Need help with VERY old paint

[00Blazer]

A friend of mine bought a 78 Chevrolet C20 Scottsdale a couple of days ago. He approached me wanting to give him a hand with cleaning it up becuase the previous owner owned it for 3 years and put maybe 3000 miles on it and never washed it. Last night he came over and the paint is severely faded. The hood is suppose to be a dark brown but it is a very light brown. Also the rood has some sort of layer of either alot of old paint or mold. So my plan of attack is:
Ultimate Compound (yellow pad with G110)
Ult. Polish
#26 yellow wax

And for the roof i was thinking purple power dilluted down and seeif that helps. Let me know if this plan sounds like it would work. i have never worked on anything this old so any help would really help. Not going for perfect just wanna clean it up as much as i can.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

Wow! What a cool truck to own. Last summer I bought a 1978 Chevy 3/4 Ton 4x4 for a project truck, love the classic body lines and the fact that they're made with much thicker sheetmetal.

Chances are good you'll want to wash and then clay the paint, gloss comes from smoothness and getting the paint really glossy means getting the paint really smooth and that starts with claying. Do the "Baggie Test" to check and see if the paint needs to be clayed.

If the paint is single stage and oxidized, or if it's clear coated and oxidized you'll probably want to start with at least Meguiar's Ultimate Compound by hand or machine. If you work by machine be ready to clean your pad often. Then polish and seal with a wax.

Would love to see a picture!

[00Blazer]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

Its gonna definatly be a prject truck. its got alot of rust on it. but for $1500 your not gonna get showroom quality. ill be seeing him again on friday ill see if i can snap some pictures. as far as if its single and oxidized or cleared and oxidized i do not know. i did a very small test spot and the pap turned brown almost instantly. would that mean its single stage?

[Murr1525]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

Most likely. Dirt would be more of a gray/black.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

Odds are a late 70's truck is going to be single stage paint (assuming it still has its original paint job), which accounts for both the fade back in color and the color transfer you're seeing on your applicator pad. You may find something like M80 Speed Glaze to be a bit more friendly to an old single stage paint job than Ultimate Compound is. M80 is less aggressive but still with excellent cleaning ability, but it also has a high level of polishing oils, which single stage paints just love. Mike's suggestion about cleaning your pad often will become painfully obvious pretty quickly, and odds are you're going to want to have more than a couple polishing pads on hand for this project.

[Car Potential]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

If you had pure polish M07 around I would also use that on the car before waxing to quench the paints thirst

[00Blazer]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

i do have a few polishing pads ( 4 to be exact). But i do not have 80 or M07. i have ult. polish and cleaner polish. Ult. compound and scratch X also. We did discover that it was repainted inside and out we found red around trim from poor taping. but it was probably repainted in the 80s possibly. So from what im getting here is use the least aggressive cutting agent i can? the use pure polish to revive the paint ( which now that im thinking about it i might have M07, then a wax of choice. does this sound like a good plan of attack? i wish i could get pictures up sooner thatn friday so you guys could see what im talking about im not very good and describing stuff.

[Murr1525]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

The Ult. Polish would sound a bit on the mild side, but nothing wrong with a test spot of it.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

Ultimate Polish is going to be really light weight, but with a yellow polishing pad on a DA, and working on soft paint, it might surprise you. It's certainly worth a shot, and maybe even a good idea to try as a test spot before jumping in with Ultimate Compound.

[00Blazer]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

Alright well i was mistaken i do have M07. he is going to be coming over tom night to see what we can do. So ill try a test spot with M07 on a yellow pad, also a test spot of Ult. Compound and a yellow pad correct?

[Murr1525]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

#7 has no real cleaning ability, so will be even milder than the Ult. Polish.

There can be cases where some #7 applied before the cleaning step helps. so a test spot of both still could be a good idea.

Starts to get into where pics, and just a chance to work on the paint will help.

[Andy M.]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

Pics would be great here.

[00Blazer]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

When i finally get to work onit i will post pics. just trying to get a idea of what i should be using to start out with, and just trying to hear some suggestions from everyone.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

Alright well i was mistaken i do have M07. he is going to be coming over tom night to see what we can do. So ill try a test spot with M07 on a yellow pad, also a test spot of Ult. Compound and a yellow pad correct?

Try Ultimate Polish on a yellow pad before trying M07. M07 has zero cut on it's own but you will get some level of cut using it and the yellow pad on a DA simply because the pad has some cut. Ultimate Polish, on the other hand, does offer some very light cutting ability that will help that yellow pad along. You're really better off removing all the dead, oxidized paint with a bit of mechanical action first and then really infusing it with M07 later. That is not to say you should shoot for 100% correction before using M07, but there's a big difference between paint that is just faded, which M07 and a pad with some bite can freshen up very nicely, and paint that is badly oxidized and loaded with embedded dirt. A good cleaner will take care of that much more quickly and thoroughly.

[Car Potential]

Re: Need help with VERY old paint

I was thinking you could use UC, UP and then M07 before waxing it if you had the time.