started out as an ordinary run of the mill, black on silver two tone baja.

 

 

Edited December 29, 201015 yr by SubaruAlliance
adding photos

It had the bug deflector on it when i bought it, you can see what it did to the factory paint in these pics. These are sanding it down, and doing minor body work.

 

this pics is filling the holes where the decals where at and prepping the area to leave them off.

 

more minor bodywork

Edited December 29, 201015 yr by SubaruAlliance

more bodywork. you can see when it was wet, you couldn't tell it had been sanded down, pretty cool.

in the booth, masking and papering everything off.

a front view

Edited December 29, 201015 yr by SubaruAlliance

I decided on a black base coat, 6 coats of white and crystal pearl mixed, and then 3 coats of high solids clear.

this was after 3 coats of black base, and this is the 2 coat of the pearl. you can see it all floating around in the air.

i think this is the last two coats of pearl

this is after all the pearl and before the clear coat

it looks yellowish but it's the light in the booth i assure you

a front view before the clear coat

Lookin' good so far! Tell me: Why did you decide to leave the body cladding on for the paint job?

Here are photos of the finished product.

the reason i left all the body cladding on was i didn't want the two tone look. I tried to take some of the cladding to paint it separately but that would've been twice the work, and then twice the masking.

 

Looking at the finished product you can see there is so much pearl in it, that if the light hits it right it will look more white in certain areas, especially around the doors. It's all in how the light hits it, looks more black on the bottom, and more white when the light hits it strait on. if you are right on it you can see some greens, and purples in it, from the crystal pearl that is mixed in with the white pearl.

 

anyways that's the finished product, 3 coats of black base, 6 coats of white pearl, and then 3 coats of high solids clear.

Edited December 30, 201015 yr by SubaruAlliance

it Looks Awesome!

I Never Liked their Two-Tone Paint, so I Believe that Painting the Baja as you Did makes it to Look Cool! ... I Really Like it.

Could I Ask which Kind of Paint did you Used and what brand of Spray Gun, at which PSi?

I Paint using "Sagola" Spray Gun and my Favourite Paint is the Polyurethane Based.

Kind Regards.

Looks great. I never was a fan of the two tone paint either.

Looks great. I never was a fan of the two tone paint either.

 

me either.

 

nice job to make it one color.

Nice work! In most colors, I don't care for the early Bajas' two-tone scheme, either. The later ones, like my '05, have a subtle tone-on-tone look that I like. Did you flex the primer and/or paint, to allow the cladding to bend if hit w/o messing up the paint?

my baja, brat, and svx love the single color ones. in never figured out why Subaru did not 2-tone the gas lid to make it look little more refined on the two-tones.

the brand of paint was NASON, apparently it's like dupont's sister company, kinda like mercury is to ford, or saturn is to gm. anyways, it was painted with some budget set up spray guns at 40PSI. it was like 100 bucks for two guns, one with a 2.0 tip, and the with a 1.2 tip or something like that. the guy who painted it said the guns wern't bad but not good either, he is just gonna use them for primer guns now, but he said the smaller one of the two is perfect for door jams.

the base coat is called NASON Ful-Base B/C. the pearl is a custom mix that is named MAD DOCTOR WHITE PEARL, and the clear is NASON High-Image HS (High Solids) Clear.

 

and anyways, i liked the two tone look for a minute, but as i got used to it, I started noticing the factory black on top had a bit of red flake in it, like a small amount of red pearl, and the silver on bottom was to light for the black so i decided to paint it, and i am glad i did.

 

I can get the code off the can for the pearl, it's a white pearl, and a crystal pearl. The guy at Finish Masters showed me some 4 or 5 different white pearls and i picked out the one i liked and then he showed me the crystal pearl, which like a prism, it shows you all the colors of the rainbow depending on the angle of the light hitting it so i had him add a pinch of that and it turned out real nice and subtle, if you are right on top of the car you can see some greens, and purples and what not, but it's subtle enough to not really show up in the photos.

MUCH BETTER. I would consider actually owning a Baja if they came like that from the factory. Now if it had a little bit of a lift...:-p

Thanks, SA, I think that tells me what I was wondering about the flex agent. Congratulations on the new paint!

Yeah, I like that. Looks right and proper for sure. I Commend you on your prep and painting skill and the point you did it to what basically is a "New" car.

 

As for One color Baja's, I think the best solid color Subaru offered was the Purple pearl. Yellow is over-rated on them, but then, that is the only model Subaru has ever offered in Yellow since the 80s.

 

-Tom

Edited January 9, 201115 yr by TheLoyale