Quote:
Originally Posted by Othen
People may recall that the paint on the RB's roof was quite faded due to the sun when I bought it back in February - compounded by the awful shark's fin spoiler that I just had to remove (which left a brighter green patch beneath and where it had been stet).
I used this as an excuse to buy myself a mechanical polisher and have had a go at the roof this morn (it is a glorious day here). I was hoping for a miraculous improvement that scrubbed away the years, just like Ed China achieves on Wheeler Dealers. The outcome (after a scrub with the cutting compound and a good polish afterwards) is an definite improvement but isn't as good as I was hoping for.
I don't think I can go any deeper with the cutting compound without starting to rub through the paint, so I have a few options:
a. Get a professional respray - I think we can discount this from the outset, the car is Cyprus Metallic Green and would be almost impossible to match after 40 years - so the whole car would have to be prepared and painted, and it just isn't worth enough to make that viable.
b. Rattle can spray the roof myself - this is a good possibility, and wouldn't cost much (about £50 worth of Volvo 136 and some elbow grease). I have already done the boot (some months ago), which is okay - but isn't the same shade as the old paint surrounding it after all those photons hitting it for the past 40 years.
c. Rattle can the roof a different colour - probably black to match the tops of the wings. It might be okay - but might look a bit naff.
d. Leave it alone; accept the paint is 40 years old and give it a good polish to keep the sun and rain off from time to time.
... I'm thinking aloud with this one: option 'd' is probably the best way to go.
:-)
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You forgot
Option e Alan!
I kow the 70s were the main haydays of the black vinyl roof but given your car is 1980 it could easily have been carried over and would have been a period accessory and maybe (but not sure on this) a factory option. I know Ford offered the black vinyl roof as an option on most of their cars and some other colours too. The texture makes them look better than black paint, you can buy textured paint that allegedly gives a vinyl effect but often these are disappointing.
The company i linked to also does fitting and is somewhere around the west midlands so not horrendously far if you wanted them to fit it. Not sure on the fitted cost but wouldn't think it would be that much - cheaper than a respray and would also mean if you had the rest of the car repsrayed at some point, the respray would then be cheaper as they wouldn't have to do the roof.