Best way to revive paint

Hi all, I bought my 2000 TD5 Defender about 4 years ago and at the time it was nice and shiny. The bloke said it had been resprayed with some sort of Techaloid paint so that scratches could just be buffed out. I know nothing about types of paint but suspect this is BS! Anyway, yesterday for the first time ever I cleaned it, just with a pressure washer, a brush and some traffic film stuff we use for the vans. All the paintwork is now dull.

1. How can I tell if it is actually a special paint (techaloid) ?
2. If it is this paint how should it be treated?
3. If it's not this paint and just standard paint what is the best method to revive it without ruining the paintwork?

Cheers,
Tom.

Traffic film will strip off the wax leaving a dull appearance. You could try waxing a small area - it will probably improve it a little but dull paintwork needs to be polished to make it shine.

The best bet would be to try polishing in an inconspicuous area like behind a spare wheel to see what affect the polish has. Iv'e never lavished such attention on mine

I meant to say, after polishing, it will need sealing with wax. Lot of work that!

Thanks spook, I just wonder about this special paint, or whether its just normal paint

tom1979 said:

Hi all, I bought my 2000 TD5 Defender about 4 years ago and at the time it was nice and shiny. The bloke said it had been resprayed with some sort of Techaloid paint so that scratches could just be buffed out. I know nothing about types of paint but suspect this is BS! Anyway, yesterday for the first time ever I cleaned it, just with a pressure washer, a brush and some traffic film stuff we use for the vans. All the paintwork is now dull.

1. How can I tell if it is actually a special paint (techaloid) ?
2. If it is this paint how should it be treated?
3. If it's not this paint and just standard paint what is the best method to revive it without ruining the paintwork?

Cheers,
Tom.

Click to expand...

First of all Tekaloid paint is not special, in fact it's ancient stuff, also known as coach enamel! It's really designed for brush application as it has decent self leveling properties if it applied well - no pro or even semi-decent DIY painter would use it - it is thick and heavy and yes would buff well - because there is a lot of it - but it's just like a good solid 2K paint would. It's also cheap - again why people like it.

Regardless of what the paint is you can cut and polish it. It also depends how much time you have. I am going to guess it is a solid colour as you didn't get metallics in Tek.

Option 1 - your standard DIY route would be to get a buffer and cutting compound (proper stuff like Farecla not bloody T-Cut - if they sell it in Halfords or similar it's not worth it) you can get a cutting compound which basically will remove a lot of scratches and level the paint - you can do this in stages with a heavier compound then use their finishing compound like G3 which is a fine cutting past that will leave a high gloss finish, but if money and time don't permit you could go direct to G3 - you then have very smooth paint but no protection, so you then want to use a decent wax like G3 wax or 3M Rosa.

Option 2 - Hit the whole car with 2000 grit wet and dry and basically sand the whole car - be careful, you are not trying to remove the paint, just level it all a good all over light sand you be fine- then 2000 grit it before following option 1. It seems insane to most that don't know about paint to do this but it works very well - I resprayed the bumper on my car as it had a lot of stone chips and to get the bonnet looking less dull next to it this was done - the result was the brand new paint and the 11 year old paint look the same and basically brand new. I then waxed it with a carnuba wax.

To be honest I was thinking of a quick re-spray as there are a few small rust spots I want to deal with and I want the roof the same colour anyway and the rear door needs to be replaced so the sprayer will be out. Doesn't surprise me that tekaloid isn't special, we did think the bloke full of s**t ! I just googled it. I'm not really into shiny landrovers (I've cleaned mine once in 4 years) but I do want the metalwork protected. The joint things between the bulkhead and the windscreen are pretty deteriorated too I need to replace them - looks like they just unbolt.

The joint things, have they started to oxidise leaving white powdery bits? To be honest they clean up well and just need a seriously good etch prime, then prime prime prime with sanding in between and time to dry well then hit them with your top coat.

Rust, I guess bulkhead and cappings - if your budget allows the cappings coukd be galvanised and they will never rust again, and the bulkhead just needs rubbed right down and the rust stopped. They key is always in the prep and primer. Junk paint on a really sound and well primed base will do very well - top of the range paint applied as needed over a junk primer? You might as well just leave it alone.

