Cars House

My dad has a 93 S-10 that he uses for his daily driver. It is blue and appears to have NEVER had any thing done to it to protect the paint. The paint is literally rough to the touch. I would guess it's never even been waxed.

Anyway, I told him I want to see what I can do with my new Porter Cable. Can someone tell me what I products I need for this thing? Heavy cut pad and polish? I really am not sure, all I know is the paint is in terrible shape.

If I can, I'm going to post some pics in a little while.




How terrible? What color is the paint (what shade of blue), and does it have a clearcoat?

I guess I'll start with assuming the paint is not so badly oxidized it's unsalvageable...

I guess I'd start by doing a thorough wash with warm sudsy water and car wash -- work in the shade as this will take a while.... Take a little container of warm, concentrated car wash and go around the nooks and crannies with a gentle paintbrush or detail brush. Wash the rest of the car thoroughly.

Then I'd detail the rubber trim with Back-to-Black in preparation for claying and waxing.

Some experimentation might be in order...

I'd generally clay first, but if it looks like you've got an extraordinary amount of contaminants, I'd hit it with something like Power Polish or pre-wax cleaner or just about any paint cleaner or light polishing compound and a light cutting pad. (Don't go with a heavy cutting pad unless you have to.) Then clay. And optionally repeat that previous product with a finishing pad.

At that point you may want to could either apply a cleaner wax, a pure wax, or a glaze followed by a wax on a finishing or finessing pad.
After checking into it a little last night, I'm not sure it has the clear coat on it. How could I tell? To me it didn't feel like it had it, but I don't know how to determine...
Best way to find out if the paint is single stage (no clear coat) is to take some polish and use a white cloth in an inconspicuous area rub the polish. If the color of the paint comes off on the white towel, you've got SS paint. If it comes up clean, it's cleared.

If the paint feels really rough make sure you clay it very thoroughly! I would use a pretty aggressive clay like Sonus gray (http://www.detailinggurus.com/sonus-clay.html).