Paint Restoration

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FlyingPete

FlyingPete

Well-Known Member
Posts
1,305
Location
Coventry
Hi all,

I've been de-rusting and repainting a few bits of my 90. The trouble is, 26 years of diesel soot, road crud and rain has turned the ivory white paint a sort of dirty yellow colour.

Rather than repainting the whole thing, has anyone had any experience with colour restorer type products? Ideally I'd rather not have to replace the go-faster county stripes. The surface of the paint is quite rough so it might be that under the embedded dirt there's a decent paint job hiding...

Pete
 
+1 on the clay bar and lubricant
But if you are feeling cheap, you can use blu tak and some extremely dilute washing up liquid ( one drop to a spray bottle)

Feels silly, rubbing your car with some sticky putty, and I thought so too, but it really does lift off all the crud.

Obviously, wash the vehicle first, but the clay bar gets off all the stuff that washing doesn't, like tree sap etc,.
And it does it with very little effort, you can really feel the clay "grabbing" the dirt from the paint surface.

I used to use polishes etc, to remove tree sap and road tar - but with the clay bar, it's much much easier & quicker.

My daily car is a lexus RX. And I did my whole car in 2 hrs! It was very easy.

Once claybar'd it will be much much easier to use a paint restoring polish too, because the product will work on polishing the paint, not removing the dirt.

I use 3m "finesse", which is actually a machine polish, but it's very effective for hand use, and even works well on plastic ( like motorbike visors, caravan windows and plastic headlight lenses ) because it leaves a crystal clear shine that doesn't require any more finishing.

You can use any such product to restore the paint surface. Brasso can be used at a push, but you might find that after using the clay bar, standard car polishes might be sufficient, like auto glym etc,.

I've recently tried "diamond brite" car paint treatment.
Seems pretty good at stopping the dirt etc from sticking to the paint.
My lexus is almost self cleaning, the rain washes off the dirt.
Not tried it on the 90 yet, but will definitely give it a go after the re spray.
 
Another +1 on claybars. I scraped the side of my dad's car on a house, and it had a nice streak of cream house paint along the side. 45 minutes with a claybar removed all the paint, and only a few scratch marks remained.

I don't think it will help with the decolouration though, would it be silly to try and match it with a creamy colour mix?
 
So I've been over a section earlier with plain old t-cut on a cloth, and that's taken off most of the grime from the paint and generally improved it. So good news there.

What's confusing me is this- the section I've been over has now turned the same colour as the splodge of paint on the lid of the tin, but the paint I've actually put on the car has dried slightly whiter. Yet anywhere else the paint goes (me, the paint tin, brushes etc) it comes up the right colour. It's a bit odd...
 
Mine was awful when I bought it.

I washed, Clay bar'd, G3, then waxed it. Looked like a different Landie!
 
Not so odd

Paint that's been exposed to air will discolour over time

Fresh paint will be a slightly different colour, unless specialist mixed to match existing

Did my white defender all over with loads of t-cut when i first bought him (roof was completely covered in algae), but still ended up repainting in the end
 
Just washed the landy and attacked it with a clay bar followed by colour restorer. On the plus side, it's now very clean :D But... it's still the wrong colour. Looks like the big brushes will soon be coming out for a repaint.
 
FlyingPete said:
Just washed the landy and attacked it with a clay bar followed by colour restorer. On the plus side, it's now very clean :D But... it's still the wrong colour. Looks like the big brushes will soon be coming out for a repaint.
Click to expand...


This may sound odd, but, petrol on a rag may fix the discolouration it can help remove deep down stuff (waiting for the burning your motor up in flames jokes) :)
 
If using a clay bar makes it smooth couldn't you rub your paint down after with some real fine sand paper on an orbital sander, or buff the paint up with a buffer?.. A bit like T-cut takes away the top layer of faded paint.
 
I've had a go with t-cut on a section, but while it seems to remove scratches well it hasn't improved the colour of the paint significantly. I reckon it might actually be easier to just remove the lights etc and paint the whole thing- at least then it will be all the same colour. The county stripes are virtually impossible to find so I'm thinking mask those off and paint round them. A bit of a bodge I know. The 'land rover 90' on the front and the black oval on the back are simple enough to replace.

About brush marks- the paint I've got seems to go on fairly smooth, but my thinking is that I will use 2000 grit wet and dry on any trouble spots, followed by t cut and finally a polish to restore the finish.
 
FlyingPete said:
I've had a go with t-cut on a section, but while it seems to remove scratches well it hasn't improved the colour of the paint significantly. I reckon it might actually be easier to just remove the lights etc and paint the whole thing- at least then it will be all the same colour. The county stripes are virtually impossible to find so I'm thinking mask those off and paint round them. A bit of a bodge I know. The 'land rover 90' on the front and the black oval on the back are simple enough to replace.

About brush marks- the paint I've got seems to go on fairly smooth, but my thinking is that I will use 2000 grit wet and dry on any trouble spots, followed by t cut and finally a polish to restore the finish.
Click to expand...

Theres a few threads on here with a file (i think) for the defender stripes to download them take to a signage shop
 
Painting in progress :) Tackled the passenger door this afternoon- I cheated a bit and masked off the county stripes, but they seem to have come up reasonably well. Makes quite a difference to the colour.
 

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Painting done :D Also fitted with some lucas beam deflectors for French driving. Going to leave it a few weeks to properly harden, then go over it with the colour restorer and polish.
 

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