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Restoring a heavily oxidized bumper (for under £15)


Skezza
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Part 1

On the whole, my Lupo has pretty tidy bodywork. There's a few signs of daily use on the bumper and bonnet, and thanks to a rather unfriendly neighbour, there's also a slight foot shaped dink in the door (luckily you can't see it most of the time).

However, what really lets my Lupo down is the rear bumper... quite clearly an aftermarket replacement that's been done by a shop, it's red paint has heavily heavily oxidized, to the point that I wondered if it had even been sprayed, rather had just been left as a red primer. When I first bought the car, I did try and sort it, but T-Cut and a number of other cutting cleaners were unable to do anything beyond making it's incredibly dull coat, ever so slightly shinier.

Step forward Meguiars Ultimate Compound. I bought this a few months ago after a reading a review online. Supposedly, it's used by people restoring old 60's Jaguars, and vehicles with real nasty crap in their paints top coat. Meguiars actually say that this should only be used if their other products don't work, but to be honest, I couldn't be bothered, seeing as all their products are pretty expensive, so I went straight for this. The results are impressive so far. I decided to do a small patch in the centre of the bumper. I did no prep work at all (I will in part 2) and did a circle around the size of a small plate. I used only circular motion and massaged the area. You could actually feel it cutting through the rough abrasive top coat.

The results speak for themselves:

Left is untreated, on the right is treated.ys0YL5n.jpg

So very positive signs so far. in Part 2, I plan to prep the bumper properly, giving it a proper wash and cleaning any filth that can be taken off by just a decent shampoo. Then I will do restore the entire bumper using just the product, a small buffing pad and my arms. It'll be good to find out whether a whole bottle can do an entire bumper. As far as my pad, I'm just using a 99p buffing pad from eBay.

I'll do proper before an after photos in Part 2.

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Dunno. It needs a few hours and I will have to go over it properly. Yeah, I'll buy a pack of IPA Wipes off eBay.

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Buy a bottle and water it down cheaper.

Are you doing this by hand?

I am yes.

Where do you get a bottle from?

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Just eBay or the likes. Amazon. 99% or 70% rubbing alcohol.

Damn your going to look like the hulk after that.

I reckon it'll take 4 hours, no less. It's all about the prep and patience. I'm not rushing it.

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Maybe yeah? I'm not an expert so there's potential for this to go very wrong lol.

Understatement... take it off when you do it so you can get all of it without getting the main shell.

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Understatement... take it off when you do it so you can get all of it without getting the main shell.

No point in taking it off. I'll just be uber careful when I do it. I might mask off the main shell in fact.

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