Here's a before.



Here's an after.



This one was a little scary. After I clayed, I started with SSR1 on a Green Lake. I did a very small area then looked at the pad. It was red. Naturally, I was freaking out. I thought maybe it was just the product (SSR1 is pink.)

I then tried Pro Polish on white, with the same results.

I gave JP a call and he thought it was probably oxidation coming off. He was right. Now I have two green pads which are a brownish color. I'm hoping Murphy's helps a little.

Overall, I'm satisfied. The paint used to be several different colors. It was faded, ugly, nasty. Orange. Now though, It's all a deep red again, and has good shine to it. There is a lot of micro-marring still, but that wasn't my main concern. I didn't want to bump up from SSR1 due to the fact that the car is so old (Not much clear left.) There were a few places I couldn't/wouldn't go. I didn't touch the rockers, and I didn't touch the front or rear bumper. Paint chips and other nasties were abound.

Here's what I did.

Washed with crappy old stuff. Didn't want to ruin my good stuff.
Clayed (very carefully watching for red.)
PB's SSR1 on Green Lake. Speed 3
PB's Pro Polish on White Lake. Speed 5 (excellent results compared to lower speed.)
PB's Polish and Sealant on Black Lake. Speed 3.5
Meg's Gold Class Paste (pretty happy with this stuff)

I also vacuumed the carpets, and sprayed Natural Look on EVERYTHING inside. Also did trim with this. Hyperdressing on tires, and motor (it didn't make much difference on the motor. It needed SG but I didn't have time to do it.)

Follow link below for all pics.

All Pics

 

I bet he was really happy !!

 

Dude. Great job. I have to be honest, when you called, I was really worried, but I also expected you to call....that was a big job.

Very nice work and good products and good tools, always gets the job done.


Well done T-Bone.

 

Thanks guys. It turned out much better than I was expecting. He was stunned. He loves the car, just doesn't know what it means to wash it. I'm going to sentence it to a life of garage duty.

It was definitely scary, but I trusted in the knowledge I've been given and the tools I was using.

 

Here's my pads.

 

Holy Caked up Lake Pad....Batman.

I would get those things soaking.....

 

While a lot of that was oxidation, you won't encounter a pad turning a color on a clearcoated vehicle. What you were removing is single-stage paint...

It's perfectly normal for a pad or your applicator of choice to turn the color of the vehicle when you're dealing with this type of paint system. The reason, there isn't any clear...

 

There is definitely clear. Unless single stage paint can break down and have that cloudy clear look. See the picture of the pillar on the driver's side. You are the expert though, and I'm just guessing.

RR - They're already soaking.

 

Great work. The afters look phenomenal.

 

Thanks. I was amazed when I looked back at the "before's" I forgot how crappy it looked.

 

There's no clear if you're getting color on your pad...

Think about it... there's no way for you to get color on the pad if there's clear there... well, unless you went by your handy-dandy finger painting store and sprinkled a little water-based goodness on the paint before you started.

The clear is acting as a clear paint on top of the pigment-colored paint. The clear, as you saw with your truck when RR did it on his nickel to teach you a tad, didn't yield black pads... the reason, the paint that was on the pad -- the very miniscule layer that he removed -- was CLEAR.

On a single-stage paint job, there's no clear. The only thing that was laid down was a heavy pigment-laden paint. It's thicker than traditional clearcoated paint technology and thus, you can remove a layer of paint (literally) and not have any adverse effects.

When you hear some of the 'old timers' talking about 'burning through the paint', they're typically talking about literally taking the color coat down to the primer. This can happen with modern clearcoats but, is much more apt to happen with single stage paint because of the painting methods from those days which weren't as consistant as today's paint..

Trust me... that was single stage.

 

Thanks for the info.

Can you tell me what that cloudy area on the pillar is? There was also some areas where it looked like "clear coat" was spotty. How does SS paint break down that way? I've never dealt with it until now so I don't know any of the characteristics of it.

 

I see that... hard to tell what it is. Maybe it's been resprayed or maybe it's a paint stain of some flavor... hard call.

One thing is for sure though... the pads wouldn't be red if there was clear... well, unless my finger painting theory holds water...

 

Never know! So what do you think? Does it get your seal of approval?

 

I already said it looked pretty good... definitely better.