78 c3 silver anniversary

Some questions on body/paint. Not looking for mint restore, it’s driver condition, very much original though. Quite sure my car was re-painted once from original based on some overpaint in gas door,etc.

Based on pics, any recommendations on how to bring more vibrancy to paint? Clay bar and compound and polish? I’m not going to repaint for 10s thousands and I’m quite sure there isn’t anything I can do to the bumper (is there)?

Any recommendations? Hesitant on wet sanding as I don’t want to make things worse. Open to any advice.






Can see some overspray/masking issues here leading me to believe not original

 

Take your car around to a few bodyshops, let them look at it and give you their assessment how they'd go about repairing the cracked area, and the cost. Hit at least 3-4 shops. Avoid the big shops which need to churn a lot of cars..you want to find some local shops which do a variety of vehicles, not just crash-work. Those bigger shops are experts at 'quickie' jobs that look good to most people, not finicky Classic Car owners. You want a shop who will give attention to detail, take time to get a good colormatch, and mask the area up so as not to get overspray all over everything.

I've painted many cars and worked at a couple bodyshops when I was in college and do my own stuff in the last 30x yrs. Essentially the shop will need to sand down the cracked area of the nose to the base urethane in the area of the cracks, then build up with primer and prepwork. Then repainted. They should be able to paint the nose only ...and gently blend the silver 'outward' from the cracks and therefore get a real nice blend. There *could* be a slight off-color in the area of the crack where it meets the hood (just in that area), but it might be insignificant to almost zero. And I would say it's worth living with if it's slightly off there rather than pile more paint/clear onto the hood. Like I say the blend might turn out great too. Silver is a difficult color to match. Just one drop more of black when yer mixing and it's off. But overall the cracked area isn't a difficult fix. Just takes time. And you want to leave it to a shop which knows what they're doing. It's pretty standard repair work honestly that shops do on a daily basis.

Then I would ask the bodyshop to give you a number to buff it out with a foam pad. Again, that's stuff they do day in and day out. If it's been clear-coated they ought to make it look great again...don't bother with miracle clay products. That's a lot of work ...Get a good quality buff job. Shops do that everyday too. Make sure they're not putting their summer high-school help behind the buffer.

It looks like dried wax at the base of the antenna nut, unless I'm seeing it wrong. See if you can rub it away with your fingernail.

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Great suggestions. I would only add and note is that the stripes are decal...or they were initially.

 

I'm thinking those cracks in the urathane front bumper cover look scary. Those covers are noted for rotting away. Very scary looking indeed.

 

The cracks are from someone driving into something immovable ...like something in the garage or more likely a yellow parking lot post. It's difficult for most people to see over the hood, esp shorter people. It's not scary ....its just cracked paint. There could be multiple coats of paint on there ...there usually is on older corvettes. The previous painter probably didn't use a flex-agent in the paint/clear on the bumper cover (to give the paint more flexibility). And it wouldn't matter if he did...if a person hit a parking lot post. It would still crack, maybe to a lesser degree, but it would happen even on a newer car and you'd still have the bigger booger in front where it got hit.

The fix is to remove the cracked paint with a sander down to the urethane, fix the front boogered-up area in the front, build the surface back up with primer, and re-paint. Pretty simple for a bodyshop.

Note: You could remove the fuel door bezel screws, and try removing the overspray with lacquer thinner...or just repaint the bezel (off the car) with semi-flat or satin black. And would be a good idea to replace the torn rubber boot while you're at it.

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The clay bar part is easy. Can be done in your garage. Those paint cracks cannot be buffed out.
At any body shop you visit look for cars that have layers of shop dust on them then don't walk away run away.
Except at resto shops the typical body shops make their money and their workers make their money on late model repairs.
I would check with local Corvette car clubs or local car clubs to see who they have used with good results.