duderino

Hi All,
First time poster here, and thanks for the time with this post! I just picked up a 1986 4Runner, and am very happy to have done so! It's my first vintage Toyota, and I would like to try and restore what I'm pretty sure is original paint. The last older car I owned was a '67 Chevelle with original paint, and in an effort to shine it up I used some paint products that made it look worse. This time I want to be careful about how I go about bringing the older paint back to life.

Either the clear coat has worn off, or it's single stage, because when I tried some sap-removal product on it, I had red pigment on my cloth.

I guess my question has to do with the side graphics. For the life of me I cannot find any other examples of this side graphic on an '86, or any other year, on the internet. Does anyone know if it was factory? I also have not been able to find any aftermarket graphic designers that do this design.

What would you all do? Would you buff up the paint, and leave the graphic there? Would you take it off? I like the idea of leaving it there for originality's sake, yet it also looks pretty tired, and I think that if the paint underneath wasn't too altered, it would look better as a solid color. The graphic certainly won't just peel off however, because up close it has a kind of pixelated pattern that has deteriorated.

What do you all think?
Thanks in advance.

Nervo19

The original red is single stage. In your picture it seems to have a tinge of orange. Are you sure it's not a repaint? The fact that the wheels were painted to match make me think it's a Earl Shieb job. It may or might not respond to compounding and buffing.


I've never seen those graphics. They look terrible right now. They probably came from J C Whitney years ago. You could measure and take pictures and see if a vinyl graphics shop can replicate them. I guess you know about James Dean Creations. He sells reproduction OEM style graphics.


You probably know the easy way to get rid of the graphics and pin stripe is the 3M wheel.

RAD4Runner

Welcome to the forum and meet her long-lost sisters...

(In Borrego Springs, CA)

Your paint actually looks in better condition than mine when I first got her. I don't think there's a clear coat on that generation.

I find the decals on the 1986 dated, classic. If it were more golden, I might like it. I'd like to remove mine, but that's low on my list of priorities.

About 2 years ago, I used TR3 glaze on her... See how well it started to work on the tired heavily oxidized hood...


Haven't had the chance to wax her yet, but this is how she looks now (actually a few months ago). Just with TR3. No wax yet:


More important than paint... the first time you experience Click-only but no start problem, do this. The wiring is flawed on our generation.

duderino

Nervo, RAD, thanks very much for the responses! It's possible it could be a repaint, but I just snapped some more pictures and noticed that my camera gives it an orange tint. Nervo, thanks for the input on the graphics! I'm thinking I'm going to try and take them off, and I'll try 3M first.

RAD, thanks for the pics! I actually read the 30 page thread you started on wiring mods on the 4Runner forum. Way cool stuff! Getting this 4Runner has got me interested in cars again, and I want to start working on them myself. One of these days I'm going to do a number of those mods that you described.

Your 1986, polished up, looks spectacular! Did you have to deal with small, old sap and other kinds of deposits sitting on the hood for years? I've got like a hundred of them on the hood, some 3 or 4 millimeters across. I tried Rain-X on them, which didn't do a thing. I scraped one off with a blade and it came off but left tiny scratch marks, which ultimately I might be OK with (maybe some really fine sandpaper afterwards would be OK?) My plan is to try to get all of the larger deposits off, then clay bar it. Then put some product on it, buff it, and wax it.

I hadn't really looked at TR3, but after seeing your pics I really want to check it out! Did you use an electric buffer or just apply by hand? How many hours did you put in? Did you apply product to your removable top and trim too?

I got my '86 DLX from an elderly long-time original owner who couldn't drive it anymore. 330k on it, a 22RE, a 5 speed. Brown interior is in pretty good shape. Loving it! I got an extra set of wheels in the deal, and they are the exact same ones you have in your first picture. One difference between mine and yours is my grill is black as are my side mirrors. I also have this pin striping on there.
Thanks again!

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

It will be more painful doing it by hand but it is so much safer then using a buffer. Start out doing it by hand. It will take a while but so much less chance of doing any damage. I just do one panel a day or at a time. Might check a site like Mothers Polish for tips. Stacey David has a show on his site that shows just about what you are trying to do.

duderino

Terry, thanks for the advice!

RAD4Runner

Man, your hood looks much better than mine was.

Mine did not have much old sap/tar, but had fresh one from parking under a certain tree. I used Lifter Bug and Tar Remover. Sprayed, Let it soak as instructed and rubbed off. The stubborn posts, I scraped with my fingernails.
The key is not to use any tool harder than the paint. Fingernails work Also worked on the decal but that would take forever. Maybe I can take up a new hobby: When the wife goes shopping, I'll wait by the truck scraping the stripes off with my fingernail
Maybe a heat gun would help? I wonder if anyone has done it safely and what kind of heatgun they used. Wattage? The type for arts and crafts or industrial used on heat shrink?

TR3 was recommended by Chefyota. It's like a cross between super super-fine polishing compound and wax. Applied by hand because I want that extra pressure to dig in, then buffed with $20 orbital buffer from Autozone. Didn't keep track of hours but considering that the shine had lasted 2 years (and that is even without wax), it had been worth it.

My cap already had some fiberglas showing so to protect it, I asked body shop for an inexpensive paint job. I said I don't care whether they restore the original texture or not. I just wanted the fiberglas protected from the elements. It had been over a year and the top still looks good.

Nervo19

I had never heard of TR-3 before. A TR-3 to me is an old bug eye Triumph. A neighbor had one when I was about 4.


So I google image "TR-3 wax" and here's RAD sitting on top of his red
4Runner:
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f199...7-4rnr-291398/


Great results. Apparently they don't stock it around here but I might order some:
http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/de...A.oap?pt=N0458


The 3M wheel I was talking about is this:


I think you can get them cheaper on eBay. I used one for removing numbers on a boat. There are lots of how to's on YouTube.

duderino

I just followed the link to the pic of RAD on the '86. Cool stuff! Thanks for the responses guys. I messed around with the side decal today. I wasn't able to pick up a 3M wheel yet, so I tried different remedies in a couple of small spots. Rubbing alcohol, Rain-X, even vegetable oil, nothing worked. I got some of the tiny pieces to peel off, and on rare occasions I was able to leave good red paint underneath. But most of the time, peeling pieces of the the decal off with tweezers took paint off with it (RAD, I should've remembered your comment about using a softer utensil, frustration got the best of me!) On both sides the decal is broken and cracked into literally 10,000 pieces or so. Every pixellated dot in the graphic has become an isolated piece, many just a couple millimeters long. Unless I get some solvent that's way stronger than what I used, there's no way that stuff is coming off.

So, I'm going to go for the eraser wheel option. Would you all recommend heating the graphic up first, or perhaps waiting for the summer months? I live in the mountains so anytime it's above 45 degrees I want to go outside and mess around on my truck!

By the way, after seeing those pics, and reading the responses, I'm now decided that I'm going to get my top painted too. I'm looking to get some 3d7 red from some aftermarket shop, and I hope it's a match. If not, oh well, anything will look way better than the pink that that it is now.

Thanks also for the links!

wallytoo

iTrader: (1)

nice looking 4r.

matching the top to the body color might be difficult. mine was faded red, but now is black. i like the combo, and black works with the top because of the window trim (black).

wally