The couple that own this truck are very proud of it. It's their work truck but they worked hard to afford it and enjoy it very much. You can imagine their shock when they discovered they had driven over fresh white road paint that got all down the side of the truck. It was all over the 2 side doors, heavily coated inside the wheel wells as well as on the face of the wheels and on the running boards as well. They fought the municipality until they finally agreed to cover the cost. They had brought it to me a few weeks ago and I tried some Tarminator and clay. The clay was destroyed just doing a small section but it did work. I warned them about waiting too long as it would only be worse to remove. I was actually dreading the job to be honest. An entire month has transpired since the paint got on there and we have had cold temps to make it bond on the surface very well. To give you an idea what I was up against, this is not dirt, but paint: Befores: I guess the Gods pity fools, because yesterday was the only day we have had above freezing in over a week. I would have hated to do this in the garage. I asked the customer to wash it prior to bringing it to me. I tried a number of different approaches starting with mild and amping it up to the point where I thought I might be doing more harm than good. Luckily, GM clear is pretty darned hard so that gave me some leeway on what I could do. First up: Tarminator and clay. Was taking too long and not working as well as it had done a few weeks ago. Second try: Varsol (a strong solvent) with both clay and a magic eraser...yes, you read that right. Also, not strong enough. Third try: Tarminator and magic eraser. This did pretty well on the paint. A magic eraser is roughly equivalent to 3000 grit wet sand paper. This was working on the paint, but not on the plastic wheel wells where it was thick as a penny. I made sure I kept spraying Tarminator on the m.e. as well as ample coverage on the panel. I figured this was going to give me marring but at this point, that was a given. Surprisingly, it did not. Not what I expected. 4th try: White scrubby and tarminator on wheel wells. This was just so difficult to remove, it was not funny. I wished I had a plastic razor blade as I'm sure it could have helped in this location. The other thing I found helped was to let the Tarminator dwell WAY longer than recommended and then blast it with the concrete spray nozzle for my power washer. The Karcher comes with a spray nozzle that is not intended for paint but rather doing your driveway or garage. If I placed it about 1/4 or 1/2 inch away from the paint (road paint on the wheel well), it would slowly dislodge it. A lot of work. Slow. Pain staking. 5th try: The bottom of the forward door had it on very thick and it did not want to budge. I used the white scrubbie on it and got marring which I fully expected it to. But, it did get rid of the paint. So after I had removed the paint, I washed the truck completely. First was a foam job followed by 2 bm: You can see after washing and before drying how it looked. It definitely needed compounding but the paint was gone: Areas in need of polishing: Scratch to be repaired: The Process: Wheels/Tires/Wells: The wheels had the road paint removed using the magic eraser and Tarminator. The wheels were shot with a strong 2:1 solution of Carbrite wheel acid. The tires were cleaned with Zep purple The wells were cleaned with Zep citrus The wheels were subsequently polished with Collinite Metal wax The tires were dressed with Opti Bond. The wells were dressed with Adams U.S. Chrome: The rest of the chrome (running boards and grille) was also polished with Colli metal wax. <great stuff> Exterior Trim: This consisted of the rubber strips on the running boards as well as the liner at the top of the pickup box which were treated with DG flat black trim dressing. Paint: Marring and scratches were corrected with either an orange LCC hydro pad and/or a purple foamed wool pad with M105 using my Dynabrade rotary. Paint polishing was done with with my DA using a blue LCC hydro pad and M205 at speed 5.5 A mix of DG 501/601 was applied and allowed to haze. A coating of Collinite 845 was applied as the LSP. A shot of DG AW was applied to remove any haze and give the surface a final buff. After Shots: It was snowing like a bugger so the shots were done inside unfortunately. They looked fine on the camera, but I guess I should have used a tripod...they are a bit shaky. Oh well. Here ya go, you get the idea nonetheless: All in all, a 12 hour job. Thanks for looking. Comments are welcomed and appreciated. Rich
Ouch. I know how tough road paint can be to get off. I drove through some a long time ago. Luckily I didn't wait a month to remove it. Great job on getting that truck all fixed up. I'm sure the owners were more than pleased.
Wow great job Richy. I bet the owners were ecstatic to get their truck back looking like that. Good job not only on the clean up but doing a good deed for a couple who seemed to really deserve it.
Rich - Holy Cow !! How much paint was on the road, and how in the world does one run over wet white paint and not notice it??? You did an absolutely amazing job of fixing this - congratulations on a beautiful turn around!:applause2: You were definitely innovative in your approach to removing the paint - great job ! I hope I never have to remove that much paint, but if I do, I will remember some of your processes - thanks so much for your time to post up all this great info and pics ! Dan F
Thanks very much. No question, the longer you wait, the worse it is to remove. They were quite pleased, yes. Chas, thanks a lot. They were worried it was beyond repair so you can imagine how pleased they were. They really loved how the wheels came out too. Thanks Dan. Get yourself some Tarminator. If caught right away, just spray on the surface, let dwell a minute or so and wipe off. Same for tar or road paint. It's great stuff. If it sits for a long time, you do need to get creative, LOL. Thanks Ken. I was very pleased how it turned out!
Very nice work Richy :mounty: that must of been a pita to remove. I could only imagine how happy your customers were after getting to see it come back in such great shape.
Thanks Danny. PITA is an understatement. Thank you for your comments. Yes, it is. Thanks for commenting Jon.
Great work, your persistency really shows in the "after pics." I'm sure the customer was thrilled that you didn't give up. -Kody-
Hell of a turnaround on that for sure. I'd have a stroke if I saw that all over the side of my truck. Great job on the removal, but where's the CQuartz?:giggle:
I'd be out of my mind if something like that happened to my truck, so I can only imagine that the owner was more than happy to cough up the money. Fantastic work, I hope you get a ton of referrals from them!
Kody, thanks very much. If there's one thing I'm certainly guilty of, it's being stubborn. There was no way I was going to let that beat me. I didn't even talk to them about it. They want to bring it back to me once a year now to keep it in this shape. I will show them the difference the next time they bring it. Even with my "old" way of doing it, it will have fabulous protection for the winter. Marcus, I sure did, bud. Thanks for the feedback. Lucky for them, it shouldn't cost them anything out of pocket. Funny you say that about the referrals, they have friends who have done the same thing...I told them not to wait to get it to me. Thanks Dave, I appreciate the feedback.
