AS3.0CL

Hello,

Last year me and my father picked up an 87 Buick Grand National. it has currently 23002 miles on the car as of yesterday. it has the original paint and the past owner always applied meguires cleaner wax to it...

the car has pretty much sat since 1995, and the last year for us has been hectic so now we are finally getting around to upping the power on it and of course making it swirl free.

the issue i am having is that i have never worked on lacquer paint and i do not want to mess it up. i have a PC with many pads both 6's and 4's. i do have menzerna and a few different sealants.

my question is how do you polish a surface like this and what should i use for a last stage application? i could use an acrylic but would a carnuba based be better?

also the trim on the car is heavily faded and filled with old wax. i want to rejuvenate it to it's original black. how can i get this completely clean and protect it, i am thinking about using Black WoW for this application.


all suggestions and help will be greatly appreciated! Thanks....i know i have no pics of the car right now.

skyfox23

Please post pics when complete...love that car, has the 3.8 liter V6 turbo right??

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Patrick, Todd or Dale should be able to answer this question

AS3.0CL

you are correct...were looking for it to push over 350wHP and 400Wtq on the stock block with mild upgrades...maybe more if we want to mess with the turbo. right now the whole car needs to be gone through and we are putting together a parts list.

hopefully they will be able to aid me, not gonna lie lacquer paint kinda scares me because i have no idea what i am getting myself into.

csmeance

talk to member I hate cars, he usually stays in the 3G TL performance or audio section. He has a GN making a bit of power!

AS3.0CL

bueller?

CocheseUGA

If he doesn't know, no one does.

TSC17

You really don't need to worry about it being a single stage paint. Most are relatively easy to work with, but I've also worked on some that were hard too.

Just remember that your pads will turn the color of the paint since it doesn't have a clearcoat.

I've used Menzerna polishes on plenty of single stage paints with outstanding results, so you should be good. As with any other car, do a test section using the least aggressive combo first, and adjust as necessary depending on how well it corrects.

I've used sealants, and I've used nubas afterwards...it really comes down to your preference.

If you find that it corrects easily, then just be careful over seams and edges where the paint can be thin.

As for the trim, I'll assume that you're talking about black plastic trim? Try a little isopropyl alcohol or Prep All to see if that removes the old wax residue. If not, then coat it in peanut butter (the oil breaks down the old wax), let it set for a while, and wipe it off. After you remove it you can use a variety of products (Black Wow if you have it) like Poorboy's Trim Restorer to bring it back to life.

Let us know how it goes.

conan777

The Single stage paint is nothing to be freaked out about, treat it as you do your clearcoat.

As for the trim I use Prep-all which you can actually find at most wallmart stores and if that does not work or the trim is faded I use a black trim dye to restore the color which will not wash off like Black wow will.

rlerman

This was very new to me as well. My 86 porsche is single stage and I found it very easy to work with, much more so than the clear coat on my RL
.
I use Menzerna power gloss with orange pad using a pc with speed 5/6 (use yellow pad if the paint is in really bad shape.) Then I follow with menzerna IP using a white pad, then menzerna final polish or optimum polish with white or black pad. Follow with a wax/synthetic sealant like meguiars 2.0.

As for the trim, you can try Vinylex or 303.