painting advice for a 1980 coupe

[Mikael F.]

Dear NCRS people and other Corvette lowers,

I have a black 1980 Corvette. According to my copy of the NCRS judging manual a single stage acrylic lacquer was used. The plate in the driver door says color 19, which should be solid black, which my car is.

- do anyone know the original color type and who the supplier were?

- is that paint still available? - or - what kind of paint would you recommend if I want to preserve the car originality best possible?

- is it possible for to repaint small areas , 4 x 10 inch and smaller, yourself?

- if you have a repair with black gelcoat on to , do you need sealer? or primer? before the lacquer?

- can anyone advise me on how to do this job, (is there any literature?), how hard it is or if it is better to let a paint shop do it?

- what would be a normal cost for refinishing two small areas, around 4 x 10 inch each?

- what would be a normal cost for a complete repaint of the whole car?

Thank you in advance for any information!

Best Regards/Mikael

[Mark Ring]

Re: painting advice for a 1980 coupe

Mikael,
I am no paint expert but my free 2 cents goes like this. If your original paint is in otherwise good shape and you can get a shop that will use laquer, you should have it professionaly repaired. The exact brand type of paint would not matter to me as all straight blacks will be the same as to color match. If your paint is not in great shape otherwise, you might want to repaint but the quality of the shop you select is critical, not the cost. I would expect 3-5 grand for a clean body to start but this was estimates I got a few years ago on my 1980. The car came out looking great but it did take a few months to finish the job. WELL worth the expense in my opinion. It was done by a Corvette restoration shop that had a good ear for my needs to preserve the originality of the car. The only thing that does not look factory is the soft bumper covers, they now actualy MATCH the exact shade of the rest of the car! There goes my chance at a bow tie award...
-Mark.

[robert leazenby]

Re: painting advice for a 1980 coupe

i show code 19 as being one of the following three:
Ditzler 9300; DuPont 99; Renished-MasonA946. These codes are from the GM Parts catalog for that year. Unknown to me as to which supplier was originally used on your car.

[Mikael F.]

Re: painting advice for a 1980 coupe

Thanks for your relpy, Robert.

A table of color codes I located said that the black 1980 used WA 848 for the body and WU 848 for the painted bumpers. Would that help to differentiate between the three you suggested?

Is there any information about selaer and primer used?

Thanks again/Mikael