Novice painting tractor/ Painting for dummies

Now that you know a little about my ability. I have a ford 801 that was painted blue (wrong color) and the paint is chipping off down to bare metal in some spots. I was going to wait till I did all mechanical repairs then paint but think I should maybe rethink this. This is not a show tractor job but a working tractor. I was thinking of using regular tractor paint but would move to a bottom end auto paint if it is best. NO PAINT that requires forced air breathing at all. I am not interested in tackling the tin right now and we can save any advise on this to later. The area I am most interested in doing now is cast parts.

I am taking apart parts that need mechanical repair one at a time now and I am wondering if I should do any thing now as far as paint or wait till it is done and paint all at once. Some parts have surface rust from pressure washing and paint chipping to bare metal. For example I have the front axles apart now replacing wheel bearings and spindle bushings. I will fix this and use tractor for a while. As money allows I will take apart something else and repair that. Should I clean and prime and or paint at this time or just wait till all mechanical work is done and prime/ paint all at once.

Please be very specific and lead me like a small child. I need advise on what type of primer and paint to use and how to proceed.

Thanks John
For a picture of tractor look HERE

• Painting vidio

I am not Butch but I generally agree with his posts on this forum. In any event, I'll take a crack at your questions with your stated limitations.

For cast only:
1.Forget phosphoric acid treatment
2.Forget etch primer (has a phosphoric acid component)
3.Power wash
4.Chemically strip all paint
5.Wire brush to as rust-free a surface as possible - shouldn't be too hard on the cast
6.Clean with specialized cleaner such as PPG DX330, Acryli-Clean
7.Prime immendiately with two part epoxy primer such as PPG OMNI MP170
8.Set aside until you are ready to color coat
9.When you are ready to color coat, clean again with the 330, scuff the epoxy with a coarse ScotchBrite pad and apply another coat of epoxy. The pad makes it generally fairly easy to get into odd areas that would be more difficult with sandpaper. You can also get the pads in small 2" and 3" discs that you can use in an electric drill or die grinder
10.Topcoat within the epoxy window (3 days for MP170 only)
11.Generally forget bondo on cast - not sure of your intent there

Since you wish to avoid isocyanates with no fresh air breathing equipment (good decision, btw) you are pretty much limited to enamels without hardeners. That leaves the synthetic enamels like most tractor store paints are and the acrylic enamels that are used in low-end automotive refinish work. The acrylic enamels will be a little better durability than the synthetics and are also somewhat more expensive. Two major lines of automotive acrylics are PPG's OMNI MAE acrylic enamel and DuPont's NASON Fast-Dry acrylic enamel. Both of these paints can be used w/o the hardener. Just be aware of the downsides of not using a hardener - see a previous post of mine for my opinions on this.

You might also be able to get a higher-end acrylic enamel in DuPont's Centari or PPG's Delstar but they may or may not be available in your area and they may or may not be available in the specialized tractor color formulations. Either can be used w/o hardener. They definitely would be more expensive than the OMNI or NASON choices.

Rod

One more kind of dumb question I have is. This MP170 primer is two parts. OK say I mix up a pint but only use half. Can I save in a sealed container till next day and use or is this a use or lose once mixed? I realize there are downsides to not using hardener but this is something I will have to live with. I do not have the proper tools to use hardener and do not think it is worth buying for one time use. I also realize I will have to watch my air temperature for the proper reducer to use.

From reading previous post by you (painting part one and two) I have been set to use PPG OMNI.

To explain "11. Generally forget bondo on cast - not sure of your intent there"
What I meant to say was..... We are talking cast parts only. I will take the time to bondo; sand; ect; ect; the SHEET METAL parts later. Do not worry. Once I get the cast stripped and painted I will be back for advise on doing this. Just did not want some one to go into a long winded discussion on tin parts at this time.

Once again Thanks for the help.