UHF

A mate of mine had his focus reversed into when he was away from the car so we're trying to find a way to fix it on the cheap

So far he's managed to source a sing for £30 which i thought was quite good, now, how does one a). spray it up and b). get it on the car.

Apparently its come primered so I take it we pop down to the local halfords, get them to mix up a batch of his paint code and get spraying? any advice? Obviously it wont look like a body shop job but he's been quoted silly money for that.

When it comes to fitting I think we'll need to take the front bumper off, any clues there, from what we can see the wing has lots of bolts holding it on, any idea if it'll be welded on too or if this is a straight bolt-on job?

We'll get the car into the warehouse at work once we have all the bits and spend the day doing it, once thats done i'll be in credit with him so he can help when I do my Front Mount

Cabinet Enforcer

Yes it's a bolt on job, but i'd rethink about spraying it yourself, try and get a few more quotes, it is not just a matter of slappin some paint on you know.

Dream Weaver

Get an independant sprayer to do it - shouldnt cost much.

Or, take it to your local Ford dealer and bung the workshop lads £50 to hang the wing in the spray booth when you chosen colour is being used

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Halfords will give you Celly based paints...this will give nowhere near the quality or the durability, and questionable match too. Its ok to do the odd corner of a bumper or side skirt. But I'd never use the stuff to do the whole panel.

What colour is the car?...Solid? Metallic? Pearlesant? If it's solid, does it have a top coat of laquer? If you haven't a clue then you can make a right hash of it. I'd prefer a bashed wing than a patchwork quilt - if and when you sell the car on - the damage is obvious, with a bad spray job, a prospective buyer will alway question "what is that bad spray job covering up?"

If you do decide to do it yourself My advice is: Preperation, Preperation and Preperation...that is 75% of what makes a good job (and when I say preperation I mean flatting, priming etc - not mental preperation ...but you'll need that too - plus patience).

I happened to meet a bloke last week who had re-sprayed his beloved MX-5. He was well chuffed. I did not have to heart to tell him that he had devalued the car to about £500. It was awful, orange peal, underspray, overspray, dust blobs, air pockets...he must have used a scouring pad to flat down the paint. I could have done better with a paintbrush. If you have cateracts then perhaps it would look ok

If you do go ahead yourself, then all I can say is get some scrap metal and practice with that...try and get it as close in finish, texture, and match (match is not just the colour of the paint...it's also how it is sprayed too) to the paintwork on the car. When you think you can do it to an aceptable level consistently then you can try doing the wing. It won't get done in a day, or a week for that. But as I said it takes alot of paitence and practice.

Ayde

iTrader: (6)

Before spraying up the wing I would get the old wing off first(IIRC you just have to release the corner on the side of the wing you are replacing - few years since I worked in the bodyshop though and they all seem to blur into one!) and test fit the new one as it is probably a spurious one for that price and you will probably find it will take a while to get it fitting right and you want to do this before any paint - from experience he would have been better getting a genuine wing from Ford or a salvaged genuine wing it would probably save a lot of time and hassle.
Get the wing sprayed at a bodyshop - they do this all day every day and know what they are doing and it would probably work out cheaper and as mentioned above not de-value the car (has he not priced the repair at a bodyshop? Most of the time the bonnet and the front door will also have to be stripped to blend in the panels either side of the wing - you will not be able to do this effectivly with Halfords cans).
Finally once the job is done and you are happy with the fit before you put the wing liner in get some Wax oil and spray it onto the inside of the wing to protect it.

Dream Weaver

And another thing - why try to fix it on the cheap, put some proper work into it and get it right.

talizman

iTrader: (1)

No offence mate, but judging by the questions you posed and the apparent lack of expertise, I don't think you have the slightest chance of getting it anywhere near acceptable.

Bite the bullet and pay to have it done properly.

£100 to have the wing sprayed now will save your mate thousands in depreciation when the next potential owner walks away due to the bodge job.