The car as it looked when I fist took it out of the box

   It had been so long since I'd done any paint-and-body work—easily since I was in my late teens-early twenties—that I had forgotten what a huge amount of prep work is involved before the actual 'painting' part gets underway. I kept telling myself, "this is just a child's toy, not an actual car; you don't have to get it perfect." Even still, I had to work my ass off to get Dash's pedal car ready for it's cool paint job.

   Because of the way that they are attached, the wheels had to stay as-is; removing them would've been a major headache, and there's no guarantee I could re-attach them without finding a specific size sealed bearing or having machine work done. The wheels were carefully masked off with two layers of plastic and two layers of newspaper. The plan was to leave them masked throughout the entire prep/painting/clear-coating process.

   First order of business was to remove the white paint from the outer body of the car. I covered my work area with a dropcloth and sprayed the pedal car down with a chemical stripping agent. This was the first time I had ever used a chemical stripper. In the past, I had always had connections to get things bead-blasted for paint removal, but everyone I called here in Broward County wanted to charge me an arm and a leg to blast this tiny little child's toy, so I had to try a cheap alternative. The stripper worked like crazy, man. After about 20 minutes, most of the paint has bubbled up into a soft, squishy goo that was easily wiped off with a wet rag. There were a few places, though, where it just wouldn't budge. The windshield, in particular, stubbornly refused to give up much paint without a fight.

After I had removed as much paint as was possible with the chemical stripper, I had to use wet sandpaper and a thourough application of serious elbow grease to remove the rest. I removed paint from some of the more difficult to reach places with a Dremel and a steel wire wheel/brush. After the wet sanding, I used various grades of steel wool to get a uniform smooth finish on the metal. First coarse steel wool, then medium, then fine, then superfine. Every time I thought I had all, or at least most, of the paint off, I'd notice another little place and the process would start all over again.

I had a tiny hole up on the nose of the car, where the old hood ornament used to attach, that I had to patch. I applied a fiberglass patch to the inside and filled the depression on the outside with Bondo. I then sanded it smooth with varying grits of sandpaper. It looks smooth, but I really won't be able to tell until I apply the paint. With any luck, you'll never be able to tell there was ever a hole.

Since complete disassembly would have been way too great a pain in the ass (there were a lot of areas that were riveted together, a few areas that were welded together, and a number of sealed areas), I decided to only paint the exposed surfaces, ie: the outer body. I decided rather than try to strip the paint off of the insides of the car and the steering and pedal assemblies, I would just give it a uniform coat of black rubberized undercoating. Great stuff; comes in a spray can, sticks to anything without the need to prime it first, and gives a nice, even flat black coating almost like a factory powder coat but with a soft, rubbery feel.

The fiberglass patch (inset) and Bondo fill

The undercoating

All smooth, primered and crying out, "Jettboy, PAINT ME!"

After all of the paint had finally been stripped, sanded, steel wool'd and prayed away, It was finally time to get the car primered. Since I didn't have any acetone or heavy duty solvents to clean the surface with, I gave it a bath in Dawn dishwashing soap to clean off any oils or dust and grit particles. To ensure that no surface rust started forming, I immediately dried the car with lint-free paper towels. Just to be absolutely sure that the surface was warm and clean, I went over it a couple of times with my wife's blow dryer set to 'HIGH'. I masked off the interior cockpit area with blue painters tape and newspaper just about 1/8 inch below the upper edge (I wanted the paint to just barely drop into the cockpit area). Once the masking was done, I gave it three nice, clean, even mist coats of canned gray primer. I couldn't have been happier; the primer had no runs or sags, and only a few areas had a rough enough feel to require any additional sanding. Now it was finally ready for paint. Woohooo! The fun part!

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Hot Rod Page 1

Hot Rod Page 2

Hot Rod Page 3

The FINISHED Hot Rod