Chaffing on the paint

S

Swolf

So I have an 82 HD Motorcycle (original owner) when a woman pulls out across the road in front of me. Luckily, I'm only doing 25 and don't know if I scared myself more or her. Three days in the hospital and many months of PT and my body is repaired. But not so with the front end of my bike. I replaced the forks, but the fender looks like a pretzel.

I managed to find an original used fender of the same year, same two tone color (black and chocolate brown), same pin stripes, same decals. And while it's scratched a bit, I'm not planning on repainting it in the near-term. I'd like to make it half way presentable for the riding season and maybe repaint it in the fall. Unfortunately, the guy who shipped it to me, didn't wrap it well enough with bubble wrap and the fender suffered some rubbing marks due to ground shipping many miles.

The marks do not go through the paint. Anyone have any ideas how I can temporarily fix this without repainting the whole thing? Would it be possible to wet sand it and buff?

I don't know if there is a factory clear coat on this or not.
Thanks,
John

Here's a general picture of the fender. You can see the rubbed area on the left.
01.  20170228_202346.jpg

Closeup of the rubbed area. It also has similar rub on the other side.
02.  20170219_161926 (1).jpg

Front showing the two tone black/brown with the pin stripe.
03.  20170228_202404 (1).jpg


Close up of the pin stripe. It was painted on at the factory by a striping machine.
04.  20170228_202434 (1).jpg
 
Not experienced in Harley paint, but 82' was probably lacquer, probably cleared. Several methods you could go about with this, just be careful with paint thickness & test in a less conspicuous area, like near the mount. You could start with sandpaper, polish or solvent. Rubbing into the paint, non cleared will rub off color & clear will have little to no color in it.
Personally, I'd first try some lacquer retarder or thinner on a white cotton rag & quickly wipe at some of the scuffed areas. you may be surprised at what you can clean up with just careful solvent use on lacquer. I've actually polished some damaged lacquer furniture with a rag & lacquer retarder, but that's not a skill for anyone. You could do some careful very light sanding & buffing, just be really careful about not going through. Being it's probably lacquer & you're not wanting to completely redo, you could try to match some duplicolor touch up paint into any chips.
 
I am 99.9% sure the paint is lacquer. I don't know about the clear coat. I know what you mean about quickly wiping a little thinner on the paint. It is VERY sensitive to lacquer thinner.
 
Do you have any experience buffing? If so I would try a medium wool pad and some coarse buffing compound, keeping everything wet and being careful not to pull the pinstripes and decals (perhaps tape them). Progress from the wool pad to a foam pad (something like the black 3M pad) and swirl remover/polish. Perhaps a final buff with apad like the light blue 3M pad and some Ultrafina polish. I used 3m stuff as examples cause that's what I've been using but there are excellent alternatives out there that are cheaper. Lot of the fellas on here prefer stuff they get at Chemical Guys. Maybe someone else can weigh in.
 
Yes, I've done some wet sanding and buffing on a 97 Honda I repaired. I'll try your suggestions.
Thanks, hopefully I'll have some good "after" pictures to post.
 
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