Vinyl wrap on a 3rg gen charger??

[Hammer759]

 I am looking at wrapping my charger and would like to see if anyone here has any tips or tricks or problems that always seem to show up just when you think you are actually moving forward with your project.  This will also be my first real attempt at surface prepping and some rust repairs.  This car has that clear paint sealer that has been cracking and peeling away for several years which looks like I can feather it where it needs.  I have found some vinyl wraps that are very close to the lime green on my car.  My goal here is too make this car look much better than she does now, but not brand new.  The wrap is relatively inexpensive and if it gets messed up you can peel it off and start again.    

[b5blue]

I thought about it but ended up shooting the car single stage (Kirker) white. It's easy to spot repair and white hides blems.

[Hammer759]

 Painting has been on my list for some time but it seems like every shop I have visited sees the car and their $money meter$ goes crazy.  My wife has also taken the car to several shops and has the same result each time.   All we wanted was a decent daily driver paint job in the same lime green color and fix or patch the normal rusty areas.  The shops all seem to think we have cash overflow and will surely spare no expense for our baby.

I am now willing to wade into body work and some surface prep work to learn as I go and save some serious money along the way.  I should be able to do this whole project in my driveway.  We have already taken our other classic car and transformed it from trailer queen to daily driver.  I have every intention of driving and enjoying this charger and really just want to slow the decaying process.    

[b5blue]

The guys here helped me figure out repair/prep and I shot epoxy primer. You can rent a stall near you or find a gun for hire to shoot it. Last I checked a wrap was about 5K? Here is my story: http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,88583.0.html

[Hammer759]

Hello B5, The 5k price is average for here around Seattle area and that is with a shop doing the job.  The wraps are around $300.00 to $600 depending for what I am looking at.  The choices are endless it seems.  I do not want to have my car stuck in a shop and then deal with all the things they seem to forget about when you have them look over the car and they are trying to sell you the deal.  I know quite a few people in both the body shops and also restoration shops.  I do have a really good shop that handles anything I do not want to do at home for mechanicals, but none for body and paint at this point.   

[Hammer759]

It has been a while since I posted here and my wife and I have wrapped the Charger.  We decided to experiment and use this cars body lines and this turned out better than we expected.  The wraps are matte lime green and matte black.  I will try to get time on my other computer to resize and post some photos.  I was also able to address some other issues while doing all the prep work on the body.

I will be posting more here as time permits.     

[Hammer759]

Well it looks like pics are not loading today.  Guess I need to figure out how to upload my pics.  I have some more to resize anyway.  

[AKcharger]

I considered that for my '70, interested how yours came out

[Hammer759]

I am trying again to post pictures......   the car is wet in these pictures so the finish looks shiny but it is not. 

[Hammer759]

These are the car now.  I will try resizing some pre-wrap pictures in another post.      

[Hammer759]

This is the car b4 wrapping. 

[70 sublime]

Good to see you got the pictures figured out 

Looks good

Can you tell us exactly what wrap material you used ?

[RallyeMike]

That turned out pretty good. Hope to see it around.

[Hammer759]

Both wraps are Vivid and only burned up 1 heat gun.  Matte lime green and matte black.  I will try to post some pictures taken at various times to help show the difference in the appearance of the finish.    

[AKcharger]

looks good, thanks for posting!

[Hammer759]

More pictures of the wrapping.   Trying to show the finish on this wrap.  This car had a heavy coat of paint sealer that was way past it's service life and was peeling.

[Hammer759]

Another

[Hammer759]

Hopefully the pictures will upload     This pic gives you a good reference for what the general condition of the paint and chipping sealer on my car were when I decided it would not make it any worse.  Living here in the PNW it rains a lot and we have had to keep pushing out plans for putting a cover over the Chargers parking spot.   At least we did dig it out and put some crushed rock down so it drains very well 

[AKcharger]

WAIT WAIT...YOU wraped it??
- Was that your 1st time
- How hard was it?
- did you go though a lot of flim learning?
- how much was materials?

[Hammer759]

WAIT WAIT...YOU wraped it??
- Was that your 1st time
- How hard was it?
- did you go though a lot of flim learning?
- how much was materials?

