The Lair

Look on the bright side. You're halfway to repainting the whole hood, which will be much better than trying to touch up rock chips.

 

It's wet sanded smooth now, so probably wrap it.


The paint on these things are so thin, that was 2000 grit, just enough to knock the top off.

 

You don’t think that’ll buff out with an aggressive compound?

 

I used the meguairs I had and the polish.... didn't do orbital, just by hand. I will keep working on it slowly.

 

A power DA buffer will put in some serious work. I’d try and correct it before you do anything.

 

Buffer is the way to go.

I've wet sanded plenty of cars to a uniform matte finish and brought it back with meguiars rubbing and polishing compounds. If done right it will actually look great.

 

Please educate me, because i've got some small rock chips down to bare metal on my Taco also, and idk where to start.
If he's sanded enough to feather out the edges of the chips, he's removed the clear coat and some layers of paint. How's buffing with compound going to fix that? Does he try to fill with touch-up before buffing, and then apply some clear?

 

I don’t know the order of operations, but the buffing is to bring back the wet sanded portion, not necessarily the chips.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-and-turn-on-dash-diff-lock-indicator.718479/

 

I'm no expert but have done a bit of touch up, wet sanding and paint correction. My preffered method for bringing something back is:

1. Decontamination: a good wash with dish soap and then a thorough clay bar work well.
2. Touch up: i use color matched paint and a rubber squeegee. Apply a SMALL amount of paint to the chip then squeegee over it to flatten the touchup paint with the surrounding surface. This will leave some matte residue around the chip.
3. Correction: using a decent da buffer 2 or 3 stage the entire car. This will remove that matte residue and normally removes 80-90% of scratches (assuming theyre not through the clear)
4. Coat: ceramic coat. Theyres no point in using wax anymore.

Shiny work van paint pic (before)

After

 

Talking about wet sanding, this is spray paint i wet sanded and corrected

Before

After

 

Was gonna get on it today but the rain decided otherwise... pretty sure it fucked up the cure time for the Clearcoat as well

 

A respray is cheap to honestly.

 

I will probably sand it down to metal and buy the color match in a can.

 

Would you like to borrow my shovel to help you dig that hole?

 

Getting started on the case swap today. I’m about to run out for lunch and a transmission jack so I don’t crush myself trying to get it out by myself.

 

Good time to do some cleaning?

 

Don’t be ridiculous. I do have some other stuff to tend to though. I’ll replace the u joints in the front driveshaft since it’ll be spinning all the time now. Have to replace studs on the Y pipe since they snapped upon removal, as expected. And finally found a crack in my transmission crossmember I’ll need to weld back together.

 

I guess those things are more important.

I don't know what Toyota makes their exhaust hardware and flanges out of, but it sucks.

 

Going to harbor freight for their cheap transmission jack proved to be the right move. Was easy peezy getting it out by myself.