'89 Caravan paint delaminating

[Tony Sivori]

The problem is confined to the hood and roof. I plan to paint the area of
the roof rack an off white. The hood I want to repaint the original color.
I'll be doing the job with spray cans, so I'm not expecting a factory
finish. I just want it to look better than it does now, and to prevent
rust.

I can't find the paint code info on any tag on the vehicle. There is one
other number in the driver's door tag who purpose is not obvious: "MDH
051217 777". Is that a paint code? If not, how do I know what color to buy
to match the original paint?

Also, should the factory primer be sanded off to bare metal?

 

[Daniel J. Stern]

I can't find the paint code info on any tag on the vehicle.

The paint code is located on the vehicle equipment information plate,
which is under the hood. Usually it is located atop the radiator support
panel, but sometimes it is located under the windshield cowl, which must
be removed in order to view the plate.

There is one other number in the driver's door tag

The door tag is the Vehicle Safety Compliance Label, and will tell you
only which country's safety regulations the van meets, and when and where
it was built.

who purpose is not obvious: "MDH 051217 777". Is that a paint code?

No, that is the Month-Day-Hour code for when the van was built.

should the factory primer be sanded off to bare metal?

Yes.

-Stern

 

[Art]

Consider taking the car to Maaco. You could prep it yourself. Back when I
was a lad, I took all the chrome off my 71 Dart Swinger, sanded the worse
areas and took it to Maaco. Car came out very nice. Unfortuantely, I lived
in Rochester NY so after a couple of years the rust returned but in a decent
climate I suspect it would have done quite well. Prep work is the key and
you can do a bunch yourself.

 

[Jack]

--
I'm disaffected, disappointed, discouraged, disconcerted, distressed,
disconsolate, disillusioned, disgusted, disenchanted, disgruntled,
dismayed,...and bloody fed up.... I'm voting Green...again!!!

The paint code is located on the vehicle equipment information plate,
which is under the hood. Usually it is located atop the radiator support
panel, but sometimes it is located under the windshield cowl, which must
be removed in order to view the plate.


The door tag is the Vehicle Safety Compliance Label, and will tell you
only which country's safety regulations the van meets, and when and where
it was built.


No, that is the Month-Day-Hour code for when the van was built.


Yes.

-Stern

If the prime is in decent shape, leave it alone.

Idler

 

[Tony Sivori]

The paint code is located on the vehicle equipment information plate,
which is under the hood. Usually it is located atop the radiator support
panel, but sometimes it is located under the windshield cowl, which must
be removed in order to view the plate.

That's probably where mine is. All I was under the hood was the engine
info.

Yes.

Doh!

 

[Tony Sivori]

Consider taking the car to Maaco. You could prep it yourself.

Maybe later but for now I want to do it on the cheap. I got the van at an
auction, and I want to see how it does before I spend a lot on cosmetics.

 

[D. Reid]

Tony...Tony...TONY !!!...With all the hard work your going to go to to paint
this thing...DONT paint it with spray bomb paint!
It dont matter how good you are...it will look like crap! They all do.

Invest a 100 bucks in a gallon of decent syn enamal 30.00 bucks in a flea
market spary gun, borrow a compressor and shoot yourself a nice paint job
you'll be proud of...c'mon. You can do it.

Dave in Florida

 

[Art]

I wonder why you are even bothering to paint it. I've seen lots of cars
with delamination and the primer protects them from rust. At least adequate
for Raleigh NC. And a buddy in Virginia had a jeep with the same problem
and just left it alone. Jeep had about 175k miles on it I believe. No
rust.

 

[Tony Sivori]

I wonder why you are even bothering to paint it. I've seen lots of cars
with delamination and the primer protects them from rust. At least
adequate for Raleigh NC. And a buddy in Virginia had a jeep with the
same problem and just left it alone. Jeep had about 175k miles on it I
believe. No rust.

The roof has a half dozen palm sized patches of rust between the ribs of
the roof rack. I'd hate to see it rust through and start leaking. It is a
decent vehicle otherwise. 100,000 miles, but it is the LE model and
someone took very good care of it. The inside is in very good condition.

 

[Tony Sivori]

Tony...Tony...TONY !!!...With all the hard work your going to go to to
paint this thing...DONT paint it with spray bomb paint! It dont matter
how good you are...it will look like crap! They all do.

Invest a 100 bucks in a gallon of decent syn enamal 30.00 bucks in a
flea market spary gun, borrow a compressor and shoot yourself a nice
paint job you'll be proud of...c'mon. You can do it.

I'm tempted, but I seriously doubt if my first use of a real spray gun
would yield noticeably better results than a spray can. If I went that
route, I'd likely take Art's suggestion and do most of the prep work
myself and then pay a body shop to just spray it.

 

[Samuel Wear]

The roof has a half dozen palm sized patches of rust between the ribs of

the roof rack. I'd hate to see it rust through and start leaking. It is a
decent vehicle otherwise. 100,000 miles, but it is the LE model and
someone took very good care of it. The inside is in very good condition.

Definitely worth doing if the van has been taken care of. My wife and
I bought a '90 Voyager a year and a half ago for $400. The van now
has 325,000 miles on it. The trans slips occasionally and the top
end's noisy (they all are), but it starts and runs great. Point is,
if the van was taken care of as well as you purport, you'll likely get
a *lot* of miles out of it.

I also had the paint fall off. The roof was especially bad, and like
yours, there was some rust. Plastikote makes the little spray cans
and touch-up cans that work quite well if you take the time to mask
off all the chrome and glass nicely. It is a little expensive, like
$8.00 for a small (less than 8 oz, I think) spraycan. In my case, I
found a can of Rustoleum that was kind of close and much cheaper and
did the roof in that. Since the roof is out of direct view, it works
well enough. Then I blended into the Plastikote forward of the roof
rack. The sides I did using the Plastikote. One word of warning: if
the paint is peeling off, you'll have to strip it all off and paint
the hood entirely or else it will simply peel where you didn't
strip--very frustrating. As far as the codes go, when you go into the
auto parts store there'll be a book in which you can look up the year,
make and model and find all the colors available that year. From this
pool you can easily find your color.