body work questions

[Mastaflash]

a little while ago i was in a minor fender bender. i rear ended another car. the damage to my car was to the passenger side headlight assembly, and the tip of the fender. the paint on the bumper is chipping, but its structurally fine. this happened to my 93 Ford Probe. here are my questions:

- then fender was only damaged on the very tip on a small spot. if i repair where it is damaged, do i have to sand down and primer the whole thing, or can just one spot be painted and blended in?

- the fender has a repairable dent/kink at the tip. can i shape it back close to original, then use some body filler to smooth it out? this might not be the best way but i would like to do as much as i can by myself.

-the bumper is i guess eurithane. it is chipping badly on where the impact was. what should i do about this? how do you repair this type of material for paint? the entire bumper should be repainted from chips and scraping on the bottom.

im a body man NEWB, so please help me. i would like to do much of the prep work myself, and have a shop, or someone i know paint the parts as needed.

:help

[FTRS14.5]

Depending on how bad the bend/kink is, it can be fixed. All you would really have to is bend the corner and smooth it out with bondo. Sand it all the way down to metal, then start the body work. Paint blending is realtively easy just make sure you mask off everything else very well. Here is a quick manual on body work if interested. Pull out the bend as close as you can to original, then put on some bondo. You can basically shape the bondo anyway you want to. Once you believe that you have it as close to the original as you can, spray some Guide Goat (or you can use black spray paint) really lightly and sand it again with 300 grit. This will show any low spots, pin holes, imperfections, etc. Put a little bit more bondo and continue the process until the next time your spray the Guide Coat, all of it sands off easily. After your done lay down about 3-4 coats of sandable primer and sand that down using 500 grit sandpaper. That'll help take away anymore imperfections. After that spray down 4-5 coats of base, then 5-6 of clear. Make sure you masked off quite a bit of space so you can blend it all together afterwards. After your clear dries, wet sand the area and surrounding area using 1500 grit and then 2000 grit and then use rubbing compound. After the rubbing compound, you can polish and wax. And you are done. Same thing with the bumper. You can fix any gouges from the impact with bondo as well. And just sand it down smooth. Make sure you scuff up the whole thing prior to spraying anything on it. But it's also pretty straight forward as well. If you have any other questions, let me know. Hope this helps......

[Mastaflash]

i think the whole bumper need to be stripped and repainted. it is cracking and flaking off prety badd all around. im goingto go get an estimate from a body shop. if its not too expensive ill just have a shop fix the damn thing. i would like to learn, but noton my own car.

[book-ends]

FTRS........

I don't mean to tread jack, but do you know, or have links to a sight that can show me how to paint my car, step by step? I have all of the equipment, a very nice paint gun and compressor and a great automotive paint supply shop just down the street. The people are asses but the paint selection is pretty good.

What do I do? Sand the paint down with such and such grit, several layers of primer, base and then clear and then a wet sand? I'm just guessing!!

Lastly, I really want to paint my interior but I don't want to sand the interior of my car because of all of the small crevices ect..........how do the pros do it?

Thanks a lot, and Mastaflash I really do apologize for the thread jack!!

[Mastaflash]

its no prob, it might help me as well. i to am a body newb.