Estimate on AC tractor paint job.

If anyone has recently had a paint job done on a midsize AC mine is a D17 Blast, prime , paint, what should it cost, what is a reasonable price to pay. Also what is the best paint to get and where.

For decent quality matertials like PPG Omni or Shopline  expect to spend $300. The best available materials are 3X that price. Past that what Gary said is right on as everybody's opinion differs on just what "decent paint job" means.  To prep and paint a tractor that is decent to start with requires a month of my time evenings and saturdays. Translate that to a living wage and then add for dent and rust repair if needed then add  things like emblems guages, steering wheels etc. Soon you will see why allmost everybody who has done more than one A-1 restored tractor will say, " I dont keep track, if I did, I wouldnt do it."

My paint shop won't even quote me a price on my WD!  He says his paint (material only) costs more than the cheap shops charge for the whole job.  Your best bet, if you don't want to do it yourself, is to find a 'shop' class-either high school or college-that would paint it for the cost of materials.  It might not be perfect, but I have seen cars and tractors done that way, and they were not bad looking at all. 

I just priced a job for a fellow on an unstyled B John Deere that was a real nice paint job (arms length type).  This included disassembly, sandblasting, priming, painting, clearcoating, and reassembly for $2500.  This of course did include a new hood, air cleaner, muffler, steering wheel, vinyl decals, and a few other assorted parts and the cost of paint.  I request all money up front for supplies/paint/parts and the rest at time job is complete.  What you have to realize on a JD B is there is almost no sheetmetal.  Sheetmetal is the killer on cost usually as most times it takes a lot of time to make it look good.  It may look good in its old paint, but when you get it cleaned to bare metal and primed you can see lots of imperfections that have to be fixed.

Two years ago, I removed the tin, frame braces, etc from a D12 and prepped it for sand blast. I pressure washed to remove the grease and crud from the tractor, plugged the openings and greased the seals (degreaser detergent, solvent, etc cost over $25) and hauled the items and bare-back tractor to the local sandblaster. It cost me nearly $500 to sand blast and prime paint the tractor and parts. When I got it all home I puttied the dings and sanded the tin smooth (Bondo, sandpaper, spatulas, etc cost nearly $75). Then I painted it myself using Valspar Restoration Series Implement enamel (the paint, thinner and hardner cost a little over $100). The decals cost nearly $200. In the end, I had nearly $1,000 into the paint...plus a lot of time. I consider that the paint job is fair as it sure looks a lot better at 50 feet than it does at 5 feet (it shows well to those who are not painters and/or believe tractors are not automobiles).

Back in 2003, I hired a local rural farmer/tractor painter for $1200 to sand blast frame & wheels, putty any dents in the hood, fenders, & dash, plus new decals on a 1961 JD 3010 (sorry AC).  I explained to him that I wanted to use it for farming, so not to go overboard.  Anyway, he ended up removing the hood & painting the engine, starter, Alternator up real nice.  He also painted underneath in the belly area.  I have noticed in a few belly areas that he did not get all gunk removed, but still very nice for the money.   I am still very pleased with it.  I guess that $1500-1750 should be enough for a good paint job today?? 

That's a tough question. As everyone said above, type of paint used, materials, and most of all TIME spent for cleaning and prep is $.  The ole' saying "time is money" applies here thats for sure. I have a couple guys that I've been dealing with for years for paint and body work, and for sandblasting. They both do a great job for me, and they are very resonable being I've been sending my customer's cars, and rods to them for years. And now occasionally send one of my Tractors to get done. Even though I do the disassembly, steam cleaning and degreasing, along with shooting the engine and drivelines when they come back, you still can get quite a bit of dough tied up in materials.  I leave the sheetmetal work and paint work to my body man. The sandblaster gets the running gear when I'm done degreasing. When I added everything up that it cost me to do the IB, it made my knees knock! It greatly depends what you want for an end result....

my tractor is quite clean, I have gone through the tractor from front to back and cleaned when I was doing the fixing, but  has rusty fenders. The hood ,front end, wheel hubs and frame are rusty but not bad at all. I would post a picture but the puter always says the picture is too large. I also would do alot of the prep, as far as taking off hood, front grill, guages and taping what I dont want painted. Thanks for all the feedback.

Some before pics

As abused as this tractor was the sheet metal is very straight, probably the best quality of the tractor , one dent in the  one fender. The fenders are probably thin , I am not going to replace them. This tractor will be used for odd jobs , auger, road drag, etc, and will probably sit outside from time to time. It wont be a show tractor but I still want it to look nice, I dont want paint that changes color in two years.

If it's going to be left outside, and you don't want it to fade, do a base coat/clear coat paint job. I did my CA with enamel and 3 years later, boy did it fade.

we just charge by the hour when we paint tractors for people.  It also depends how far down someone wants it taken to paint. We have charged anywhere from $1500 to $5000 and on up if you want mechanical work done also.  I post a few paint jobs below.  Like was said earlier we do not let anything leave unless it looks the way we want it also.