93 Bronco makeover...

[Tom Weed]

I did a 93 Bronco this weekend that took me 2 full days to do inside and out and since it's parked outside and wasn't driven all winter, it was in dire need of some work.

I didn't get any good interior pics, so I will just go over the exterior, my steps were to wash, clay the paint glass and wheels, then I used the rotary with a polishing pad and #80, I then followed that up with #82 and the PC. I then topped it with #21x2 8 hrs apart. I dressed the topper with #38 and the trim. The wheels were clear coated accept for the center caps which were rusted, I used steel wool followed by never dull on the caps and topped with NXT all metal polish, which I also used on the exhaust tips, step bars and the front and rear bumpers. The tires wear All Seasons Dressing and the wheel wells have Hper dressing at 1:3. Using #80 on the rotary really brought the paint back to life on this thing and it made for some good before and afters...

[Tom Weed]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

The afters...

[Ash Erickson]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

What an amazing trasformation! Great job.

[Dee]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

Tom, Awesome JOB! It doesn't even look like the same truck:-)
Quick question, can you tell me why you chose to use the #82 over #83, and secondly, when you washed and clayed the truck, did the paint come off on your mitt? Just curious. I just received my PC for Christmas, so I really don't have a lot of experience with it, and I'm trying to learn. Once I've got a good grasp on it, I will have to catch one of Mike's classes to learn how to use the Rotary, because I don't think this job would have come out quite as good without that Rotary:-) Again, great job!

[Mike Phillips]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

Hey Tom,

Does that Bronco have a single stage paint or is the clear coat oxidized?

Looks like it's a single stage paint because clear coats usually don't uniformly oxidize and look like paint in this picture; usually you'll see clear failure on the horizontal panels by the time the vertical panels look like this.

[Tom Weed]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

Thanks guys,

Dee: I chose 80 on the rotary because it was less aggressive than 83 and IMO easier to work with, my approach was to go less aggressive to see if what combination would work. If 80 wouldn't have cut it, I would have used 83 or Optimum Compound. I used 82 on the PC after the rotary work because it's less aggressive than 83 and 80 and I wanted to make sure I removed any holograming I may have caused from the rotary work, especially on black. I very easily could have used 80 again with the PC, but 82 looked great when I finished with it. The numbers are a little misleading, in the 80 series, 85 is the most aggressive, followed by 84, 83, then 80. 82 is below 80 and similar to #9. 81 is just a pure polish with no cutting ability, similar to #7.

Mike: it's got both, he's had some body work done on it, so the drivers door and drivers back panel were SS, rest of it was BC/CC, some in better shape than others. It sits outside all the time, he didn't drive it for almost a year, so it looked the part...

Tom

[mini44]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

Awesome job

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

All I can say is wow. That is one awesome transformation. The Bronco looks like it has been taken care of for years. Not sitting for a year. great job.

[OhioCarBuff]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

Tom,

Awesome job!! Do you think it's possible you could have produced as good results if you only had the PC and not rotary (assuming you worked with 83 and PC and time was not an issue)?

Matt

[Hemin8r]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

That is one heck of a transformation. I was wondering the same thing as mike on the single stage paint. Great job!

[Tom Weed]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

Thanks again guys...

Matt,
In this instance I would say you could, the paint correction on both the ss paint and the bc/cc went pretty good, I didn't have trouble removing the swirls and scratches and really never had to make multiple passes over the same area. I probably ran the buffer at 1200 rpms on average. I would guess 83 on the PC would have done just fine, but it would have taken longer and this thing was taking longer than I had planned to start with.

Tom

[Mike Phillips]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

Mike: it's got both, he's had some body work done on it, so the drivers door and drivers back panel were SS, rest of it was BC/CC, some in better shape than others. It sits outside all the time, he didn't drive it for almost a year, so it looked the part...

Tom

That makes sense, this type of thing happens once in a while. You'll be buffing along on a clear coat finish and all of a sudden you'll start seeing pigment coming off onto your pad...

Single stage paints tend to show more dramatic before and after results and for some of us they are more fun to work on.

[Joenok]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

awesome makeover! cool truck.

[cnfowler]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

Absolutely stunning. I'm really floored and speachless. It went from looking like an old, wornout, uncared for Bronco to a fine example of a well cared for preserved Bronco. My hat is off to you, sir.

[Tom Weed]

Re: 93 Bronco makeover...

Joenok and Cnfowler,
Thank you very much for the kind words, these compliments make it well worth while to take the time and effort to post the pics here!

This is kind of funny, I asked the guy the following day at work how he was liking his "new" Bronco now, he told me he didn't have it anymore. He took it to Jeep dealer about an hour from here just to buy a new Jeep. Well, the brakes went out on it about the time he got close to the place, so he ended up trading it in right there on a new Jeep. I guess it helped him probably on his trade in as he said they were raving on the condition he kept it in, but you never know with those guys!

Tom