My car has been in primer for nearl a year and I want to paint it now. It has been driven in perfect weather, maybe 100 miles in the last year and always in a climate controlled garage. Its never seen rain, and only in the sun when I drove it. My question is what do I need to do now? Im hoping that I can just clean it up and shoot it but Im sure someone here knows the correct answer. It some dust on it and a few greasy finger prints so any suggestions on cleaning it would be great.

life expectancy in primer depends entirely on the primer system used and climate conditions. Catalyzed primers hold up the best-examples would be epoxy and urethene. Uncatalyzed primers such as Laquer break down fasted and will absorb moisture in time. My recomendation would be to wash the entire car, followed by wax and grease remover. then sand with 220 or 240grit paper to remove some surface material and apply a good quality urethene primer surfacer followed by final sanding and sealer/top coat application. Bob

Do just what Bob said and you will be ready to paint .... graemlins/waving.gif

This is my first big paint job so I dont know very much but when you say "apply the sealer/topcoat" do you mean there is a sealer that I need to put on, or does paint act as a sealer. What grit paper do I use for sanding the final primer? And finally what kind of a block do I use to sand with. It is a 69 and seems like I would need something really flexible to match all of the curves. Thanks

You do not need a sealer necessarilly. You can just spray on your urethane primer/surfacer and then block sand with 400 grit. After that clean thouroughly and use a tack cloth before shooting the basecoat. You will apply the 2 coats of basecoat (color) and the 3 coats of clear on the same day (24 hour period). But, be sure to read the product bulletin that comes with your product and follow those instructions to a "T". I applied PPG DP50LF epoxy primer to my '70 chevelle which I had stripped the paint from, then followed that with a high build urethane primer/surfacer before shooting basecoat and clearcoats...the epoxy primer is not a sandable primer, but the urethane surfacer is.

Here is my firewall which I painted a few weeks back..

http://users.ev1.net/~jaaustin/chevelle/firewall_cortez.jpg

I have learned so much here :D A year ago, I never would have imagined that I would feel comfortable with offering advice to anybody about automotive refinishing......thanks to Sevt_Chevelle and Martinsr graemlins/hurray.gif