I'm the 3rd owner the truck sat in the 2nds driveway for at least 15 years I think he was going to restore the truck but the engine ,brakes whole 9 was needed and he never did it . I was tired of looking at the ugly dirty faded paint watched u tube and went to Harbor Frieght picked up the buffer and ,cutting ,polishing and finishing pads with the stuff they sold light cutting and polishing compound and gave it a try before I took it to Earl shieb that's all I would be able to afford it actually came out decent since I never did it before ...

 

Looks good. Try to keep that original paint as long as you can. I just had my truck painted because my paint was to far gone and it's expensive. And unless you really spend a lot it won't look as good as the original. Plus patina is in. Nice work. Where you live in SoCal?
Kenny

 

That came out really nice!

Devin

 

Your truck looks great, Does there have to be any clear coat to polish, What did you do with the rusty spots, Did you just polish everything. I have a 71 Highboy the body is off the frame and now is a good time to deal with the paint, Undercoat, And bed liner.

 

I heard Ford used enamel based paints back then there's no clear coat so if un waxed for years it will get dull and ugly but the nice original color is underneath you just need to basically rub it off !!!
The Porter Cable is the big popular affordable polisher I got cheap and went to harbor frieght used the variable speed polisher sander no more than 2nd speed 1,500 rpm a wool type pads and they had some mquires at harbor frieght a fine cut paint cleaner level 5 I used that to scrub off all the crap but I had a hard time so I wet sanded it by hand with 2,000 grit wet dry on the hood and roof the worst parts just to scrub the crap off or it took forever to cut through the junk . Yours might not be as bad as mine and sanding might not be needed . I used the fine cut cleaner one section at a time like roof , back of cab not to try to go to far to fast stay on the door etc it takes a few min to get it to shine maybe 5/6 times over and over but it will come out looking like new Total of 3 wool pads for whole truck , then used mquires show car glaze polish a few passes to get any fine cut cleaner removed then used by hand the mquires yellow carnuba wax . I didn't do anything with the rust yet but later I will mask it off take it down to the metal filler prime it and find a enamel based rattle can paint spray it then try to lightly sand it in to blend the polish that area if it don't match exact I don't care I just could not afford a good paint job right now . I know nothing about polishing only what I see in you tube if I took it to a shop they probably charge me 500 bucks and it wouldn't look much better .

 

You did a good job! That truck has some shine now.

 

Thanx for the info, think im going to try polishing the old paint. Big blue is going to stay blue and big. lol

 

keep big blue shiny too !!!!! Post some pic a roos when done ...

 

Acrylic enamel introduced in 1960, it was replaced by Base Coat/Clear Coat sometime in the 1980's.