Refinishing gravel guard textured paint?

[94 R2]

Hello,


Searched but was not able to find specific info on detailing or refinishing "gravel guard" paint. Any specific tips or is it business as usual?


I recently purchased a silver '94 Mazda RX-7 in excellent condition. However, the lower portion of fenders down to the rear bumper is painted with a textured coating (referred to as gravel guard...the only term I've heard used to describe it) which has slightly yellowed compared to the rest of the paint, along with a milky haze in some areas. Anything I should know about refinishing this area, or should be treated the same as the rest of the car? I'd like to bring it back to or at least as close as possible to the hue of the rest of the car.


Thanks

 

[Calendyr]

The way gravel guard is done is like this:

Normally, you have a metal sealant applied followed by a primer. Sometimes both are in the same product.
Then you have you base coat applied (this is the color of the paint)
Then you have a clear coat applied on top, which is a transparent varnish.

Where you have gravel guard, the protected area is sprayed with a thick lumpy paint between the primer and base coat. So it's a thick layer of paint applied to areas where paint might chip due to debris being thrown at it.

You can't really correct that area because of the texture, you would simply polish the peaks and the valleys would be un-affected.

So most of the options you have include painting, not detailing...

You can try to clean it as well as you can and see how it comes out. I would start with a tar and iron decontamination. Afterwards you can use a very soft brush and use an APC. If that doesn't do anything you will have to either:

1) Sand down to metal and repaint the whole area with the method explained higher up.
2) Purchase a colormatch single stage paint and spray on top of the current paint after abbraiding it down with a brow (red) scotchpad to insure adherance of the new paint to the old one.

The last option is probably the easiest one to do and also the cheapest one. Duplicolor makes a lot of color match paint, so there is a good chance you can find the one for your car. Otherwise it will be complicated to find single stage paint. You will likelly have to get basecoat and clearcoat cans which is a lot more expensive and time consuming to do.

 

[94 R2]

Interesting. Thank you for your response. Neither of those are options I'm willing to explore given the condition/purpose of the car. Looks like I'll be cleaning it to the best of my ability.

Pic attached for reference. The yellowing is not as apparent in this pic versus others, but it's a good representation.

 

[Calendyr]

The car looks very good from this distance. How is the paint upclose? Are you planning to polish it?

 

[94 R2]

The paint itself is in excellent condition. I just gave it a wash and plan on polishing/sealing tonight right after I clay-bar.

 

[SWETM]

Maybe a non abrasive paint cleaner on a mf finishing pad could work or a longhaired wool pad with very fine hair to it. So the pads reach to the valleys and is not so aggressive on the tops. Or the same paint cleaner on a mf towel and doing it by hand. First as recommend before a tar remover and iron remover and a APC to get it as clean as possible.