Restore - Page 2
Waxes & polishes
Time to polish the LeBaron one last time before I put her away for the fall/winter season. I first waxed the car just after I bought it in July. I did this partly to improve the look of the car but mainly it was to remove oxidized dead paint to be able to get a better look at the body panels. Old dead paint does not reflect light back to the eye as efficiently as fresh paint does and this can hide small dings, scratches and other flaws in the paint and body. After the first wax job I noticed dings I hadn't before and a few key gouges someone did before I owned it. When I did the second wax job I was able to see that the car had been repainted along the passengers side up to and including the door. This indicates that this car was in an accident at some point and was repaired. Everything fits along the body panels and nothing is out of alignment so it couldn't have been a very bad accident. However, the trunk, the passenger rear quarter panel and the door have all been repainted and possibly replaced.
LeBaron Polish Job Part 1
The two "waxes" I used were actually polishes made by NuFinish. The first was their Once-a-Year-Car-Polish that I have used on a number of older cars I have owned in the past. It strips off old oxidized paint with comparative ease but I would caution this products use on a newer car with fresher paint - it's just too aggressive. The second polish I used and the one you see in the pics was their Scratch Doctor scratch removal product. I used it all over the car because it is meant to remove swirl marks and scratches. I was not as thrilled with this product and next time I will go back to the Once-a-Year-Car-Polish as I feel it worked better on removing small scratches and swirls in the paint. When I am finished polishing I always follow up with spray wax that I get when I wash my car. This helps to protect the bare finish that the polishes leave behind.
Part 2
I like to polish my car myself- it allows me to see everything about the body, all the good and the bad. After the second polish job I have decided that the LeBaron will have to have some body work and a paint job in the future if I wish to keep it in top shape.
Now I am debating where to get it painted and what type of paint job (and color!) I will ultimately get. Many of the modern paints are soft, I know I will want something durable.The last time I painted a car it took me 2 years to find just the right color (I went with a blue-purple with a red pearl finish:) ) . The body work itself only took me 5 weeks and it was a ground-up resto! The LeBaron by comparison will be MUCH easier because it has no rust to repair and there just isn't as much damage to fix.
Part 3
The engine is a bit of an embarrassment! It needs a shampoo very badly but because this car is computer controlled and has so many sensors that REALLY don't like to get wet, I have held off on doing this. I suspect I will have to clean the engine and the engine bay by hand which should be fun as it looks like a tight fit in there to me!
