Fri morning 9 am ran over to Eastwood to look at their Plastic Resurfacer and talked with what seemed like a guy who knew something about the product. It's a urethane, and not gasoline resistant and says he wouldn't use it in contact with gas. OK. Eastwood has a $10 online bonus discount. I asked if I could order the product on line and pick it up at the store using the 10 bucks like all the whole sellers do these days, NOPE. He even said i could try the SEM trim paint, OK,
Talked with my son about freshening up black plastic stuck to the outsides of vehicles and he says, "check this out".
Will get the heat gun off the shelf and try that method. Saw one video where the guy used a propane torch to do the eadges and a rosebud on a big torch to do the large section of a plastic trimmed truck. My problem with a torch for heat is the gas cap and tank are right there at the plastic part I need to rejuvenate. . Oh boy.
I know anything that anyone selling an wipe on liquid to improve the appearance is just a temporary fix, there are a dozens of those products out there.
Had to replenish my stash of masking tapes and while there picked a qt of Xylene and tried it on the adhesive I'm trying to remove. ZIP, NADA, 17 bucks and strike out. Next is try and make a blend of several different solvents and see if that touches the adhesive.
Here's ingredient in The 3M remover, i think i have all of them in the shop and will do a mix. Of course exact percentages is not shared info, Trade Secret. Hydrotreated Light Naphtha (Petroleum) 64742-49-0 30 - 60 Trade Secret * Xylene 1330-20-7 30 - 60 Trade Secret * Ethylbenzene 100-41-4 5 - 9.9 Trade Secret * Toluene 108-88-3 <= 0.9 Trade Secret * Benzene
Tonight will put some heat to some black plastic. Upstairs in the Mezz is some old black plastics car parts to do testing on. Before doing anything to the one on the 86. Bob
Talked to my guy who threw the black lacquer on the parts tonight. He said he had most all the stuff cut and buffed. Spoiler being so light weight he invited me to hold onto it while he buffed on it. Sat morning will stop over there and with a little luck have all the parts loaded back into my Astro van. Believe it or not that trunk lid slides right into the cargo area of the Astro and lays on the floor. I've been shopping for a replacement vehicle for that Astro for 2 years and NO SUV comes close to the cargo space in the back of that Astro. And that with a second seat in the van, and my golf clubs laying on the floor between seats. Just so many things I like about that Astro that you can not buy today.
A special note: Need to figure out how to repay my debt to the my friend who won't take anything for his time spent on my parts. When my Goodmark hood got black lacquered back in 2016 my other painter friend did that in his paint booth. We took his 67 Dart with the 440 and lots of glass parts to the 4 corner alignment rack and a four corner scaling, i paid the bill. That was a good trade of resources. Now need to figure out how to repay Joe. I helped him install his new $20K Olds engine back in his 65 Olds wagon this past year. We're not close to being even yet.
Hoping to find some times this weekend to reinstall the new painted parts. Apply some heat to black plastic license plate enclosure and watch it change back to pretty. Using a lot of tape and newspaper mask off the bumper cover and paint in the areas necessary so the new bumper strips can be sticky taped down. Reinstall the taillights, put the battery charger on the car cause it's been sitting to long. Next week hoping to see a couple warmer days so i can run the car around the block to have a little fun. Body shop laboring has got real old, need to smell some gas to get the necessary drive to pull the rear and change the R&P.
At the end of Feb the 02 SS needed it's annual State inspections. Rotating tires I saw the left drive axle was spewing grease all over the inside of the wheel and spindle. I washed all the mess up and took it to my inspection station promptly, didn't need them to see the failing axle. Today picked up a new axle and need to install that next week, after the 86 paint R&R is done and before pulling the rear.
Lots of parts I've replaced on the 02 SS front suspension. Just a year ago it was both LCA, prior was both outer tie rods. both front hubs, front sway bar twice, both front ABS harness, numerous rotors and pads. So no stranger to working on the front end of a W chassis. My daughter had an 05 GTP which also was apart a couple times. If all go well it's an afternoon to change that axle, the clean up of that grease spewed from a factory CV joint is time consuming.
