Overspray on textured plastic

[xebola]

Greetings. I am restoring my neighbors 1993, Aztec Pearl Clearcoat, ( at least I think that is the finish), Honda Civic Hatchback.

The entire upper half of the car was dusted with white overspray. Our working theory is that this happened 8 years ago when it was in a body shop getting a bumper replaced. The car is a daily driver that has never seen the inside of a garage. It has allegedly been washed, very poorly, about once a year. Needless to say, that overspray is really on there. The stuff is metaphysically fused to the paint.

The clay from the smooth clay kit didn't budge the stuff. Not even on the glass! I ordered some aggressive clay, which I received this week, and it's working really well. I did one window and a small portion of the paint before I ran out of light. I have a lot of work ahead of me but it's really cool that it's going to work. The cars rear windows have a lot of black in the glass and it was just killing the effect. Now one of them is perfect!

The only thing I haven't figured out is how to get the overspray off of the slightly textured black plastic on the top rear of the car. The aggressive clay had no effect. I found a thread from 2004 regarding this same problem, however there was no resolution.

I am wondering if anyone has some newer information on this problem. I have a very light caulk remover that is made for use on plastic. It worked very well in my shower enclosure. I am considering trying that on a small area. If I go that route I will certainly mask everything around it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards.

[Murr1525]

You never know till you try. You might try the caulk remover on a hidden part, even if it has no overspray, just to check that it works with the plastic ok.

Keep in mind the Agressive clay is much more agressive, so you will probably add some/a fair bit of marring to the paint. Of course it sounds like you will never notice it with all the other defects, but just so you know.

Also, glass and paint are a bit different, hopefully it works just as well on the paint.

[xebola]

Of course it sounds like you will never notice it with all the other defects, but just so you know.

Myself and the Honda and a bottle of Scratch-X will be spending a whole lot of time together. he he

Judging by the small portion of paint that I tried the aggressive clay on, I would have to say that it's actually coming off the paint a little easier. The paint has been throughly clayed using the smooth clay, and also given one coat of color-X. Perhaps this helped the situation?

The owner is already so thrilled with the way it looks that I would have to screw up pretty bad for it to bother her.

Thanks for the response. I wouldn't have gotten this far without this forum and people like you.

[Murr1525]

If a car is in very bad shape, using a mild cleaner before claying can remove the looser dirt, so the clay wont load up as quickly.

It does risk dragging loose contaminants around on the paint (which is why you clay first usualy), but for really bad paint, it can work.

[xebola]

Here is a picture of the overspray on the plastic.


Here is a shot of the overspray windshield. It looks multicolored in the photo, but it's all white. How could somebody not notice this for 8 years!


Oops! I made a clean spot.


On the glass I used only aggressive clay. The smooth clay wouldn't budge it. The smooth clay did remove about 80% of the overspray on the paint. I had to selectively use the aggressive clay for the rest of it. I didn't notice any marring, but I was really careful and used a ton of lube.

I really do think that the Color-x loosened the overspray which allowed the smooth clay to remove most of it on the second pass.

Perhaps the logical progression would have been to smooth clay, and then scratch-x, and then smooth clay again?

Does anyone have any tips for removing the ugly, brownish wiper stain pictured in the winshield below?




Regards

[Murr1525]

Well, I dont know how easy it would be to remove the stain, but here is some reading material....

Glass Polishing...Deep Cleaning

[xebola]

Thanks again. I'll be ordering some #4, among other things.

We had rain today so I checked in with my neighbor to see if everything was ok with her glass. She said that at first the rain drops looked really strange, but then realized that she just wasn't used to seeing them with such clarity.

I think she will really love it after I get that #4, some new wiper blades (the current set have overspray on them.) I haven't Rain-X'ed yet. That will really freak her out.


Frankly I think the situation was down right dangerous before. Imagine driving like that at night, in the rain.

Thanks again.

Regards