no sweat. it took me forever to take full advantage of this forum as well.
yup, the green is washed out in all the pics i take of ron but rest assured, it's dayglo. i hate looking for my car in a parking lot and love green, so it was a no-brainer. honestly though, in light of my recent fender bender, if i could do it again i don't think i would. total cost for the paint, materials, and my buddy's labour came to about $1200. i'm happy with the job but the problem is that, no matter what, people will bump their shopping carts into it, people will ding it when they open their doors, i will back it into friends' trucks going way too fast--it's going to degrade at some rate. because i had just put a bunch of time and money into the appearance, i had a hard time accepting that and it really bugged the sh*t out of me when any of these things happened so if i were to get another terc, i would just paint it myself at home with some spray paint. i'd still take care to tape off the lines and remove trim but i wouldn't worry so much about the sanding or making it perfect. i like the chip guard on the bottom and hood though, i would do that on any terc. rust prevention is the biggest thing and chip guard works well against that.
if you've never sanded before, be sure to google it. the pros are nuts, spending WEEKS sanding, but f*ck that. just take their advice and use some common sense. two big points though:
- don't let your wife use super heavy grit sandpaper. mine did it once because she's impatient and it turned out like i thought it would: mega rough wherever she used it.
- thoroughly degrease the vehicle after sanding! i didn't and got tons of 'fish eye' all over the van that i had to re-sand and repaint. i don't know how i missed that.
there's some pics at the end of this thread of the van my wife and i painted:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5672&start=15
half 86 half 88, all tercel! and suprisingly everything works. 
It took a day and a half of blood, sweat. tears and a small fire and except for paint in the spring, it is done. I gotta say it feels good to be back in the saddle after driving my dolphin motorhome to work for the last 2 months. I posted before and afters for y'all. Thanks for everyones help and advice!!!!!!!
I just stumbled on that thread. BEST THREAD EVER!!