I had to take my fiberglass tonneau off the other day. As we were replacing it, the bolts scratched the paint, pretty bad. The area right above the tail lights. I'm thinking that I could probably compound and buff out one of them, but the other one is a little deeper. Any suggestions? I really don't to pay someone to fix it, if possible.

I'll try to take a pic of it tonite and post it tomorrow.

Angry J in MD

 

I am sorry to hear about your scratches. However, while you are here, I have to ask. Are you and I the only females in this forum? On this site?

Just Checking.

 

Maybe in the Supercrew forum. I know that there's Cowlady, and I think maybe one other. Hmmm, that might be a good question for the General Discussion forum.

I'll have to post that...

J in MD

 

Sorry to hear of your truck's injury. Nice to know that women can be just as obsessive with their trucks as the guys. Skagel is a regular poster at the King Ranch forum, and I've never seen anyone so into their truck, male or female!!
BD

 

Jenn,

Did you get a chance to take the pictures yet ?
I checked your page, and did not see any close ups of this area.
I can suggest a few things out of the blue, but don't want to give you any bad advice on this.

The best thing for general scratches ( in my opinion ) is to lightly buff the scratch to minimize the edges of the scratch without removing alot of paint in the area.
I find best is the 3M scratch remover ( for your color light or dark ).

For deeper scratches, you can do the same, but the scratch will always show, and you sound as picky as me about your truck...so this will not sufice...paint time.

sms
PS : nice Cady...hope that was not you in it.


These are my general thoughts, without the pics.

 

Okay, here's the pic. I'm pretty sure that I can get the passenger side one out (you can see it in my gallery under "New Tonneau". Here's the bad one.



Any suggestions? Yeah yeah, I know it's dirty... She's getting a bath this weekend.

J in MD

 

Oh and yes, I WAS in the Caddy when I got into that accident. I didn't get hurt at all! Caddys are so tuff. I loved my STS, but after the accident, it started acting funny, weird noises, stuff just crapping out on me. Decided to trade it for the F150.

J in MD

 

Sorry to say this but the scratches look like they are through the clearcoat and paint. This looks pretty bad. I think you'll have to get it painted. I think the rule of thumb is if you can feel the scratch with your finger nail it aint coming out.

Sorry Jenn

 

Looks like paint is due......sorry. But just think......FLAMES!

 

How exactly did this happen? The reason I ask is because I'm planning on buying a tonneau cover this summer and would like to avoid ths type of injury on my truck.
BD

 

I guess it depends on how "perfect" you want it to look. I had a pretty bad scratch on the tailgate but just used some touch-up paint. Now if you don't know it's there you wouldn't see it. Short of that you are looking at painting the whole side. Good luck with whatever you decide.

btw: You girls are in short supply... I rarely even see women driving the crew none-the-less being active on a message board about them. Your father must be proud I hope my girls own trucks when they get older!

 

BroncoDave - It was operator error. Me and my husband were putting the lid back on, after taking it off to move some furniture. There are four bolts that are attached to the frame of the lid. When we lifted the frame up over the bed, we (I) didn't lift it up far enough, and started to lower the lid and the bolts were on the outside of the bed. I'm so angry at myself. I'm such a perfectionist that every time I look at it I get even MORE upset.

kkirt1 - I don't really want to have to paint that entire panel. I'm hoping that I can get someone to do some good touch up. I touched up the tonneau when I first bought it, and it looks alright, not great. I'll have to post Intel and get his advice on how to do it without making it worse.

My brother (in Memphis) owns an F250 superduty. We're a Ford Family. My mom (Boston) drives an Explorer. My dad (Boston) drives a Lexus, but has a 1935 Ford Coupe that he tinkers with. He likes coming to visit me so he can ride in my big truck.

The first vehicle I purchased, back in 1989, was a Ford Ranger. I drove that thing EVERYWHERE! I put 150,000 miles on it, and later sold it to a friend. I think she's still driving it.

I also own a 1973 Mustang Convertible. You can see that in my gallery.

Thanks for everyone's advice!!!

J in MD

 

Jenn,

Sorry to say, but I have to agree with snj's post body shop time.
These are more like a gouge, and from the pics and it looks to be that you took off some of the plastic body material as well on both of them.

These look to be beyond the term scratch, and there is nothing that I think you would be able ( or would want to ?) do with this, considering how new it is..you would be loking at it for a long time.
From the looks of the one on the drivers side this might need to be filled with a plastic welder, sanded flat and repainted.
There is no way that I can see you trying to touch these up ( in my opinion ).

Had a friend that tried to fix a mirror on his Gold Wing ( dumped it over and took off some of the plastic ), and it looked like hell ( IMHO ). He just replaced the mirrors with Muth signal mirrors to cure it.

Sorry I don't have better news for you...if someone else has a majic bullet...I'd like to hear it as well.

sms

 

I'll post this on both threads.

hrmmm... I can't really tell how deep those scratches are from the picture. They look like they are through the clear or they are only in the clear. How hard do you think you hit it?

The clearcoat of your truck is only around 1.5mils thick and you can only safely remove the top .3 mils. Those scratches might be deeper.

Ok, can you feel them with your fingernail?

The first thing would be to start with something like Meguiar's Scratch X or Eagle One Scratch Remover. Eagle One Scratch Remover is harder to find but I prefer it because it has less fillers. You'll have to these products several time to see if you can make a difference.

If that doesn't do it then you'll have to get a product like MEguiar's #9 or 3m SMR. You can try to apply it by hand but an Dual-Action buffer would really help. You can also use a rotary buffer if you know how. It'll help speed up the process.

If that doens't get them, then you'll have to move to colorsanding https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...&threadid=79527

If the scratches are down to primer then you'll have to get touch-up paint and do the whole touch-up thing. Here is a thread on it. https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...&threadid=79500

 

Hummm.... My "trash bag" cover would not have done that! I'm just tossing you some 'stuff' from a post awhile back regarding Habbi's soft cover he put on and his wife hated it.

Truly sorry to see that happen to your new ride. It looks pretty deep and having black paint won't help any with trying to repair it. My guess is that you'll have to have the whole side redone.

Hopefully, Intels suggestions will work out for you.

Good luck!!