After two months of toil after work and on weekends, I have finished fixing rust, slinging bondo, amd priming and painting the CRX.
The rust was horrible. Each of the holes for trim piece attachement had a rust hole, and most were over two inches across. The door skins were swiss cheese. The rocker panels were 80% gone. Each rear corner required major reconstructive surgery.
It's a good thing I had my own welder and air compressor, 'cause I can't imagine how much all this would cost to have done by somebody else.
In the end, I have a pleasant little car that gets 40+mpgs in most all circustances that should last until the wife's new Prius gets paid off. By then the Honda Fit should be in a reasonable price range for me. Or, maybe a Yaris.
Lessons learned...
-You CAN do it with your own two hands.
-Paint turns out better than you'd feared but not as good as you'd hoped.
-You can't have too much compressor, but you can have too little.
-If you aren't squinting, you don't have enough light to paint.
-If you bump into things, you don't have enough room to paint.
-Two-part primers are thick and your gun speed is slow. Base color coat is 50% reducer and runs like water. My mind and gun hand didn't realize that soon enough and I had several panels to sand and recolor. The runs still show in direct light.
-It's better to use a wire welder with a gas bottle than to use flux-core wire on 22 ga. steel. You are at the edge of do-ability with flux-core.
-Buy a nice sheet metal cutter for your air compressor. It's ten million times better than hand shears. But you'll need a nice pair of hand shears for fitting pieces into holes you're welding up.
-The $100 HVLP guns are sufficient. My 5hp, 20gal compressor was sufficient. Not great, but sufficient.
-Hit several paint shops to introduce yourself as a newbie and ask questions. The nice ones that take the time to answer all your questions and run up a list of parts/paints are the ones you'll want to purchase from. The guy I went to even gave me a card with his home phone on it to call in case I ran into any problems after work hours.
-I bought four 1000lb wood roller dollies from Harbor Freight to put the car on in the shop and push back and forth to make room for things and to be able to shut the door. They are cheap and worked great. The front tires, though, kept rolling off since the emergency brake didn't hold them still. I put a stick on the brake pedal and pushed the seat forward. That worked good enough.
-I skipped the color sand and buff part. It's not a big deal on a beater car.
-I purchased several books on painting and buttloads of car magazines about body & paint. They all came in handy, but nothing had everything.
-POR-15 is your friend! I had to buy two quarts. It covers pretty well, so it's better to pour out less than you think you'll need. It's cheaper to put out a tiny bit more since you can't pour it back into the can. It's expensive, but you'll never have to go back and do it again (within reason).
-Don't get in too big of a hurry. There's always tomorrorow to finish the job.
Good luck with your own projects.
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