Sat a fruitful trip to the painter's booth. We 1500 wet block a little more on the lid, and buffed a little and loaded everything into my Astro for the trip back to their home. Once all together if I'm not happy with the smoothness of the top of the deck I can play some more with some 1500 to knock it down. Getting trophies was not the reason to paint the parts, and I'm not that picky when it comes to finish, it still an old Chevy.
The valance got a second coat of POR on it's bottom side so it should never show any signs of rust again. As I mention Chevy, GM, never put must more than over spray on the bottom side. Previous before going to get painted several hours were spent on that bottom side to get a coat of POR on it.Tomorrow it will get reinstalled and DONE.
When the trunk lid was stripped 1" around the entire perimeter was taped to prevent stripper from touching the edge and the bottom side of the lid. Success. Before final painting all four lower rear corners of the lid were sanded and prepped. There was a good bit of rubbing, touching, going on in those corners over the years, lack of paint and very little surface rust. Before painting the top of the lid the entire bottom was masked and papered to about 1/2" from the edge. When the top was primered and painted some over spray touched the bottom edges of the lid. I told Joe to not spend any time playing with those bottom edges. When the lid was back in the shop yesterday I spent an hour just touching up the four corners and the entire bottom edges. It's a place rarely seen and I was able to just easily spray using my Duplicolor gloss black. No one would ever know they were touched up. Duplicolor is lacquer, and black. I've used it several other times on my car, side mirror when it got destroy by a passing car, and both doors bottom, and all the jambs are R&Red with it. You can't tell.
Installed the trunk lock back into the lid. That went well. Tomorrow will reinstall the spoiler while the lid is still upside down on the table. That should be easier now that I drill holes in the lid that align with the nuts for the four inside studs. Then the lid get installed and bolted back on the car. DONE.
Well except yesterday i spent maybe 3 hours trying to restore the license plate enclosure. After trying every solvent in the shop to remove a dried film that is directly below the license plate it was finally Berkible 2+2 carb cleaner that dissolved it. The film was about 3/4" wide the full width of the enclosure. My gut feeling is it's remnants of evaporated gas and all the junk we put in here, ethanol and that Winter blend junk they gave us for decades before ethanol in PA. Thinking of the 1500 or more fueling of this car's tank in 30 years of owning it has burped and dribbled fuel there hundreds of times. Only explanation I can think of for that film. There are three slots in the that area to drain off burped fuel, GM provide them, maybe they knew something.
The other product i found worked on the plastic enclosure was the A/C system flush. i went through about 10 phases of wet sanding and washing with the flush all the way to a 2500 grit wet sanding to get the finish uniform again. Next step is to find a black top coat finisher to see if a uniform pretty finish can be had. i tried the heat the plastic with a blow gun on low and found no effects on areas i was sanding and prepping for a finish product. But the top of the enclosure also got hot and wow, it did exactly what I saw other do to the plastic with heat. The surface got very black and oils came out of the plastic. I walked away for the day and will see what that looks like tomorrow.
Tues will be three weeks since pulling the trunk lid. Complications in the home life contributed to that three weeks, not able to spend time on that project the result. But the learning curve to get this trunk lid project done will make tackling the roof repaint much easier. Not sure when that will happen, but won't procrastinate on it for the next decade like i did with the trunk lid. Bob
Needing to have something soon to apply over the black plastic license plate enclosure the past week have been surfing the web to find something. There are a dozen products just for the exterior plastics, even more for tires.
