Hardbody Reconditioning Tips - Removing scratches and painting

[Ramination]

First, I have never done any work like fixing, building or painting any hardbody. Advice/links for noobs would be great.

I am looking for tips and advice on reconditioning my FJ Cruise hardbody. I love this thing, wheel it every weekend and the body has seen better days. I'd like to remove the scratches and then repaint it, but there are a few rough edges, for example, the hood area and along the doors and a couple of gouges too.


After some searching, I intend to do some fine wet sanding to knock out the scratches, but I am not sure what to do about the chipped edges around the hood??? Bondo? I feel like anything like that will immediately chip off the first time I roll it.

Also looking for advice on which kind of paint to use.

Here are some pictures of the body's condition now.











Hopefully I can get it to look like this again:

[Ramination]

Bumping my own thread for some views this week.


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[Hoosierdady]

Really the only thing you can do is use some filler for the heavy scratches and sand out the others. Id use some filling primer from the automotive section at Walmart or at Autozone. It'll take a while to dry so spray it lightly. Tha'll get all of the light scratches out. As for chips, use CA glue (or Bondene or Tenax 7R) and styrene. On the paint, I like Testors or Modelmaster.

[Ramination]

Thanks for weighing in here, your work is great. I'd found elsewhere testers paint was a good one, I think I'll be going with that brand. Thanks again.


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[Ramination]

I am feeling confident on the body now, any advice on taking the scratches out of the windows? Although they are very dark, they are see through still.

[french_connection]

I would think that a very fine wet sand, then a polishing wheel after is probably your best bet. Unless someone has a better trick. This does the job on car headlights, so it should work ok for your windows. Test on a spare part first like everything else.

[heartless]

Meguire's PlastX plastic polish is awesome stuff for a final polish on those windows. If the scratches are deep, you wont get them all the way out, but you can minimize the appearance.

Use ultra fine wet/dry papers (800 - 2000 grit) - WET! - to lightly sand out minor scratches. after the 2000 grit, use the Meguires polish and you will barely notice anything left behind.

I have used this method on both vehicle headlight housings and the lexan motorcycle windshields with great success.

[Ramination]

Great tips, thanks a lot guys.

[2WheelFlyer]

I vote too for the Meguiar's plastic polishing compound, it works great. I have removed a lot of scratches on diecast model windows that I've bought used, they look brand new.

Use Rhino liner on the body! lol

[Hobine]

These things work great. They run from 1500 to 12,000 grit and will polish out most scratches.

http://www.amazon.com/MICRO-MESH-SOF.../dp/B000H6EC4C

[MIKO]

Wet sand, filler, wet sand. As for the windows I have PO85RD which is a dminishing abrasive, if not some plexus will bring them back to life including your lights. You can borrow my porter cable, should make this hell of a lot easier

keep in mind not to get the plastic hot or it will warp

[Ramination]

Thanks for the tips Miko. I think I'd start with the plexus and see how that does first, then maybe try something like the PO85RD (based on my quick research of each product). Does that make sense to you? I assume you use the PO85RD on your car (and it looks like it does a great job!) but do you have first hand experience with plexus hiding scratches?

[MIKO]

Just saw that, plexus will get rid of sanding marks, only sanding will get rid of scratches. Let me know if you need help with the windows

[Ramination]

As a follow-up in case anyone else finds this thread in their searches, I did muster up the courage to tackle this. The body was actually a lot worse when I did the reconditioning than it was in the pictures in post 1. So, I am very happy with how it turned out.

You can find out everything I did in my FJ build thread

Here is how it turned out

[fr8cture]

Looks brand new.

[Ramination]

Good luck!