Noob with a 911 and a PC

R

rickdm

New member
I am looking for some suggestions for detailing my Black 1987 911. After lurking in the forum for a while I have learned a great deal, and purchased a PC with a variety of pads, AIO, SMR, SSR 2.5, SSR 1, and Natty blue. I have also looked at all of the threads I could dig up about working on old Porsches with single stage paints. The car is a very nice one, it has been a garaged track/weekend car for the last 15 years, so it has a lot of small rock chips, but not a lot of sun damage. I have been treating it with AIO and it looks OK, but it has a fair amount of light swirling. My questions are these;



-I see that after working the paint the pads come out loaded with paint color. Does this just happen the first time, or am I really taking that much paint off the car each time I do it? Will this wear out the paint? I have heard people talk a bout a dry paint, how can you tell?



-Any products that work better with this paint than others? I was going to start with a white LC pad with SSR1 and move to an orange pad with SSR2.5 if I need more. I did some practice with my daughters very neglected 96 Sentra, and I was very pleased with the SMR and an orange pad. I was going to finish it with AIO and Natty Blue.



-Any suggestions for products to polish the lenses and windshield?



Thank you for sharing your knowledge on this site, I have learned a great deal.



rickdm
 
rickdm- Welcome to Autopia! I don't know how helpful I can be as I don't use the SSR line and I haven't had a single stage paint Porsche since my '78, and that was a *long* time ago...



You'll always get s bit of color transfer to the pads. It oughta be less when the paint is "healthy", that is not oxidized (which is, BTW, pretty much what the "dried out" paint thing is all about). Using milder products will result in less paint getting polished off and thus less transfer. Yeah, you *can* take off so much that you run out of paint but it takes a while. The best thing to do is *not* mar the paint so you don't have to polish off very much to keep it looking nice.



Start mild when polishing, you might not need as aggressive an approach as you'd think. Single stage black is generally a very soft paint so it will probably cut easily (probably more so than your daughter's car).



Some single stage paints really respond well to "oily" products, such as the older stuff from Meguiar's (products designed for ss paint). I like this approach myself rather than the AIO-type route (which I use on other vehicles that have basecoat/clear paint).



If it were mine, I'd probably polish it out with the SSR stuff and then apply one of Meguiar's "pure polishes" (#5/#3/#81/#7 in order of user-friendliness or Deep Crystal Step #2) and then I'd top with your Natty's. This would also hide some remaining imperfections. Won't provide the protection of a synthetic approach, but as long as you're not leaving it outside 24/7 in the Arizona sun or something like that you oughta be fine.



Oh, and I'd sure try to perfect your wash technique so you don't mar it once you get it nice ;)



I haven't done anything for headlights beyond using regular polishes on them and I've never found any satisfactory way to polish glass. I clay it, maybe clean it with a "glass polish" but most often with just regular glass cleaner, and if it gets too chipped/marred I replace it.
 
Hi rickdm. You didn't mention having any clay. I would clay first before you start any polishing.

I think you are right and you black paint is ss. I would forget about starting out with the lc white pad and SSR1. Not really agressive enough to do much, I'd save that for the last polishing step.



I'd wash

clay

polish LC orange SSR2.5

polish LC white SSR1

AIO

Nattys



For lenses it depends how bad they are. If their just dirty Plexus is good. If their a little scratched up you could try Meguiars Plastic cleaner #17 followed up with #10. For the windshield try AIO.
 
Hi rickdm,



Follow Accumulator's advice he's helped me a bunch. I have a ss Guards Red '96 993 and yes paint does come off. As far as the lenses go I also have an '84 with the same lenses as yours and have had real good luck on both cars with Zaino's plastic polish.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I just got it back from the shop this afternoon, and the paint really does look pretty good. I have put #7 on before and it helped, but I then followed it up with AIO (would that take it off?). Maybe I will just skip that step and see what happens. I was pretty brave with the PC on my daughter's car, but using it on the 911 is going to take a bit more nerve.



Thank you,

rickdm
 
rickdm- Heh heh, aw, go ahead and use the PC on that Porsche- really, you'll do fine ;)



The #7 hides some marring and yeah, the AIO will clean it off (which will make the marring reappear). #7 is nice on single stage paint like yours though.



You could always get some Meg's #80 and try that. Not that there's anything wrong with the other stuff, but #80 is pretty much foolproof and leaves a finish sorta like the #7 (which you could even use after the #80). Yeah, #80/#7/wax, that'd work well and look great.
 
Would you machine apply #7? Does it have any abrasives, or is it just a filler/glaze? I have a yellow, orange, white and gray pad. Would I use the gray since it is the least abrasive and just use it to spread it out evenly?



BTW I clayed the car about a year ago, but I will check it to make sure it is still good.



Thanks,

rickdm
 
I do most everything I can by machine. Actually, I don't like to use the finishing pad with #7, it sorta gums up. As long as your mildest polishing pad is so soft that it won't mar the finish (it oughta be), I'd use that. The white pad from Lake County should work fine.



Yeah, the #7 is nonabrasive, it's just oils/fillers/etc.



I'm sorta clay-centric in my detailing so yeah, I'd clay it.



The mildest of your SSR products would be a perfectly safe place to start; I really would do *some* kind of abrasive polishing. That's assuming you have more than one white pad ;) Seriously, something like SSR1 won't hurt anything as long as you don't drop the PC on the car and will provide a nice clean surface for the #7 even if it (the SSR1) ends up being too mild to remove the marring. Sorry for the hard sell on polishing but it's just the thing to do (IMO of course :o ).
 
Thanks again for the suggestions, and don't worry, after spending all this money on a PC, I sure plan to get some use out of it :xyxthumbs



rickdm
 
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