Greetings

Edited after you posted Can I thin the clear with nitro? Also if you could just give me your opinion on the bonnet finish, I've so far done it with P600 but need to work on some bits, P800 and P1000 next. Obviously it's far from done but if you can tell from the picture whether such a slightly bumpy surface is ok I'll know whether to get it completely smooth or not. I've put my finger in for scale. Pics are massive so: Picture 1 Picture 2 (this is the one I'm particularly interested in getting an opinion on)

You're an absolute legend Tom! Thank you so much for your help. Nice writeup, no further questions. I'll save this for future reference on my PC along with all the observations I've made throughout the past few days. It seems I'm bumping into the same problems I covered 9 months ago on the M3 and forgot about them. With regards to the manufacturer of paint, I have no idea. I'm assuming it could be Novol considering all the other stuff I got from that paint shop is made by Novol. If I'm not mistaken paint shops usually try to supply you with materials from the same company to make sure everything works together? I'll be using a different brand of clear (Colomix) for the bonnet because I ran out of the one I got with the paint. Will test it on a small panel first to make sure it doesn't mess anything up. I've left the boot lid and will do as advised. Applied another 2 coats of primer onto the bonnet after rubbing down the first coat (I hate my dirty lens!). Will rub it down in an hour or so and get down to painting tomorrow. I'm quite nervous about this. One of the biggest problems will actually be positioning of the bonnet so I can spray it comfortably. It's absolutely massive. Got one more "problem". When painting with clear I'm getting a very rough orange peel. So rather than a fairly smooth finish, it's almost like thick sand paper when you look against the light. I can obviously rub this down and polish but is there a way of avoiding this? Could it be due to incorrect pressure or thin coats? I'm adamant about not getting runs. Also, you write about thinning the clear coat. What do I thin it with? I've only got nitro thinner. The clear coat I'm using is a 2:1 clear/hardener.

I'd personally go with 26" but it's all a matter of preference. I spent 5 years riding a 20" and progressed greatly after switching to 26" on which I've been happily riding for 8 years now. Changed to a 24" Rockman Tractor last year and found it great for small stuff and awful for anything else, sold it after a few rides. So 26" is still a winner for me at least. I can see 24" being a fantastic size for beginners and some experienced riders but it doesn't seem to work for all. That wheel size feels much more like a mod than a stock in my opinion. What Ross says is pretty much bang on except I'd use that setup on a frame with at least 40mm rise.

The conditions are probably far from ideal - at a guess 10C, humidity is low, around 50%. I will increase the temperature to 20C (if possible) for the bonnet. I think I might have found a nice spot for pressure and viscosity because doing the boot was a doddle compared to the other parts. Very nice spray. Unfortunately I'm getting a spider web sort of finish here and there. I rubbed down the affected spots with 1000 paper and gave it another coat, that sorted out most of these areas apart from one. Going to wait another 30 minutes for it to dry (still slightly sticky), rub it down and hopefully the final coat will not crack like this. Then it's clear and off to bed. Tom, are you a painter?

Presumably what you're talking about is acrylic paint? I wouldn't have any objections using this method if only it didn't take so long. Through my incredibly limited experience, I prefer to apply a thick final clear coat (not too thick so as not to get runs). That's good for some proper rubbing down and polishing. Currently waiting for the colour to dry a bit, painting the boot again. So far so good. 1 final coat of colour and the clear can go on. That will just leave the massive bonnet... my plan is to be anal with preparation. @Tom - I tried using a lower pressure and thinning the paint further and got a very uneven and thick spray (just small blobs rather than "atomized" paint).

This is exactly what I'm using. I've tried to determine what type it is but with no luck. I'm currently rubbing down the clear from 2 days ago (boot problem with artifacts). Can one put the laquer directly onto the roughened clear or should I prime it again? Can post a pic if needed. I'd rather avoid having to prime it again if possible. Also thanks for your help, greatly appreciated. I'm a bit lost with this colour to be honest, M3 was way easier. Any help is invaluable, I don't know any painters to ask directly.

4bar, the gun goes up to a maximum of 4.5-6bar. Not sure how maximum pressure can be a range but that's what it says on the box. I've given the rear bumper a re-spray and it's gone well. So possible causes could have been pressure, incorrect preparation and possibly bad thinner. Need to re-do the boot and get down to bonnet preparation.

Based on what I found in google, it's a single pack. I was told by the paint shop to thin it 1:1 with paint thinner, nothing else is added. I got the thinner with the paint so it should be the right stuff. That's for the base/colour. Clear is mixed with a hardener 2:1 but that's not causing problems thankfully. The problem I'm referring to is that the colour is not uniform. I don't know what course of action to take, can I roughen up the clear coat and apply the paint directly or does it need to be primed again? It's apparently recommended this paint is applied onto a light grey primer. I'll wait another day before re-working the bumper as advised. Really scared of doing the bonnet. I'll prime it again today and make sure the surface is perfect before applying paint. For some reason when I primed all the panels the result was a very rough surface which needed a lot of rubbing down during which I'd often get through to the old colour. I'm not using shoddy materials, must be doing something wrong.

