Restoring the paint on the Crown Vic

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So, Ive been living with this terrible white paint job on the 2003 vic. It had totally failed long before I bought it. All the Clear on the upper portion of the body, that wasnt protected with the lightbar or decals is completely gone, and what IS left is yellow. Whats left of the white looks like the surface of the moon, with thousands of tiny holes exposing the primer underneath.
What I noticed however, is wherever paint had been chipped, what was exposed wasnt metal. It was the original color. Arizona Beige.
I bought some supplies and worked a small area. I think Ive got a plan, but wanted to get input.
Use 220 grit foam blocks to remove the white paint, stopping when grey is exposed
800 grit, wet sanding until its starting to become translucent and I can see the OE paint coming through
wet sanding with 2000 grit to remove 95% of the remaining primer and expose the paint completely.
My thought is, Im not going to try and get every last bit of the primer off with the 2000, but leave the small discolorations until I have the paint completely exposed. At which point I will use compound on a DA to remove the last traces along with the scratches, and bring a, reasonable amount of life back to the paint.
There is one problem with this plan. The hood. The hood is from a factory white 2006. Im not sure why it was changed, as the rest of the front end is original, VIN coded parts. So I know that it will have to get painted to match the factory color that Im taking it back to.But itll be far cheaper than the entire car.
While gold isnt my favorite color, I know I will enjoy the look of the car a lot more if it was gold and not white, and if I can get it back to that, and have it be better looking than what I have now, Ill be happy.
Attached is my test spot. The 2000 leaves it pretty dull, but I think some compound on a DA can get it looking pretty good. Certainly several orders of magnitude better than that horrid white.

20190914_195513.jpg
 
Originally Posted by gregk24
Seems like a big job.

It sure does. I'm not automotive paint expert but 220 grit anything sounds too much to restore a cars paint. At any rate good luck. Post some before and after shots of the car if you can.
 
My first thought is good on you for being willing to tackle such a project. It's going to be very labor intensive and I can't help but think that you have better use for your time.

The underlying factory paint is very thin and It's going to be very difficult to avoid damaging it or sanding through it in places. If you're determined to proceed, I suggest starting with a complete panel, like say the trunk lid or the roof and see how it come out. Good luck.
 
It appears you do not want to spend a lot of money on the car. Try what you are doing and it it doesn't work get some spray cans and try to tough it up yourself. Or if you want to spend more sand it down paint it yourself. You can get a cheap gun at Harbor Freight for less than $100.00.
 
Do you have a local aqua blasting company? This will take paint and rust off to metal. It is a restoration step for projects without the intense labor of removing paint and prime. Cleans to metal,might make paint work better and in color you want.
 
Originally Posted by demarpaint
Originally Posted by gregk24
Seems like a big job.

It sure does. I'm not automotive paint expert but 220 grit anything sounds too much to restore a cars paint. At any rate good luck. Post some before and after shots of the car if you can.

Im going to end up going with 100 for the areas that still has the clear coat, as my 220 grit blocks are clogging up in a couple minutes. I bought 6 220 blocks thinking that would be enough to get the roof, and they all clogged up with only about 10% of the primer exposed.
Im only using it to remove the white paint on top. Once primer is exposed its very thin, so I move on to the 1000 at that point.
I anticipate this will take many weekends, and so I will be driving a multicolor car in the mean time. A really odd gold and white camo pattern. XD
 
Progress so far. Not shown is the entire roof is ready for the wet sanding stage, but I only got this portion done before calling it for the night.

20190915_200244.jpg
 
Originally Posted by nolesfan
OMG, you must absolutely not value your time. I could think of a thousand things I'd rather spend time and labor on.

[censored] off
 
Are you using the 220 blocks wet, or dry? Sometimes a little bit of water will make your abrasives last 10x as long.

Have you tried anything finer than 220? 320 is commonly used to remove paint. It would produce finer scratches and reduce your chance of damaging the Arizona Beige, likely at the cost of additional time.

You could reduce your costs by purchasing a foam block and regular sheets of sandpaper.
 
Originally Posted by Colt45ws
Originally Posted by demarpaint
Originally Posted by gregk24
Seems like a big job.

It sure does. I'm not automotive paint expert but 220 grit anything sounds too much to restore a cars paint. At any rate good luck. Post some before and after shots of the car if you can.

Im going to end up going with 100 for the areas that still has the clear coat, as my 220 grit blocks are clogging up in a couple minutes. I bought 6 220 blocks thinking that would be enough to get the roof, and they all clogged up with only about 10% of the primer exposed.
Im only using it to remove the white paint on top. Once primer is exposed its very thin, so I move on to the 1000 at that point.
I anticipate this will take many weekends, and so I will be driving a multicolor car in the mean time. A really odd gold and white camo pattern. XD

Interesting. Please post pictures of the finished product.
 
Originally Posted by nolesfan
OMG, you must absolutely not value your time. I could think of a thousand things I'd rather spend time and labor on.


Real car guy here.
smirk2.gif
 
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