1987 Jeep Cherokee

[HealthyCivic]

We have a 1987 Jeep Cherokee Laredo that is cream-colored (I guess? I don't know the official color name). First of all, does anyone know off the top of their head if a 1987 Jeep Cherokee is a single-stage or a clearcoat?

Secondly, apparently this thing has almost never been waxed so I'm really surprised it's in as good of condition that it is given that it's over 20 years old. However, since around 2 years ago, I've been able to see these blemishes in the paint. They are mainly around the edges of the hood:





It's pretty hard to see in the first photo but if you look VERY VERY closely just BELOW the hood line on the top right portion of the photo, you can see how the paint looks a little different. The second photo is a close-up of this phenomenon.

Do you guys have any advice/tips/warnings when waxing this car with the DA? The car is now always kept outside so really my only goal is to clay and put a couple good layers of wax on it so that it can survive out there in the elements without getting too much worse. I wasn't planning on using a paint cleaner, compound, or polish. Last but not least, do I need to tape up the pinstriping before waxing with the DA? Thanks for your input!

[InfiniteDetail]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

Hi there, I'd recommend claying the vehicle then using the deep crystal 3 stage system if that's what you have.

To get good results with waxing, you first need to prep the surface properly. At a minimum you should clay then apply a cleaner wax. You can follow that up with the DC Polish and then the DC Wax for best results.

No taping of the pin striping is needed for applying wax and mild paint cleaners.

Clay and cleaner wax may get rid of the dark spots on the paint.

Good luck!

[Mike Phillips]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

We have a 1987 Jeep Cherokee Laredo that is cream-colored (I guess? I don't know the official color name). First of all, does anyone know off the top of their head if a 1987 Jeep Cherokee is a single-stage or a clearcoat?

From the How To Articles forum group,

How To Test for a Clearcoat or Single Stage Paint Finish

Secondly, apparently this thing has almost never been waxed so I'm really surprised it's in as good of condition that it is given that it's over 20 years old. However, since around 2 years ago, I've been able to see these blemishes in the paint. They are mainly around the edges of the hood:

The blemishes in the paint looks like DIP aka Dirt in Paint also referred to as staining.

Use any paint cleaner or cleaner/wax and it should remove the stain and restore a clear finish where you can see the true color of the paint. See this thread,

The Lesson White Paint Teaches us

Do you guys have any advice/tips/warnings when waxing this car with the DA? I wasn't planning on using a paint cleaner, compound, or polish.

After claying really well, maybe just use a cleaner/wax like ColorX? Less time, great results, it's just a daily driver and will be parked outside all winter.

Otherwise, clay, M80 Speed Glaze, NXT Tech wax is a a tried and true combination.

Last but not least, do I need to tape up the pin-striping before waxing with the DA? Thanks for your input!

Just buff up to it, don't hammer on top of it.

[HealthyCivic]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

Thanks a lot!

Do you think ScratchX (1.0 with a DA) would be good enough to use on those areas that need a paint cleaning? I ask because I don't have any M80 right now but I have ScratchX but I need to get most of this done today because the car was just washed.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

ScratchX will work great by hand or machine for what you want to do.

Be sure to share an after picture. Maybe check your White Balance setting on your camera.

[Jeepster04]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

Got any pictures of the entire Jeep? Nice to see an old xj still going strong.

Im not really sure if a 87 xj would be SS or not. Oldest Jeep weve got is a 94 zj and it has Clear Coat. Still looks awesome too.

[HealthyCivic]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

Well I got rid of all of those stains. I spent 6 hours working on it. I'm so worn out. I think it's seriously the hardest/longest I've ever worked on anything haha. The paint was in what Mike would call horrific condition because it was almost never waxed or anything. But the car was kept in a garage for most of its life so there is no clearcoat failure. We're keeping it outside now so I wanted to give it a good waxing but I didn't want to wax without first claying and cleaning the paint. The part that took the longest was the ScratchX.

Is it normal to have to press pretty hard and apply ScratchX 2-3 times to remove blemishes like that? Since this was my first DA paint cleaning, I wasn't sure. I remember Mike saying over and over about applying ScratchX multiple times but I felt that maybe I should have used a little more aggresive product. I went through an entire ScratchX bottle.

My family thinks I did a great job but because I'm kind of a perfectionist and because I've taken great care of my car from the start, I didn't feel like I was able to do too much to the Jeep. But this is because A: It was my first time alone with the DA besides at Open Garage and B: I felt way in over my head trying to restore a car that was not taken care of properly for 20 years.

