Here are a few pics. Experimenting with the ratio (body filler + hardener) itself takes sometime.



Mixing ratio (this is too much, mixture goes hard even before you can remove the excess applied. Something lesser than this will do. White thick liquid is the body filler (ESDEE brand) & the hardener is the red liquid.

 

[jarpickle]

Take off the monograms and check the area.A lot of times the area where the monograms are stuck tend to have a slight dent in them.Mostly due to the force with which the monograms were stuck.