scratch repair tips wanted

[shoteen95]

well a few months ago a rather large F-150 decided to take an excursion onto the shoulder of I-94 near detroit, on the way his bumper left a few very light scratches on my rear bumper (along with a broken taillamp). A local estimate for repainting and color matching the whole rear bumper and replacing the taillamp was somewhere around a thousand dollars...

but i dont have a thousand dollars.

granted, i'm young and stupid, but have seen those wise-guys on the weekend car shows do miracles with old paint jobs, so i picked up some really fine (1500 grit) sandpaper and lightly wet-sanded out the scratches in the rear. Now i didnt go crazy on it, and i'm sure i didnt sand off all the clearcoat (wouldn't green water have started flowing down my driveway?), my question now is..

what do i do?! Should i apply more clearcoat just to be safe? As far as i understand i need some rubbing and polishing compound to remove the sanding scratches..right? I dont have an electric buffer, can the sanding scratches be polished out by hand?

If i can get this looking good i might try and tackle my front bumper, the previous owner drove through a fence (?!) and left scratches up the front of the car all the way to the windshield. They're not very noticable on the hood, but appearantly the front bumper was so bad, her husband decided to spray paint it. It doesnt look terrible, just really dull from a distance. I like most of you take a lot of pride in the quality appearance of my car, and things like this can be frustrating!

 

[SHOWYA]

.... so i picked up some really fine (1500 grit) sandpaper and lightly wet-sanded out the scratches in the rear.... what do i do?! Should i apply more clearcoat just to be safe? As far as i understand i need some rubbing and polishing compound to remove the sanding scratches..right? I dont have an electric buffer, can the sanding scratches be polished out by hand?

You are in the right track ... 1500 is a good choice plus it doesnt 'cut' to much clearcoat. You do need a buffer to get the sanding scratches out, and it will take less than a minute. YES! You can do it by hand also but it will take you alot longer. Go to Autozone. They have the automotive paint section and get a bottle of 3M rubbing compound. Use a terry cloth towel and put some compund on it ... about the size of a quarter. Then rubb and repeat till sanding marks are gone!

Give it a pass with a clean towel once your done to remove any residue. It should be shinny enough where you dont need to polish. You can use wax too as a polish replacement since you doing it by hand.

 

[shoteen95]

thanks! now i have something to do today

P.S. I've been closely watching your fender flare project, looks very sweet. I can't wait to see it completed

 

[rjjr]

isnt a 1000 bucks kind of pricey just to paint a bumper and replace a taillamp? Taillamps you can get for practically nothing at a junkyard, or try ebay. Just the other day I took my SHO in to a local shop (good quality, not like a Maaco) they quoted me $300 to paint my front bumper, with a lifetime warranty against chipping.
If you are able to sand and buff it out thats even better

 

[shoteen95]

yea, it seemed like a rip off from the start, but it was also a detroit shop Ok, to be fair it was a little more then just the rear bumper, but it still seemed like too much money. ****, my neighbor who owns an autobody shop replaced a whole door on my car and repainted it to match for about 600 dollars.

Anywho, i did sand out the scratches, and used some 3M rubbing compound to remove the sanding scratches, came out REALLY nice, almost like new. Thanks again for the help

i will probably be getting a lamp off of ebay, unless my father lets me have one of his lights off of his 93 beater, ofcourse he will, he has a crossfire now!

 

[rjjr]

Good to hear that you got it all buffed out. I figured there was a little more damage than you described, $1000 just didnt seem right. I cant stand to see another SHO owner get ripped off.

 

[shoteen95]

just finished hand sanding the whole front bumper. Turned my driveway green! no dont worry, it was just spray paint that the previous owner had sprayed on to cover 3 or 4 small scratches that the sandpaper took off in a second.

i finally broke down and got an electric buffer

my car is finally almost flawless again, except for one more thing, but i'll search around before i even get into that.