I almost wish I could have brought the Jeep up to the garage because when I clayed it, the amount of **** that came off the paint was almost laughable. When I clayed my new car, almost nothing was on the claybar. When I clayed this beast, the claybar had filthy yellow and black dirt over and over. Although most of the dirt was on the hood. One part that was pretty cool was that my dad didn't know what claying was so I told him to rub his hand on the paint and then I clayed it and told him to do it again and we couldn't hear it the second time. Fun stuff.

To really make this more resemble a show car, I think we'd have to put a good compound and rotary to the surface but I don't know, maybe it could be done with a DA since there aren't that many deep scratches besides around the wheels/bottom.

By the way, how does ScratchX compare to M80 aggressive-wise? And What other cleaners/compounds can I use with my DA?

Thanks a lot everyone. Today was definitely a learning experience! I'll get some pictures and put them up soon. I ran out of energy and light. I went to the gym before I did all of this so even for a 19 year old, I'm pretty darn tired. Haha.

[Markus Kleis]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

Well I got rid of all of those stains. I spent 6 hours working on it. I'm so worn out. I think it's seriously the hardest/longest I've ever worked on anything haha.

Kids these days! Try working through the night two days in a row (including Halloween night), and then getting to sleep during the third day, and then work again till 6am the following day to finish a plane in time for the owner to fly out of town with it. Oh, and I only had about 4 hours of help applying wax via DA, the rest of the 35-40 hours was solo...either wielding a rotary, or using a slider under the belly of the plane and trying to get off the most "stuck" on grime and oil I've ever seen. It ruined 4 wash mitts...

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

Congrats. Yes its normal to do multiple passes with the scratch-x. Can't wait to see some pics of your work.

[HealthyCivic]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

Kids these days! Try working through the night two days in a row (including Halloween night), and then getting to sleep during the third day, and then work again till 6am the following day to finish a plane in time for the owner to fly out of town with it. Oh, and I only had about 4 hours of help applying wax via DA, the rest of the 35-40 hours was solo...either wielding a rotary, or using a slider under the belly of the plane and trying to get off the most "stuck" on grime and oil I've ever seen. It ruined 4 wash mitts...

WOW. I hope you got paid a lot. See this "harder" stuff is new to me because I only have experience working on my own car. I wash my own car once a week and I don't off-road or anything so there's hardly ever any dirt on it. But that also means I have almost no practice getting off serious dirt so when someone else asks me to get clean their dirty car, it's a little bit of a challenge for me. That's one reason why I wanted to do the Jeep.

EDIT: Oh and by the way, another question I had after working was how much do you really work in the product? I know that the ScratchX I was using has diminishing abrasives so after about 6 passes, I would wipe and re-apply. But I felt like I was going through A LOT of product. Should I have not re-applied so quickly? The technique I was using was setting the DA to speed 3 to spread the product around first and then going to 5 to work in. I made markings on the pad and tried to press pretty hard but let it keep spinning some.

[hoghead00]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

[Mike Phillips]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

M80 is quite a bit more aggressive than the ScratchX 1.0

Maybe take a break from this project and wait for the new ScratchX 2.0 to come out, it's a lot more aggressive and will clean that paint up faster with even better results.

But if you want to keep working on this then locate your local PBE store and get a quart of the M80 Speed Glaze, it should really work well for this project and the the results you've already created to an even higher level.

[HealthyCivic]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

Thanks.

Here are some photos. Unfortunately, I didn't have many before pictures so you can look at the 2 I posted earlier but trust me, all the areas that I'm posting were FULL of paint stains:

The Jeep


The Lettering and Front

Here you can see how I still need to find a way to clean up directly around the letters. I taped this area up so I couldn't clean in there with the DA. And because the car is so old, I didn't want to go directly over it on speed 5. How do you guys deal with hard-to-reach places like this?

Near Rear Window

This area had a "drip line" where either chemicals or water had built up into the paint so there was this black stain where you could see something had dripped down the paint.

Side Door 1

This area I just cleaned up because it was full of "dirty paint;" there was plenty of staining.

Side Door 2

This was the driver's side door and it was full of pretty bad stains.

Hood Crevice

here the paint was stain city like in my original photos. It was fun finally getting those out.

As you can see the paint is far from perfect but I ran out of time and I don't need to get it perfect. But it's fun to work on this car since it's old and needs a lot of work. I had a hard time cleaning up the paint that borders the rubber and plastic around the window and the paint around the "Jeep" lettering. Do you guys have advice for awkward locations like these?

And in case you're wondering, the pin striping on the hood and such was already coming off, I didn't remove that with the DA, haha.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

The jeep looks great. What a improvement. Great work, way to go.

[hoghead00]

Re: 1987 Jeep Cherokee

Nice job! Looks like a pretty significant improvement!