Need help..I want to paint my tractor..

HELP!

After many years, dollars, and a complete go through, I have a 1927 regular that I want to paint. A few years ago, 8 I think, I bought a gallon of Centurion Paint for the IHC gray color, along with reducer and hardener. As I was rebuilding the tractor, I sprayed red rattle can primer to protect the parts until I could paint the whole thing (I have been working on this tractor since 1987). So, I am ready to paint...I have a 3M P95 respirator, paint suit, and a HVLP spray gun.

1) Now what? Do I degrease it? How do I do that? Disassemble it?

2) Primer. What kind should I use? Etcher? Epoxy?

3) What about filler for the tank, hood, and fenders?

4) Centurion mix ratio is 8-4-1. How much should I mix at a time? A pint?

5) How many coats? How long can I wait between them? How fast do I need to get all the coats done in?

Any help would be appreciated.

I'm on my phone right now when I get too a computer I'll give more details. Degrease is needed. Disassemble is needed. I went 4 coats of primer 5 coats of paint. Definitely body filler. And you are suppose to have supplied air if you use hardener. I like the results of mine but it is far from a show piece.

4 coats of primer 5 coats of paint!? Are you nuts??? Use an epoxy primer one good coat will do you. One or two coats of paint depending on how well you get the nooks and crannies. Go to a paint shop and they will have mixing cups for the right ratio and different volumes. You can buy body filler at any auto part shop. Get some good engine degreaser use a pressure washer and scrape and wire brush until all oil and grease are gone from metal. Talk to the guys at the local paint shop.

I wanted a durable paint on it. And I had a lot of time haha.

1 coat of primer, unless really pitted.

2 coats of paint with hardener.

Get a breathing air unit, the isocyantes in the hardener will kill your lungs.

How far you go is up to you and how nice of a paint job you want. This being your first, it won't be perfect and may not be very good at all. It's going to be a learning experience.

Prep for the paint and usage of the paint should all be in the instructions on the can.

You can't paint over grease, so unless the tractor is already clean you will want to clean it. A steam cleaner is best but a regular old pressure washer and any product labeled as "degreaser" for pressure washers, that comes in a gallon jug will do an acceptable job.

If you want a "factory" paint job, paint the tractor almost completely assembled. Remove any hood or other decorative sheet metal and paint it separately, but other than that, mask off tires and other rubber parts.

You can tear it down to individual pieces and paint it but that is a lot of work and you just got done doing that I assume. The upside to a complete teardown is that you can get paint in all the hard-to-reach places that nobody will ever see anyway.

I recommend installing a set of junk spark plugs and removing the wires completely. I've been told that getting any paint at all on a spark plug seems to ruin them. Maybe an old wives' tale but I haven't taken chances yet and I haven't had any problems.

I guess you had alot of time on your hands... In my opinion when paint is REALLY thick it tends to flake off easier...

Get some books on painting. Do some internet research. Google things like primer on cars, bondo application. Surface prep for autos. Whatever. Find a place or person that does body work and talk to them. I don't think we can spell out all the details here.
DON'T do what Fullers tells you.

The more parts you can take off the better your paint job will be. Good luck, Mark.

Mark,

That is exactly what i am planning on doing...Nice Regular!

What primer did you use? What finish paint did you use? Did you use hardener? What kind of respirator did you use?

Go to the Paint and Bodywork forum on this site and read it for a couple of days, all the info is there, then ask questions about what you don't understand. An oversimplification is take all removable parts off, take everything to bare metal, clean the whole tractor throughly, final prep step is wax and grease remover. Then 2 coats of epoxy primer, sandable surfacer over the epoxy on only the sheet metal (use body filler, etc first), sand and reapply as necessary, then 3 coats of topcoat paint. Epoxy, surfacer, and topcoat are to be mixed EXACTLY as the instructions say. Use hardener only if you have a supplied air system, the hardener contains isocyanates that a charcoal mask will not filter out. They can make you sick. All of this and then some is on the Paint and Bodywork forum, books won't do you much good as many of them are incorrect. I wouldn't pay much attention to paint salesmen either. I am not familiar with your paint. There are several choices, in the order of quality and price, high quality first: Urethane (MUST have hardener), acrylic enamel, acrylic modified alkyd enamel, and the old alkyd enamel (junk compared to todays paint).