big block ken

Well, the engine compartment is now stunning. But I should have put the car cover on. The paint can over spray drifted and planted itself onto my 3 month old paint job. Even after washing it well, the rear deck and upper sides feel gritty. How do I remove this without damaging the clear coat and paint underneath? Clay bar it? Will that rub it in more? WAAAA!

DansYellow66

With paint it's always advisable to go with the least aggressive approach first - which would be clay bar using plenty of lubricant spray. Try a small area first but it should not harm the paint as long as you fold the clay over regularly and use plenty of spray. It will probably take most, if not all of it off. What kind of paint was it - lacquer?

Since this is new paint - if clay bar doesn't remove it, you should probably contact your painter for advice before going to the next step. He may need to polish or compound it.

RK-TECT

KC John

I just finished getting some over spray off my hood. I used Speed Shine and a clay bar from Griot"s. It came right off without any trouble.

jasonsamara

I'm no expert but my mom had a glob of touch up paint on her crv. Now if yours is bc cc like new cars you could do like I did and try gas on a rag.

SpartyGW

Don't panic, it will come off. I did the same thing but it was my wife's minivan that got a nice mist of Chevy orange.

Clay bar or a nanoskin sponge. If you haven't tried the nanotech sponge I prefer it over clay

rws.1

clay bar is your friend

big block ken

The clay bar and detail spray worked great. I did the entire rear deck and upper quarter panels so far, which were the worst. Right away I could see black paint (from detailing the firewall or chassis) on the clay. I kneaded it over well and kept spraying and wiping with a clean micro fiber cloth. Tomorrow I'm going to buy a new clay bar kit and go over the rest of the paint. The shop that painted it looked at it earlier today and told me that it would be $150 to remove it. And he couldn't do it for 2 weeks. He also said that he would clay bar it then use other polish to detail it. So I guess I can now give that 3 months old paint it's first coat of wax and polish. And keep the flannel car cover on from now on! We cave men do stupid stuff sometime. UG.

SDVette

Another vote for claybar. It will remove overspray without any abrasives. Use lots of lubricant! I would say NO to gas on a rag!

big block ken

No problem. I would only use gas on a rag to look into the fuel tank.

Gary's '66

Believe it or not, years ago I once saw a guy start to check the level in his motorcycle tank with a lighter.

I stopped the fool before he blew himself to smithereens.

Of course, there had been quiet a bit of imbibing at the time.

Gary

jasonsamara

This thread must have jinxed me We have a drive in movie cruise tomorrow night and I strolled into the garage after dinner just to look things over real quick. Took the cover off the hood and I was like "what the BLEEP is that?" Last week I cleaned it all up and left in the driveway while I took my dog and daughter on a walk. It was dark when we got back and I backed it in the garage and a freaking bird crapped on the hood and I never saw it when I covered it up. So for 5 days it has been sitting there I was very careful to get it off, but of course the "outline" was still there. I'm a huge believer in the clay bar, but I also understand it's not gonna remove scratches. I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed for 1/2 an hour and actually got it almost all out. I switched over to some Meguiars scratch remover, then clay bar again and finally NXT 2.0 and all is well again. It took a ton of elbow grease but well worth it in the end. I know I have seen a more aggresive clay bar by Meguiars in Carlisle. I believe it's a gray color. Does anyone have experience with one of these?

DansYellow66

With all good intentions and compassion, you interrupted the natural course of Darwin's theory of evolution which after millions of such interventions is resulting in the dumbing down of America. I've come to believe the best course in such situations would be to just let him blow himself up.

ifitgoesfast

Since the OP's paint job is only 3 months old, is this safe to do now, or should he wait? How long does it take for the paint to fully harden that you could be aggressive with it like this?

Frankie the Fink

If its base/clear coat 3 months is plenty of time to wait before doing other procedures. How aggressive you can be depends largely on how thick a coating of clear is on the car.

jasonomara: I don't cover up my cars in the garage anymore...more damage is done by that than by other hazards. One piece of grit in the cover and you get a nice scratch...even without the grit micro-scratches creep on to the car. And, in Florida's humidity, I don't care how 'breathable' a cover is you're rolling the dice covering up a car for very long.....a good way to cloud your clear coat.

Get yourself a Porter-Cable 2474XP buffer and some McQuier's Ultra Glaze and your bird poo problem would have taken about 5 minutes to fix. Once you have one of these setups you'll wonder how you got by without it. Designed for the hobbyist you won't hurt anything or 'burn through' if used per instructions...

wraplock

I've been into Harley Davidson Motorcycles and classic cars for about 45 years. I painted more motorcycles than I can count. Recently while trolling the Harley forums I learned a tip I was never aware of. The question was raised by a fellow forum member about the best way to remove bug splat and bird droppings on paint and acrylic windshields on Harleys. The windshields in particular are very easily scratched when washing or trying to remove dead bugs (very common problem on motorcycles windshields). A guy came on the forum and said to create a mix 50/50 of water and hydrogen peroxide in a common household spray bottle. Spray a liberal amount of the mixture on the dead bugs or bird droppings and let it sit. the hydrogen peroxide attacks protein so it softens up these spots and allows you to harmlessly hose them off. I now keep a bottle in my garage at all times.

I have a friend whose daily driver was a c3. He lived on the sound shore in Connecticut and one day took his car to the beach. He left it parked all day in the sun and found when he returned that a bird had left a big deposit on his hood. When he got home he tried to wash it off but found that the poo had attacked his paint beyond repair and he had to have it repainted. So get it off as soon as you can.

Don

jasonsamara

I agree with the car cover, my car covers consist of 3 bed sheets on each car because I Agee with u about full car covers and I'm gonna get one of those buffers.

Frankie the Fink

As far as insects; damn Florida 'love bugs' little corpses turn to acid in about 24 hours...I've had em leave divots in the clear coat on my 2006 Durango when I didn't deal with 'em right away.

As far as the buffer - with a little practice you can take your paint from a so-so look to show quality appearance in a ridiculously short time...
Its the perfect final step after a clay bar treatment too...

Your next investment will be a Taser to get admirers to keep their damn hands off of it.

ifitgoesfast

Don, that's an awesome tip. I'm assuming it doesn't hurt anything else? I have a sports bike I could use this tip for, as well as hardtop plexi I need to clean. Thanks!

Bill32

The minimum air dry time on the good stuff like PPG High Solids Concept 2021 depends on which hardener was used,

BUT that min. dry time is 10 or 12 hours depending on the hardener.

So, you can sand & polish at 12 hours.

These new paints really don't "dry" , they catalyze.

I've hit clear coat with 1000 grit one day after shooting it.