I am not sure how this page works but I will try to use the quote here.      
AKcharger this is my first time doing body work or wrapping.  My wife and I learned as we went and had lots of choices and challenges along the way.  This wrap looks like paint after a little curing time and going back over with the heat gun.  As far as how hard it was I would say it depends on how you approach things. 
I am more about doing the job and expect even more issues with something I have not done b4.  Patience is an absolute must for me and laughter really helps too. I cannot begin to tell you how much my wife really got into this and we had a great time.
The only "learning " was laying 2 small pieces on top of a small metal table.  The rest is on the car. 
The vinyl wrap is Vivid matte lime green and matte black and not very expensive compared with paint products in general. 
I can post more about this project when I have more time.  I would be happy to pass along my experiences here.  My own opinion is this seems to be a reasonable alternative to paint for those like me who are working on a budget.  Again this is just my opinion.

[Hammer759]

Looks like pictures are loading  
The 1st picture is when I was marking the hood for the matte black to go over the green and basically reverse the original black decal on the bulge.   This entire car was done free hand using masking tape and vinyl cutting tape.

[70 sublime]

Looks very good

When you did the two colours on the fenders did you do everything green first then just put the black over top 

[Hammer759]

Looks very good

When you did the two colours on the fenders did you do everything green first then just put the black over top 

The way I did this wrap was similar to putting roofing on a house.  Wrapped the bottom and the valances in black, then the belt line using the green and then the tops of the fenders with black.   When it came to the hood It only made sense to me to put the black over and cut the opening around the bulge.  The tops of the doors are also single pieces.  Each section has a small overlap so water runs smoothly down and won't get under the vinyl. 

Getting that single large piece of vinyl on the hood was very challenging and really tested the durability of the vinyl.  The deck lid was also challenging but turned out nice.  Some of the potential challenges with doing the fenders completely in green would be working over the top and down on the fenders.  Even slight angles and the shapes of every panel can cause serious wrinkles or bunching of the vinyl. 

At first I was going to do the whole car except the hood in green and just do the hood in black.   So glad we decided to have some fun and change it up.   

[70 sublime]

How many hours did it take you to do till you were done ?

How many hours now that you did it to do it a second time ? 

[Hammer759]

How many hours did it take you to do till you were done ?

How many hours now that you did it to do it a second time ? 

  Referring to the 1st question,  I would be guessing and the time involved because of all the prep work that I had to do before laying any vinyl on this car.  Add the fact that I have no previous experience with sheet metal repairs and you can rack up the hours really fast.  My job ended in June thanks to Covid-19 so my wife encouraged me to take time to work on my car.  This whole project started July and was wrapped by early September. 

If you are looking at wrapping your car look it over and see what needs to be done before you can lay down vinyl.  If the body is clean then go for it.

2nd question would depend on what the car looks like as in the answer above.  Example would be if I decided to wrap my 2017 Camry which is in really good condition.  No time needed for body work so it would be clean with IPA 70 and start putting down vinyl.  I can only guess and I would probably have it done in a few days. 

Questions are always welcome and let me know if there's anything I can help you with.

[Hammer759]

Couple pictures

[70 sublime]

Where did you get the vinyl from ?

Kind of why I am asking is I have a couple ideas about painting my car with two different colours but not sure how I want to split them up
Using vinyl to try it out might be easier to undo if I did not like the look or the line I used to follow my colour split till I get it right 

[Hammer759]

Where did you get the vinyl from ?

Kind of why I am asking is I have a couple ideas about painting my car with two different colours but not sure how I want to split them up
Using vinyl to try it out might be easier to undo if I did not like the look or the line I used to follow my colour split till I get it right 

The vinyl and an assortment of application tools and mostly everything except a whole lot of spray cans of primer came from that online market place known as Amazon .  The available color and finish is real hit and miss.  I have some extra rolls of both because I assume that if I ran short they would not have it in and I would be stuck.   There are several other brands that are obviously not the same quality so I stay with either Vivid or 3M.  I have found the Vivid really easy to finesse and seems very durable.

I am ok with the 3M but it seems stiffer and not as user friendly.   This is just my personal opinion .   There are usually lots of smaller pieces or samples that are not too expensive and they are a good way to find out where you might split the body line. 
When you are done just peel off the vinyl.   

[Hammer759]

Here are some pics of the A pillars and I was really having those moments of wondering what I was thinking.     Somehow things turned out OK for this car. 

[Hammer759]

Time to have a look at what's under cover......    I need to learn more about resizing these pictures ....  In the 2nd pic of the lower part of the door you can see there is a patch panel that was done.  There is another patch about the same size on the right side at the bottom front of the rear wheel opening and that one is lopsided too.   

[Hammer759]

Prepping the decklid

[Hammer759]

I am going to play with some  more pics and post when I figure this out better..