My wife and I just bought a very original '79 Z28.
The car still had the original paint and looked pretty good on the sides. The problem was it looked like it had been sitting under a tree for the last 2 years and looked and felt like it had a very rough texture on the hood, top and deck lid.

Well, I think I may have ruined the paint trying to "fix" it.
I wet sanded with 1500 grit 3M paper but, I did'nt use a pad, just the palm of my hand. After that, I hand applied (forgot the brand) No. 7 polishing compound. The problem is there are still very noticable swirls (more like scratches) in the finish. I did use fairly firm pressure when sanding to try to remove the roughness in the finish.

Have I ruined the finish?
Will sanding with 2000 grit with a pad then Finese-it III help remove the scrathes?

We will probably re-paint this car at some point, but I would really like to save the original paint as long as possible.

I know I should have ask these questions before doing anything to the paint, but, the car was just sitting there in the gargage and as I started really checking it out, one thing lead to another and the next thing I knew, I was standing there with the worn sand paper in my hand and lookin at my scratched handi work thinkin...what have you done????


any suggestions?

Thanx
Dwayne

3M Imperial Hand Glaze usually helps out with swirls and scratches..

Depending on the swirl/scratches hand glaze may not take care of it, but that's where I'd start first. You may need to step up to a coumpound then back to a glaze and use a foam pad on your buffer. 1500 may be pretty course depending on the color of paint. Non-the-Less I don't thing you harmed anything, as long as you don't go through the paint you may be pleasanty suprised by the outcome. I've seen some old tattered finishes come alive with a little "elbow-grease"
Good Luck

I recall the time I borrowed my brothers '65 GTO and got some light scratches on the top of the hood from some tree foilage and branches (That's anotehr story). I spent a day polishing it with DuPont polishing compound and then waxing it. I didn't rub very hard, but a shadow of dark color primer could be discerned through the shiny finish afterward. My luck messing with stock paint. He was less than happy.

My $0.02 :eek:

You need to buff it with a machine.Your arm will fall off before you bring up a nice shine after wetsanding with 1500. Get some 3m Perfect it II compound, and a buffer with a foam pad and it should come up nice.

I NEVER wet sand in a circular pattern, only one direction. Number seven is a VERY mild polish, you may need something a little more aggressive like 3M machine POLISHING compound, not rubbing compound.
Ron

Well,
I think its going to be Ok.
I lightly wet sanded again with 2000 in one direction not circular. I then hand applied 3M perfect-it II and it looks much better.
I think if I had a buffer, It would take care of even minor scrathes that are left.
BTW, the scratchs did'nt look nearly as bad out in the sunshine as they did under the flourecent lights in the garage that night.

Thanks for all the advice.

Dwayne

Use a foam finish pad, the scraches will go away,then use the #7, it is only a glaze or polish. HTH