Unloved camper shell extreme makeover

[geoff]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
Great restoration write-up geoff. ...

...

I have met hundreds of people like this and the day they get it painted is years and years down the road, until that day, with a little passion and the right products, they could restore their car's finish to its maximum potential and drive around a beautiful white 1967 Mustang Fastback, instead of one that looks old and deteriorated... Sure a new paint job would be awesome, so would a ground-off restoration, and maybe someday he'll get there, but for a few dollars and a few hours, we could have taken that old single stage finish and restored it to it's maximum potential and I can assure you, that car would have sparkled! But I digress...

Great work geoff !

Mike - thanks for the positive comments, but restoration is probably too strong a term. More like embarassment minimization is closer to the truth.

I've been thinking about getting my truck painted for several years, but something always comes up - time, money, priorities, procrastination, whatever. Look how long it took me to get the first pictures posted. I adjusted my plans to something possibly attainable given schedule and time constraints. My project expectation now is to do one or two projects on the truck every year. So far I've done the camper shell and have a new, painted hood, and I'm more motivated to continue.

I bought this truck, new, with the intent of having a truck to use as a truck. I can go kayaking in the ocean, then shove kayaks in the back full of sand and salt water dripping down, and not care. Hard to give up something like that. But now that I've seen what I can make it look like, I want more

[RCBuddha]

geoff,

I just picked my chicago electric rotary from a harbor freight store. Do you know what RPM speeds correspond to the #'s on the dial? E.G. #1 = 1000rpm? Thanks,

Buddha

[geoff]

Originally posted by RCBuddha
I just picked my chicago electric rotary from a harbor freight store. Do you know what RPM speeds correspond to the #'s on the dial? E.G. #1 = 1000rpm? Thanks

I think 1 is around 500, and 6 is around 3000. These are very rough approximations, and don't forget, for this price, these are not exactly high precision machines! I kept the little speed wheel between 2 and 3 most of the time, but for the really stubborn spots on my camper shell I bumped it up to 4. A few times it looked like the little speed wheel moved on its own, so it's a good idea to check the speed periodically.

When I tried the rotary on the paint for the doors, I set the speed between 2 and 3, and didn't get any swirls. I kept the machine moving, and it doesn't look like the paint is any worse for my practice. But be sure to try your own tests, because 1 on some machines might correspond to 2 or 3 on others.

[RCBuddha]

cool, thanks

[Don]

Originally posted by geoff
Mine doesn't have a hand guard. It has a screw-on round handle that can go on the left, right or top as the picture shows.

I was referring to this part

[geoff]

Originally posted by Don
did the hand guard seem to get in the way? I was wondering if I was going to have to cut it off.
...
I was referring to this part

Sorry for the misunderstanding - a picture really is worth a thousand words!

I didn't have any problems with the hand guard. When I hold the polisher flush against the surface being polished, it doesn't get in the way of anything. I actually found it's at least as easy to handle with the handguard as the Makita I borrowed without one. Much easier to carry one-handed with the hand guard

[toyotaowner]

PaintScratch

Hi. I ordered a can of basecoat and a can clearcoat from PaintScratch too and it has yet to be shipped but I can trust them.

My Sienna and Toyota in general has sh!t @$$ paint and chips so easily. I only have a 2400 miles and I have 4 metal paint chips. Very disappointing.

I ordered from Painscratch and I didn't read the catch until later. Said that I needed a rubbing compound. I didn't want to buy it since I thought I have good products at home.

And thanks to MOL, I found another member here and I'm wondering how things were for you since you didn't get the compound either. Does a PC w/ polishing pound and #80 do well to polish the area?

If not, I might as well try ScratchX and need be, I'll gonna buy a little can of Turtle Wax Rubbing Compound. I don't want to but I might have to.


Any suggestions? And on application as well?

[geoff]

Re: PaintScratch

Originally posted by toyotaowner
Hi. I ordered a can of basecoat and a can clearcoat from PaintScratch too and it has yet to be shipped but I can trust them.

My Sienna and Toyota in general has sh!t @$$ paint and chips so easily. I only have a 2400 miles and I have 4 metal paint chips. Very disappointing.

I ordered from Painscratch and I didn't read the catch until later. Said that I needed a rubbing compound. I didn't want to buy it since I thought I have good products at home.

And thanks to MOL, I found another member here and I'm wondering how things were for you since you didn't get the compound either. Does a PC w/ polishing pound and #80 do well to polish the area?

If not, I might as well try ScratchX and need be, I'll gonna buy a little can of Turtle Wax Rubbing Compound. I don't want to but I might have to.


Any suggestions? And on application as well?

First thing: my truck's paint has been totally neglected, sitting outside less than a mile from the ocean for over 10 years. The hood I painted was a new one (it came primed), to replace an aftermarket one that had a cheap, mediocre paint job by some body shop. The original paint (dark gray metallic) on the doors and a fender that I clayed, buffed out with the rotary look extremely good, much better than I would have expected. Horizontal surfaces, where sun and most air hit all the time, haven't held up as well

If your Sienna only has 2400 miles on it and you're having the paint fail, the first thing I would do would be to take it back to the dealer, since it sounds more like a manufacturing defect than poor paint. Your signature says it's a 2004, so it should still have some warranty.

I tried both color sanding with 1500 paper, and rubbing compount applied with my Meguiar's G-100. I bought some 3M fine rubbing compound from a professional auto paint store. Although the final product looks about 100 trillion times better than what I replaced, it still doesn't look as good as an original factory paint job or a professional repainting. I think this has more to do with my lack of experience with car paint than anything else. The color matched pretty well (considering 17 years of metallic paint fading in the sun), but the surface had some orange peel and didn't have the depth of finish you'd exect for a high end car paint job.

I pulled the part behind the hood off to respray, since the clear coat is failing (and don't forget it's a 1988 truck!). I expect this to come out better than my first foray into auto body work. I'm still sanding off the flaking clear coat, so no results to report yet.

My recommendation: before you start spraying a vehicle you care about, and especially if it's still under warranty, practice and perfect your technique first on a car you don't care about.

If you have 4 chips, why are you going with spray cans instead of a touch up application?

[toyotaowner]

Touch up paint usually ends in ugly blobs and I do prefer spray.

The Sienna has chips because rocks hit it when I drive on the highway and I don't think it's Toyota's fault except for making the paint weak. My Camry chipped really easily. In fact, nearly all Sienna owners (2004+) have paint chipping easily.

And, someday after going on a roadtrip, my car's gonna look like ****. The bumper is pitted clearly from rocks hitting it so spray is what I want.

Any pics of your result? Do you think that M80 can do the job or if I have to get something like Turtlewax rubbing compound?