Somewhere between sarcastic and being rather thick. Probably the latter A f**kup has taken place. Only managed the front bumper with satisfactory results. Thankfully haven't started on the bonnet yet so hopefully I'll be wiser by the time I get to it. This is the bumper, I'd call the result more than adequate (the white spots on the front are holes from someone using self tapping screws on the number plate). Boot seems satisfactory until a 90* shot is taken: And to put a long story short, I'm rubbing down a painted rear bumper. Note the primer patch: I'm seeking confirmation that the reason for the boot issue (and rear bumper) is bad preparation. I'm guessing the primer wasn't perfectly smooth and as a result the base coat had to fill in the unevenness causing an odd reflection. We got that on the front bumper but just put another thick coat on and that solved the problem. So as not to go through preparation again, is it ok if: 1. The boot which already has clear on it is rubbed down and has a base coat applied directly onto the clear? 2. The rear bumper since it's only got a base coat, is rubbed down and has another 2 coats of base applied before clear comes on? I genuinely don't like the colour of that car but having looked closely at all the pearl colours in the paint on a single drip, it should be absolutely beautiful. Got gold, black and red all in one little drip. Also rather annoyed because this paint is 6x more expensive than the M3 imola red. Probably wasted half the paint we had today. Talking of which, I had no problems of this sort painting the M3, presumably it's something to do with flat colours being easier than pearls or metallics?

Ok I'll enclose it using foil.

Primed all the body panels. We adapted a room in the cellar, not ideal but surprisingly there's no fluff flying around. Considering the state of the walls that was our primary concern. Need to rub the primer down now and should be able to put the base coat and clear on tomorrow. Not looking forward to that. We've only got 1 mask and it's 2 person job. Also proud of my extractor fan

I probably have around 3 degrees at a guess.

My friend has a silver Hero 3, I have a Hero HD (the first one). The footage looks almost identical. So not entirely convinced it's worth spending money on the 3 unless it's a Black which stands out in low lighting. With regards to the differences between all the models I'm sure that the GoPro website will answer your question much better than TF.

The paint is thinned with nitro or paint thinner so it's not water based unless I'm missing something. Then I've got a clear coat which is used with hardener. Off to get the paper, thanks!

Will do then. I'll start off with the panels that have been removed though. Quite looking forwards to this but also dreading the amount of work that's to come. Will 500 grade sand paper be ok to rough up the old clear coat?

It's a pearl colour apparently. Excuse my English but what is mopping? Do you mean polishing? Point taken. Will consider it, sounds like a good idea. Nope, the proper stuff. Base coat + clear. Oh and obviously a spray gun. By the way, this is not acrylic paint.

Does anyone here have experience with painting cars? I'd like to know how to do small jobs. I've decided to get the daily driver back in order. The way I understand it: 1. Blue area - roughen up the clear coat 2. Red area - paint 3. Green area - clear coat, faded out 4. Yellow area - polish Is that right? The bonnet, boot, front and rear bumpers need a complete re-spray so removed those. I'm sure the colour won't match 100% but that's not a problem, I don't much care for this car anyway. Just don't want to feel ashamed driving it.

Thank you! Always nice to hear Never missed a beat with the brakes, got DS3000 pads front and rear and some shoddy cheap Textar discs which we were forced to buy due to nothing else being available at the time. I've never had these fade on me and the locking power is brutal once the pads are up to temp. I haven't heard any complaints about the E36 M3 brakes personally but I have about the E46 and especially the E39 M5. Even in a few of my friends' racing E36 M3's a brake upgrade is usually one of the later mods once the aero, weight, suspension and drivetrain have been sorted out. edit: Got the hoonmobile back for a few days. It's been sorted since I last had it and is absolutely amazing now. Absolutely love it. Although it's up for grabs if I want it the running costs are beyond ridiculous so a definite no-go for now. One day maybe...

Ok, my bad. Went into 24" bikes and didn't see a single streety Ozonys, perhaps they're just out of stock.

Note that Tartybikes do not stock the KoD. The way I see it, this could be for one of two reasons. The first one you can probably guess so no need for me to type it out, the other is that Ozonys has yet to master the art of distributing their products (that's really the kindest way I can put this). The Inspired distribution system is completely flawless in my opinion and pretty much the best you'll find in the trials industry, the same goes for their marketing. To put it short, Inspired is just an incredibly well managed company. At the end of the day, this has a direct influence on how many Ozonys bikes there are out there, and how many Inspired bikes there are.

I drew you a picture a few posts back, it's in a link.

You don't want them vertical though - angle them down ever so slightly.

What Adam said. Also, the positioning of slave cylinders is very important. Placing them in a bucket will not give you a good bleed unless you're lucky. Shoddy paint image: http://imgur.com/axyaiRX Carefully put them into a vice and use a syringe, not a pressure bleed. High pressure will not get the air out, you want to fill the brake up slowly so the air has a chance to escape.

Any bleeding problems are usually caused by incorrectly positioned master and slave cylinders. The general rule is that holes through which the fluid exits the cylinders are at their peaks.

Was browsing a pic archive and found this. Really need to get the car back in order. Should start with a new bumper Not going to the Saturday comp after all. More time to get the car ready for the season. VANOS has been removed, 3 out of 4 solenoids were burnt so I had no variable valve timing. Replacement VANOS could have leaking solenoids, pistons or a weak pump so I'll be sending my old one to the UK for a full rebuild and bench testing. Annoyingly the only tyres I've got for that car now are racing slicks and I need to drive a good 15 miles to get the geometry sorted out which is currently a complete mess. What a waste of tyres that journey could be. Perhaps waiting for rain is a good idea, that will ease wear.