Purchased a 12 oz bottle of Solution Finish after watching some pretty good reviews. Just like tire products there is a plethora of brews of chemicals for these plastic trim resto products. Silicone for the most part which can be oily, wash off and not last, or hold color. The Solution is a polymer tech and has carbon black in it. I like that idea of inducing carbon back into the plastic surface. Several video testings of it shows it's among the best of many it went up against. https://www.solutionfinish.com/
One of my other top contender to try was TLC Cera Trim, it was also highly rated. But appears to have a problem in this country right now, unavailable, but you can buy it in Australia and send it here , Go figure. https://special.thelastcoat.com/html/products/
The only other restorer I had interest in was Renew Blak which seemed to test well. It is a ceramic base which i was leery of. https://renewprotect.com/collections/all
Mon at lunch time reinstalled the spoiler on the lid when lid was still laying upside down on a table. Did a wrap of that 3M butyl around the base of the 6 studs on the spoiler. Aligned the studs in the two outboard holes, easy when done upside down, and as two hands hold the spoiler in place the 3rd and 4th hands install nuts on each end. This just holds the spoiler in place as the 4 middle nuts are installed, much more difficult. . By the way the 6 spoiler nuts where pretty cool as installed by GM. They are a 10 mm hex with a concave floating washer, maybe 3/4" OD. On the concave side of the washer a ring of butyl was stuck, looks like by an adhesive. When the spoiler was removed there was sealant (dried out butyl I assumed) on the stud and on those washers. All old was removed before reinstall.
Anyways with butyl on both sides of the lid's sheetmetal got a good seal at all the studs. Went over the tightening of the studs about 6 times just snugging. Oh, those holes drilled to make tightening of the spoiler nuts easier did make it easier, but not easy. Still a PITA to start them and had to use a 1/4" drive universal for five out of 6 of the nuts.
Next the valance got installed and the three 7 mm hex sheetmetal screws with new black mylar washer snugged down. DONE.
Next with two people and two pin punches the deck gets slide onto the hinges and a 3/16" pin punch inserted in a bolt's holes on each side. This makes getting the bolts started easy and no worries of lid sliding down the hinge and hitting the valance with fresh paint. I marked all four bolt locating before pulling the lid and realigned to those marks. The four bolts are metric and they have a somewhat taper hex, gets fatter at the base. Interestingly a SnapOn 1/2" 6 pt deep socket is the perfect fit. A 13 mm 6 point is just to sloppy at the top not a good fit at the bottom either. Just an usual hex. Also the bolts have floating washers with "teeth" to bite into the sheetmetal. Just nice all around bolts, for a GM. Anyhow after the two of us played with what I had marked for the old bolt location, did the close open the lid exercise a half dozen times adjusted each side and decided once again, it's a Chevy, more than likely it wasn't great before you took it apart. Close enough for now. Need to move on.Deck lid installed, DONE.
Reinstalled the trunk release wire, the trunk light wire, Had to fish a piece of 16 gauge solid core wire through the lid, then use it to tape the two trunk wires to and pull. Just makes you wonder when these cars were built the tricks they had to attach the spoiler and pull those wires. Done.
After a few hours of "family life" made it back to the shop in the evening knowing there's a little prep time, a lot of masking time, and some spraying of SEM trim paint to do before bed. Was pleasantly surprised on how well it laid down on both the alum trim and the plastic bumper's back 3/4" edge. Only about 6 light coats, 10 minutes apart in my shop at about 70 degrees, and coverage is very good. All the things that attach to the back end have been cleaned, taillights, license lights. plate and plate holder all done. Hoping to see the Solution Finish i ordered Sun night off ebay show up tomorrow.
Currently looking for replacement bumpers for the plate enclosure. Original are about 3/8" OD and about 13/16" thick. Tonight Ebay'ed rubber bumpers, should be Auveco 4237 a 3664645
Will put the battery charger on the the car tomorrow and may even be able to pull it out into the sunshine later in the week. Today did nothing to the car, probably the coldest day of this year with very high winds speeds at time, sat and rested. Today the wife got an new electric recliner and her teeth cleaned, a good day for her.
Almost ready to pull it out in the sunshine and take a few graduation pics.
Today installed the stick-on strips that cross side to side on the bumper cover. They look better than expected and installed them rearward of the old one so as to hide the "line" that the old strips were on. Painting the area to the front of the strips in SEM trim paint took care of making that area pretty. The strips from Mike are longer and are trimmed to length before sticking them down. I thought sticking them down was not going to be easy to align them where i wanted but starting in the middle and going outboard to position them was easy. Bingo.
