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How to restore your car paint - Video

Help, Advice and DIY Tutorials on Volvo's P80 platform cars -- Volvo's 1990s "bread and butter" cars -- powered by the ubiquitous and durable Volvo inline 5-cylinder engine.

1992 - 1997 850, including 850 R, 850 T-5R, 850 T-5, 850 GLT
1997 - 2000 S70, S70 AWD
1997 - 2000 V70, V70 AWD
1997 - 2000 V70-XC
1997 - 2004 C70

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rspi
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How to restore your car paint - Video

Post by rspi »

I thought my paint was DEAD but one of the guys on my tour showed me that it wasn't. He showed me step-by-step how to use clay bar and a professional grade polisher. It was late and I probably didn't catch all of the instructions, but man, I still got great results.

A few things:
1. You should move slower with the polisher.
2. You should dampen the pads and rinse them afterwards.
3. You don't have to work as hard with the clay bar.

'95 855 T-5R M, Panther - 22/28 mpg, 546,000 miles
'95 955 T-5R Yellow Wagon, Lemonade, 180,000 miles
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Post by matthew1 »

Very nice video, Robert. Posted to the MVS home page/VRD.
Help keep MVS on the web -> click sponsors' links here on MVS when you buy from them.

Also -> Amazon link
. Click that when you go to buy something on Amazon and MVS gets a cut!

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Post by polskamafia mjl »

This is perfect. I'm finally getting to the point with my car where I can start working on cosmetic upgrades and this video has literally all of the information I need.
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Post by 850TurboTurtle »

So funny! I did the same thing with my red '77 MGB when I used color restorer on the left side only. :-) Drove it for a week and took photos just because that way I could really enjoy how much difference it had made.

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Post by j-dawg »

amazing how much you can bring out with some cleaning. The Polar White paint is very forgiving of neglect - it doesn't really show reflections, so swirls and oxidation are well-hidden - but I clay bar'd the front end once when it was getting kinda buggy and sappy and the car was positively glowing afterwards.

How do you like that polisher? I've seen that one at HF too, and I always consider buying it. Did you have a lot of swirls in your paint or was it just oxidation? I keep reading on various auto discussion intertubes that for taking out swirls - my red Miata has many many of those, and my poor little arms can only do a small section before getting tired - you need a pretty serious polisher. But maybe that's just FUD spread by the greedy polisher conglomerates.
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Post by rspi »

For swirls, I would probably just hit it with the 2nd stage, the polish compound (probably once every 2 years). Then wax it with a good quality wax which will hide all the minor stuff.

I have one of those cheap plastic buffers that cost about $40. It is good from removing wax but not for getting scratches out or restoring paint.

This polisher from Harbor Freight seems to work very well. I like it and my paint looks great. I was actually shopping for a paint job.
'95 855 T-5R M, Panther - 22/28 mpg, 546,000 miles
'95 955 T-5R Yellow Wagon, Lemonade, 180,000 miles
--------------------
Volvo's of past: '87 740 GLE, '79 262C Bertone, '78 264, 960's, '98 S70 GLT, '95 850 T-5R YellowVolvo Repair Videos

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