I hate blended paint work

[EaOutlaw1969]

My MGM has or I should say had a probably dealer added hand painted pin strip down each side, over the years of washes and waxes plus the Florida sun this strip has faded to the point it just made the car look bad.

At one point the previous owner had body and paint work done to the drivers side front fender with what looked like a new hand painted pin stripe only on the drivers fender.

My plan was to slowly work all the panels by washing them, using a clay bar on them, having Paintless dent removal on some small parking lot dings then touch up the paint then finally have entire car professionally polished.

This would have left just the rear bumper needing to be worked and painted.

Yesturday I was hoping I could just take some Acetone and rub off the old pin stripe with little effort. Well it worked great on the orginal pin stripe yet I found out the hard way the new pin stripe was put after clear coat like normal yet some how half of the pin stripe is buried under clear coat ( like it may have had a second repair at one point )

I guess I will be having more of this car painted than I wanted to.

If this car was painted any color other than white I would have been able to see the clear over the pin stripe, yet White is so blinding to look at it was easy to miss.

Had I known this before hand I would just paid someone to re pinstripe the entire car which i can still do but I will have a small area of clear coat that I will have to blend in somehow.

[Tiggie]

Bummer. I have had moderate success using a spray bomb in a similar situation with my Ranger. I used a higher quality clear (still 1K not 2K, which would be better). I sprayed only the affected area, and then sanded with 1500 grit and buffed, taking 98% of the spray bomb off the real clear coat, but leaving it down in the crevices left by the stripe removal.

[EaOutlaw1969]

I have a feeling a whole car paint job may be best for my car, I will wait until I see what is under the vinyl roof.

I may opt to spend the money I would spend on a new top and put it towards a paint job and just eliminate the carriage roof.

So far nearly every panel has some sort of issue that could be touched up to make it look better yet the time it would take to save each panel may just not be worth the effort and pain.

I am starting to think I need to sell this car and save up for a better condition better cared for garage kept MGM or Towncar.

Investing the amount of money needed to get the car where I would be happy with it is making less sense each day.

It is a shame because the car is really a good low mileage car with lots of life left in it.

Yet it is easier for me to spend little each month on it then come up with large amount of cash to buy a different car.

For now I will keep doing what I can while spending as little as possible on it, hopefully by the time I run out of things i can do I will be happy with what the car looks like.