the FJ Cruiser arrived late this afternoon. The big rig had to drop it about a mile from the house due to tight roads/turns. I had three people come up and ask me what happened to it as I was settling up with the delivery driver. It was out of gas, so I kept my fingers crossed on the drive up the hill. Got home and pulled out the Flex 3401 and some Lake Country Orange Pads, some Rupes Blue Pads and some Rupes Uno Pads. I pulled out my gallon jug of Optimum Compound, only to find that it was dried out! Thankfully there was only about 1/3 of the bottle left. I used the Rupes Blue Course for most of the truck. I started with the Orange pads with the Rupes Blue, it did a pretty good job of removing the paint, patience, patience, patience. Not super quick, but the paint did come off. Problem was that the Orange pads got clogged very quickly. I went through 14 pads. I switched over to a Rupes blue pad with the Rupes Blue Course chemical. It worked really well. As I loaded the pads with chemical, the paint came off pretty quickly, for a few minutes. As the chemical seeped into the pad, the cut slowed down. I was using four or five, grapes sized drops of chemical for each pad reload. I also used four Rupes Uno pads. They worked well, as did the Rupes Blue pads. The stiffer pads worked better than the Lake Country Orange pads. There were some thicker spray paint spots that just didn't want to come off. I pulled out some 2500 grit wet sanding paper. I lightly worked on the thicker spots with the wet sanding paper. It worked really well. I was concerned with taking off too much of the clear, so I tried to limit the wet sanding paper to the actual spray painted spots, the best that I could. I stared on the FJ Cruiser around 6 pm and finished up around 9:15 pm. I called it a day out of concern for my neighbors. The Flex isn't as quiet as the Rupes. I was already a bit embarrassed driving the truck into my neighborhood with the offensive language painted on the side. I spent another 30 minutes cleaning out the interior, lots of broken glass chips, dust and fast food wrapper shoved under the seats.......had a few raccoon footprints on the seats too. They must have come through the broken rear quarter glass......I also did a quick wipe down of the engine compartment, lots of Utah and Idaho dirt and dust........Somebody had some fun with this FJ Cruiser!
The paint on the truck is surprisingly smooth. I intend on doing a full detail once I get the windshield and rear quarter glass replaced, but when I washed it prior to starting on the spray paint, the hood and top felt as if they had been recently clayed. Keep in mind that this truck has been sitting outside at an auction lot in Utah since August. Lots of sun, heat and recently snow.
The Toyota has really nice silver paint, with a white top. It should look pretty nice when it is all polished out. I am really please with the progress so far. (although I am not looking forward to cleaning 14 pads tomorrow........) The panels where the paint was look great. I will need to follow up with some Rupers Yellow or White to get the full gloss. I will probably top it off with Some HD Speed or some Black Fire One Step.
The suggestions for the various liquids are greatly appreciated. The truck arrived after most local shops and stores were closed for the evening and I wanted to get the spray paint off asap. They probably would have cut the cleaning process down to 30 minutes. I will add some photos from tonight and add some better ones in the daylight tomorrow. All the best. Glad to see the Autogeek pre-Black Friday sale kicking off. I need some chemicals and want to finally pull the trigger on the 303 Graphene Spray.
