MX-3.com

Here is my 'new' MX-3. It's a completely stock 1992 MX-3 GS with a manual.

This is what it looked like the day I test drove it. It's in relatively great shape. These first several posts will be detailing the cleaning and buffing process. The paint is decent, but has a lot of oxidation, some scratches, and some dents.

clean

We started with the hood. This is what it looked like after being washed:





Here are some scratches above the passenger side headlight:





This is the first pass with the coarsest rubbing compound. You can already see the difference.





Wide shot of the same spot:

Here is half the hood after one pass with buffer. Also, notice the driver side headlight has been buffed.




Here is the trouble spot above the headlight again. This is after a little more work in that spot.




Here is the same trouble spot after many passes with finer compound and finally a light coat of wax.




And here is the final result!

I think it's sexy and I like it a lot,,,. Great job on the headlites did you just buff them the same as the hood.

Yeah, we buffed the headlights the same as the hood.

Wow... what a result with the paint !

Up next: Front Fenders, Doors, and Mirrors

Starting with the mirrors. The passenger side was worse off. Here is the before, some where in process, and end result.

Here is the driver side door before, during, and final result.






Notice the difference from the door handle back. This is partway through the first pass on this door.

Polishing a car that old wouldn't you basically be removing the clear coat? So you'd really need to keep up the wax after? I'm just asking because I want to get my car buffed but I don't want long term head aches as a result.

I'm really liking the progress! Can't wait to see it all shined up!

Dan, didn't J-beef have the whole car resprayed at one time? Or, other than the added body parts, its all original paint?

Daninski wrote:Polishing a car that old wouldn't you basically be removing the clear coat? So you'd really need to keep up the wax after? I'm just asking because I want to get my car buffed but I don't want long term head aches as a result.

That is a good question. I really don't know how much you take off in the polishing process. In my case, the car won't be a daily driver, will see minimal rain, and definitely won't be seeing snow and salt. So from that point of view, I'm not too concerned with taking some clear coat off to improve the looks. And, yes, I will be keeping up on waxing.

Here is the next round. We got the roof and front bumper polished.

Roof Before:





Roof After:

Bumper before and afters

Passenger side:





Driver side:

And finally here is the difference between the B pillar and rear fender which has not been polished yet.






And here are two good shots of the front end. All that's left are the rear fenders, back bumper, and the rest of the hatch/spoiler. Those will have to wait until after Thanksgiving, however.