Actually the after looking the bulkhead seems good - can't check easily behind all the plastic but I cant find any rust at all there. There's some rust running up the passenger side windscreen frame and a few spots in other places. I was expecting to find more when I had a proper look. For those areas I might just sand/grind them back, prime and get some of that tekaloid paint in an aerosol. Not sure what the roof is made of but could probably roller it! The back door is pretty much knackered. It was knackered three years ago so I took of the door card and smothered it in underseal to prolong it a bit. I gather the tekaloid is a step up from hammerite!

Not difficult to be a step up from Hamerite - complete rubbish since B&Q bought the brand.

Tekaloid is rather special in that its a coach paint, its oil based, no body else makes paint like it. Tractol come close. Its used for classic cars. Its a soft paint and wont buff easily, abrasives wont work on it. Coach painters swear by it.
You cant paint over it unless you use a synthetic paint or sealing coat.

If its dull you still have options, use a tekaloid clear coat which should have been done when it was first painted or contact avenue coatings http://avenue-group.co.uk/?page_id=38 or Steven Hull was the man to advise on synthetic paints. https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/paint-advice-needed-for-me-a-total-paint-newbee.35519/ , Stevens web site doesn't seem to be around anymore but if you google him or search for his posts on here you might find what you are looking for.

That's interesting because the knob that sold it to me 4 years ago said it had been specially resprayed with this paint so that scratches could easily be taken out as it stays slightly fluid!! I wonder if it is tekaloid at all as we tried a couple of small areas with T-cut and it came up great, plus the areas that wouldn't have been resprayed are the exact same colour. I'll have to try and find a way of testing to see what type of paint it actually is.

Just picking up on Discomania's point above, if you decide to polish it, it's well worth investing in a proper 240v slow start polisher (the things that look like a great big angle grinder), and use your Farecla or similar wet, with a bucket of water. It will make a mess, and you will have little splatters of polish on your door rubbers etc for a while, but the effect is very good. This is my truck...it's the same paint apart from the bulkhead cut back with a polisher. TBH I could do a lot better, however as a) it's a Land Rover and b) the paint isn't very good and it does really need a respray, it will do for now. (Bulkhead was resprayed with rattle cans after a bit of patching). But don't even bother wasting your time with one of these crappy 12v "car polishers" and dry polish...totally pointless.

tom1979 said:

That's interesting because the knob that sold it to me 4 years ago said it had been specially resprayed with this paint so that scratches could easily be taken out as it stays slightly fluid!! .

Click to expand...

Its a soft paint and scratches do seem to disappear into it, I've scratched the hell out of mine and they do tend to fade into the paint after a while.
If the TCut works do it, or read this.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...w-car-finish-antique-single-stage-paints.html

tom1979 said:

That's interesting because the knob that sold it to me 4 years ago said it had been specially resprayed with this paint so that scratches could easily be taken out as it stays slightly fluid!! I wonder if it is tekaloid at all as we tried a couple of small areas with T-cut and it came up great, plus the areas that wouldn't have been resprayed are the exact same colour. I'll have to try and find a way of testing to see what type of paint it actually is.

Click to expand...

Cellulose paint stays slightly soft or "fluid", that is why if you paint over celly paint with something like 2K you can get crazing down the road as the celly moves and the 2k being harder cracks/crazes. It's a bit like thin ice moving on water, it will take a bit of movement then it just starts to crack. You can also get a brilliant shine on celly paint as it is soft and takes polish well. Your Tek will dry harder (you can paint over it with no ill effect - so that goes to show you how much much harder in relation to celly) - but remains flexible and as it tends to go on thicker buffing out scratches by removing material to the side of the scratch is possible quite easily.

I think he didn't have a clue about paint, read stuff and spoke to paint suppliers, got totally confused, painted it then remembered all the wrong facts about the paint.

A hard paint put on in multiple coats to build up a good thickness of paint will allow polishing of scratches - it gets harder after the paint has dried out and becomes more difficult to compound and polish but is always possible with enough work.

When I painted my 90 I used Upol 2K Brilliant White - I laid about 5-6 coats on in one go, paint, let it flash off, paint let it flash off... final coat had more thinners in it which made for a very glassy finish. This also leaves me with some decent thickness of paint to compound in the future if I get scratches etc. Albeit hard work as the paint will be rock hard.