Monday, Aug. 2, 2021
The last couple of days I’ve been trying to do something to improve the look of the paint on the Plymouth. Its a bit of a tall order, the Midnight Poly Blue (the dark blue) is fairly dull. The light blue looks fine and bright.
I’ve spent several evenings poring over YouTube videos about how to restored old paint, and most suggestions involve an orbital buffer/polisher. I bought one from Autozone without looking too closely, and the one I bought — the cheapest — is one speed only. I bought some Megauiar polishing compound rather than rubbing compound for fear of cutting too much into the paint.
After working on the hood for quite a while, I just wasn’t impressed with the polishing compound. For starters, you aren’t supposed to let it dry — you’re supposed to wipe it off before it hazes. That didn’t work so well for me. I got a decent shine on the hood, but the polishing compound left streaks of dried compound. Not the look i was hoping for. I wasn’t really sold on the polisher, either.
After messing with the polisher and the polish — and some swanky spray wax from Meguiar that didn’t impress me — I decided that what the Plymouth really needed was some good old-fashioned Rain Dance wax — liquid or paste. I used it on all my cars years ago, and it works well. It both cleaned the paint (gently) and waxed the finish. It could make my 55 Chevy and my Plymouth Duster shine like new money.
But there’s a catch — the original Rain Dance car wax was apparently discontinued probably 20 years ago. So my quest was to find the 21st century’s next-best-thing to 1990s Rain Dance car wax.
I came home from AutoZone with a bag full of products — none of them classed as “ceramic” “high tech” “fancy-schmancy,” “high-falutin'” car wax / sealer / coating / whatever you want to call it. And while shopping, I ran across a product I had used 20-plus years ago — Meguair’s Clearer Wax. My first test was to try to wax the hood and remove the polish from my previous attempt. The liquid cleaner wax went on with a very Rain Dance-like feel. Apply it with an applicator pad, let it haze, buff it off. Lo and behold, all of the polishing residue was gone, and i had a nice, relatively shiny hood again.
I’ve always said that you never know the finish on your automobile until after you’ve waxed it the first time, and that’s very true of the Plymouth. I’ve found quite a few defects in the paint, some minor surface rust, etc. Last year when I bought the Plymouth, I thought I could probably repair the lower panel rust and let it go foa a few years. Don’t think I can manage that after a good look.
The Meguairs is doing a great job; its putting a deep finish back on the faded Midnight Blue poly. But I’m also seeing areas of orange peel that no amount of wax is really going to get to shine. But once waxed the dark blue does look much better and doesn’t look faded, which is the goal.
The side trim on the Belvedere has minor spots of rust peeking out from the trim in several places. The spots don’t really show against the dark blue very well. But there’s also some suface rust peeking out from under the chrome trim on the window opening on the sides. That trim needs to be removed and the surface rust treated. Again, it isn’t severe, but certainly need to be addressed.
On the passenger’s side, there’s a small rust thru spot in front of the rear wheel between the wheel opening and the door opening. There’s also some rust about to break through on the lower rear corner of the passenger’s door. Again, neither repair is too difficult, but need to get done.
The good news is that the body panels are all fairly straight anyway. No dents or other things to fix.
PAINT PLANNING. Since I’m going to paint the car, my plan right now is to use lacquer for the two tone blue. Over that I’ll shoot a couple of coats of a urethane clear — that way I can wet sand the clear coat and level it out nicely.
One of the best paint jobs I ever did in my life was a friend of mine’s 1978 Z-28. I used red lacquer for the color coat, then shot a urethane clear over it — the car looked just super. Shooting the lacquer was simple, and fast, and the urethane made it smooth as glass.
While waxing the passenger side today, I was going over the trim I’ll need to remove to do a decent paint job, which includes just about everything on the sides, front and rear. Probably the bumpers too, headlight doors and tail lights. Not too bad, just need to keep the parts together. There’s a company that sells matched paint, and I might try some of their paint to see if its close to matching. I’ve wondered if I could “touch up” some of the worst spots and the rust repairs and make some spot refinishes. We’ll see.
UPCOMING CAR EVENTS. This coming Saturday, there’s the Taylorsville cruise and a car show in Big Clifty, in eastern Grayson County. I would like to go to Taylorsville, but my wife’s only day off is this Saturday, and I sure hate to drag her to a car cruise when she’s got things she wants to do at home. On Aug. 21st, there’s a cruise in Hodgenville I might want to go to. The Whiskey City Cruisers are Aug 28th, and I’m not going to miss that one. I would like to stay later, if we can. We’ll see. We like to go to Mass on Saturdays, and we’ve been going to Immaculate Conception in Culvertown at 5:30 p.m. We might want to go to 4 p.m. locally and then drive to town for the cruisers and stay until dusk.
THIS WEEK. My goal this week is to finish waxing the Plymouth. I’ve done the hood, passenger side fender and passenger door. I think with the Mequiars I can get it done in short order without messing with the orbital buffer. The car is running well, and on my trip to town and back, I was doing nearly 65 and the vibration you feel seems to even out at that speed. Interesting. I still need to get it out to A1A so I can order a new driveshaft. I’m going to have him inspect my brake hoses for dry rot or rust, and change the oil and lube the chassis. Might need to talk to him tomorrow after Fiscal Court meets.
GARAGE DOINGS. A tree removal guy is coming at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday for an estimate to remove the tree in the way of my garage. Hope its reasonable! More to come, stay tuned.