Cosmoline/yellowing clear coat removal

[Hodgepodge]

Thanks for the info and the '"before" pictures for your car.  Yours and mine are (were)  nearly twins!   I know the paints back then were awful. I would not leave the original Polaris on anything without re-spraying it.  I just don't want to respray over the really poor, scratch-off clear-coat....or whatever it is if it isn't clear coat.  

 

Funny, I don't remember any real paint issues with my '74 2002, and my '76 530i had an amazing non-factory paint job on it....which makes sense now...  But that was 1977 and 1980, respectively.  I had a new '76 Cutlass Supreme where the paint literally peeled off of the trunk and roof by 1978. Thank god paint has improved a lot since then.   

 

This car got its first bath today and a few other issues were discovered.  I can't wait to really get into this thing!    

 

Thanks,

 

Scott

 

[Steve Tochi]

Hodgepodge, I have a 74' Polaris which will make us triplets. Mine is golden but plan is to pull motor and do a complete paint of engine bay. Now jambs and around trunk are starting to turn, like flesh eating bacteria.  Better than rust I guess.

 

Steve

 

[Conserv]

2 hours ago, Hodgepodge said:

 

...Funny, I don't remember any real paint issues with my '74 2002, and my '76 530i had an amazing non-factory paint job on it....which makes sense now...  But that was 1977 and 1980, respectively.  I had a new '76 Cutlass Supreme where the paint literally peeled off of the trunk and roof by 1978. Thank god paint has improved a lot....

 

 

Scott,

 

The paint issue only affected the metallic colors — Polaris, Fjord, Baikal, Anthrazitgrau, Nachtblau, etc. — and only the metallic colors were switched to a two-stage formulation within the ‘02 era.  The factory metallics could start deteriorating within a year. My best buddy’s father bought a new ‘76 Anthrazitgrau metallic a couple months before I bought my Polaris car.  It was completely repainted at BMW’s expense when it was 2 years old.  I was, consequently, watching my car’s paint like a hawk!

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

Edited October 14, 2017 by Conserv

[Sneeb]

Have you looked into dry ice blasting? If you're near San Diego look up Cryowerks. The owners are car guys and like old cars. 

[Hodgepodge]

Hi Scoob, 

 

That is a very good idea!   I was thinking about the steam clean option and retrieved my wife's wall paper steamer from the attic to try a few spots in the engine bay.  It produces about the same level of steam as a coat steamer.   Is that the kind of thing you used?   

 

Thanks,

 

Scott

 

 

[Road trip]

I used mineral sprits with acetone to

give it some dissolving element .

it took apoximately 48 hand towels cut in quarters, dampen, wipe, repeat

[dbmw2002]

Try rubbing alcohol first. Not as toxic but it does clean gooky goo. Then go to no fume oven cleaner. It will def take this gunk off. It shouldn't hurt factory paint but test it and work quickly. Dollar store item.

No matter what soak it all for a week with WD40. It will soften it up for removal. 

Rule #1 on paint restoration? Go with the lightest method first. 

[Stevenc22]

Yeah I would use a heated pressure washer or steam cleaner like scoob suggested over chemicals.

['76mintgrün'02]

The title is now misleading, since we have learned that it is not cosmolne, but yellowed clear coat.

Or, did I get that wrong?

[Hodgepodge]

1 hour ago, '76mintgrun'02 said:

The title is now misleading, since we have learned that it is not cosmolne, but yellowed clear coat.

Or, did I get that wrong?

Fixed!  :-)  

['76mintgrün'02]

So, there is cosmoline?

 

sorry, I am easily confused. 

Edited October 24, 2017 by '76mintgrun'02

[Hodgepodge]

Well....   I don't know if there is Cosmoline.  Some say there is.  A few say it is just the clear coat.  (The inside of my trunk is yellow and I have a hard time believing there is clear coat there.) But perhaps most importantly, I did not want to change the thread topic name completely for fear of losing anyone that is following or contributing.    

 

The really good news is that anything strong enough to take of the crappy clear coat will take off any cosmoline, too. 

 

Make sense?  :-) 

 

Scott

 

[Conserv]

I experienced, first hand, just how little two-stage paint was known in the ‘70’s.  And not just any two-stage paint, but Glasurit “PVC-frei” paint, the metallic paint formulation BMW rolled out during the 1973 model year and which they employed through the end of ‘02 production.

 

Some time around 1977, I parked my ‘76 on a narrow one-way street, with parking permitted on both sides.  While it was parked there, someone driving down the block apparently ran into my driver’s outside rear view mirror, shattering it and scattering the pieces down the street.  One of these components obviously bounced off the upper panel of the driver’s door, leaving a very visible scratch.

 

So, I took the car to my BMW dealer to get that top panel of the door re-painted, from the glass down to the beltline trim. Easy. But there was no Polaris PVC-frei in stock anywhere; it had to be ordered from Germany!

 

Two weeks later the paint arrived and I dropped the car off at the dealer’s body shop.  Later that week I received a call from my service advisor saying that the car was completed.

 

When I get to the dealer, the car is parked just outside the main door to the body shop.  I’m walking up to the car, see that the upper door panel is badly-mismatched color-wise and has a matte finish.  The body shop manager knew this was coming and meets me at the car.

 

”Why did Terry (my service advisor) call me to say the car was done?  It’s just primed.”

 

”That’s not primer.  That’s Polaris.  It’s just the color coat.”

 

”So...where’s the clear coat?”

 

”We don’t have the experience or equipment to shoot clearcoat.  All we can do is the color coat”

 

”Why didn’t someone tell me you could only do half the job?”

 

”We didn’t know it was a two-stage paint until we opened the box from BMW and we didn’t open the box until we were ready to paint.  I’ve called around and H.A. Boyd, the BMW dealer in Lebanon (Pennsylvania), can shoot clear coat, but they won’t work on this unless they’re starting from scratch.”

 

”I’m not paying for this.”

 

”That’s fine. I didn’t expect you to.”

 

H.A. Boyd re-painted and clearcoated the panel.

 

I don’t think clearcoat was an option with this early two-stage paint.  The paint itself had no gloss whatsoever.  The inside of my car’s trunk was certainly clearcoated, but didn’t yellow like the engine compartment.  Who knows why?

 

Below, first photo taken August 1983, second photo taken September 2015.  Both in original paint, now obscured by over-painting.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2017 by Conserv

[Hodgepodge]

I can appreciate that.  My trunk is somewhat more yellow than yours.     Not to derail anything, but I'm amazed that that speaker wire didn't snag on anything in 32 years!   It is exactly the same spot in both images.