Got out the 3M polishing compound and did all the surfaces at the back of the car, then went over them with a coat of my black wax. None of the new paint got any wax, not until maybe 30 days and after I'm happy with the new black finish. Because it's lacquer, and i have the exact paint just put on, and I can just put some in a Prevail sprayer, or load the small detail gun with some paint and throw a few layers over an area. There is a run in the right rear corner of the spoiler, nobody would every see it but i will get rid of it and if needed blow some paint over the area, then 1500 it, then compound, polish and do it again if necessary.
I should mention as far as rust in the trunk lid is was near zero, about a 3/8" round surface rusted area in the bottom outside pass corner of the lid. Just surface rust which a phosphate wash several times and primer made it, GONE. There is absolutely zero filler anywhere and just blocked lacquer primer. Part of the reward when you have owned a 175K mile PA car for all but 9400 and the first garage kept 6 years of of it's life is good body panels,
One of the means to an end for paint on this car was to learn how to do this lacquer thing on any area of the car, individual panels or a whole side or a whole car. Doing the trunk and butt end of this car was, is, the learning curve to doing a preservation of the body.
Waiting for the Solution Finish black plastic stuff to show up so i can put two coats of it on the license enclosure. Shopping those truck lid bumpers ordered Auveco 4237 off Ebay last night. While surfing for them found Advance Auto said they could get them for me. Today stopped at the local Advance store and just for fun asked the 18 year old kid at the counter to check. According to him and his computer they would be in his store at 3 pm, today. Told him tomorrow i will stop to see if that really does happen. Ya know back when we had several auto paint suppliers local they had Auveco parts drawers on the back shelves of the store. I've picked through them to buy inner door panel clips, door handle clips and other silly parts. Now we only have one supplier in a 25 mile radius and their inventory is depleting.
Taillights are in, battery is on charge. Hoping to see the black plastic restorer and bumpers in the next day or so. Need to go over the new paint on the trunk lid with the 3M polish yet. It left the paint booth with just a low speed compounding, no polishing, some time needed yet to make that new paint a "five footer".
Will send some pics of the final product when the sun hits it hoping this weekend. The 86 needs to show it's face at a couple places. My friend with the paint booth needs to see the final product. And I will stop at the upholster who is doing my driver's seat's recovering and adding some bolstering. I need to push his button to get me done. The seat is removed from the car when the rear come out of the car, very soon.
Next 86 project is install the 3.73s back in the rear. But need to install a left 1/2 shaft in the 02 SS first. It has spewed it's grease at the outer CV joint and made a big mess of thing under there. That shaft install is the reason the 86 needs to be done very soon, I need the bay, and the heated area. . Bob
Surprise, Advance called at 7:48 am and 11:24 am this morning. Couldn't get over there until 7 pm tonight to find, no Bob had ordered the Auveco 4237, "but I'll go check the shelf", he returns with a green Auveco box of 25 rubber bumpers I ordered, he reads off the monitor "sold individually", $.79 each. Only need to purchased 6 for $5.02 and went home. That restored just a little faith in the parts ordering system.
They measured, not with mike, 1/8" thick and just shy of 3/4" diameter and looks to be a 1/4" needed for a hole size. The rubber quality feels very good and not a cheap repop. They are fatter at 3/4" and a little thinner at 1/8" than the original but i like that 3/4" width. When the trunk is closed you can not see that bumper and and wider is probably better than the stock 3/8' bumper width. Bought enough to throw a couple away on a dry fitting if necessary.
Did spent time tonight looking for a better choice for a bumper but found i would need to buy a box of bumpers from most online sellers, 20 to 25 bucks a box average. 4233, 4235, 4265, 4281 other potential candidates that could be trimmed to thickness on the belt sander. https://www.auveco.com/bumpers And some bumpers just aren't available any more. By the way even Softseal sells odds and ends of bumpers.
