Projects Getting old paint to have a deep shine

My 55 sunliner has some paint that came from the factory and then some paint that was put on repairing transit damage at the dealer,then it has some paint put on in the early 60s when it was it and then the paint I put on repairing rust. The paint I put on 11 years ago will shine nice but all the older paint will shine but is cloudy,is there anything I can use to buff the older paint out or is it time to wet sand then buff.

 

Sounds like your about ready for a repaint. There's only so much you can do to save 55 year old paint.



Gary

 

Its a couple years away from a repaint and will just wax it to get a little more shine.

 

Have you ever thought of 2 toning it, Jeff? If so, would that help out? I think the only single color Sunliners I can recall were black, yours is pretty unusual. I like it.

 

Clear coat it properly and for go the future paint job?

 

Cloudy could mean it is oxidized on the outside or has a bunch of gunk (old wax etc)on it. I would try getting a clay bar and see if that will clean off the haze on top so it can then be polished. It is amazing what a good clay bar will remove from the surface of paint.

 

I just found a clay bar that I did not know I had so I will try it.

 

Wash, clay, polish with machine and then protect with sealer also with machine. . As long as there is paint with sufficient thickness it can be made better. There are devices that can measure the thickness of paint. Maybe not perfect but better sounds like what you want. Do it with my daily drivers yearly.

 

Since I never used a clay bar before what is the procedure on using one.

 

Soapy water....scrub the panel....keep it wet...kneed the clay bar as needed.

 

If you drop in on the ground throw it away it will pick up everything and can do serious damage to your paint.

 

I've pretty good luck with Maguires products. Compound, polish, #7 and then wax....with a polishing machine, different foam pads and lots of elbow grease. The key is the #7 on single stage paint.

 

My 64 Biscayne was thought to have been beyond repair ( old acrylic nitro cellulose lacquer), at least by 1 guy.
I found a guy that brought it back to life, not like new paint but not far off, fortunately when measuring the thickness of the paint there was enough to polish down

 

I use Nanoskin instead of clay. As pointed out you drop clay you throw it away. Nanoskin can be rinsed off if dropped and used multiple times before it is used up. I got a heavy duty one and a finishing one. Works great. And no I do not work for them.

 

+1 on meguiars #7 hand glaze. The older single stage paints need to be rejuvenated before polishing...Hand glaze will add some of "oils" (for lack of a better word) back to the paint. Or there's the old farmer trick of just wiping it down with WD40 lol.

Claybar then hand glaze (by hand, not machine) them use a mild polish.

Another old standby is Meguiar's cleaner wax, which does a good job on older paints too and is a little less work.

 

I am using the cleaner wax but needs more help,thinking on doing the rest of the car with the cleaner wax for now and over the winter get a little more serious. I have to get it ready for the trip to Daytona next month.

 

I went thru piss and purgatory on my daughter's O.T. oxydized Honda...Then went by my pal Danny's paint shop, he said "Shoot, Mike! Let's walk over there under the trees and talk to those guys...they're detailing a couple for me right now..."
The detail guys trotted over to the ugly duck, said "O.K., just a polish and wax? First thing in the morning... $60.00." I was there at 8:00 A.M., Danny took me back home...I considered the price (and ride!) a favor. The job was excellent. Daughter Hedy loved it.
Danny likes knives...I gave him a nice Bowie I had reworked. He said, "Wow!"

 

I've dropped clay and at $20 a pop, you bet I reused it. Just made sure there was nothing abrasive in it.

Gary

 

Clay bar then a hand glaze, I pefer 3M, but use what you can get.