Guess I haven't posted in this for awhile ... mostly because I haven't done much with the car in awhile, aside from driving it.
Paint's officially FUBAR. Clear coat is coming off all over the place, mostly from the passenger-side upper surfaces. The paint on the roof and hood scoop is fading/bleaching out no matter what (cleaner waxes had no effect - paint's not oxidizing, it's just GONE). Paint on the hood on either side of the scoop is all cracked with a fiberglass-like texture for who-knows-what reason. The Plasti-Dip crap the prior owner kid sprayed on there was finally peeling off, so I went ahead and stripped it off (Goo Gone, lots of blue towels, a plastic spatula, direct sunlight, and a LOT of effort). Lo and behold, the kid had already sanded down parts of the passenger-side fender all the way to the primer and even to bare metal in a couple of spots, presumably to prep for paint before he decided to Plasti-Dip it, and he instead decided to temp-spray it and hide what he'd done. Driver's side fender is scratched/gouged up (clumsy prior mechanic?), but otherwise the paint was good. Paint on the front bumper is cracked in multiple places from people putting their knee up on there while working on it and such, and the front grille was broken in a couple of places. Three or four deep chunks of paint about 1/4" around each came out of the trunk lid where the paint just split and peeled up, so those will need to be sanded smooth, and there's countless random nicks n' scratches from just normal wear everywhere.
Soooooo, after stripping off the Plasti-Dip, I removed the front grille - going to order a Mach 1 delete kit when funds allow, dunno if I'll put in the floating pony or just leave it empty. Rear bumper has a hole in it, again from the prior owner, so it also needs replacement. Decided to delete the fender/trunk badges, since the whole car needs paint anyway, so I plugged the holes with JB Weld putty, sanded it smooth, and just gave it a quick dab of black paint for the time being until I can actually get around to painting the whole car. Rear bumper is crap anyway, so for now I covered up the horrible clear coat/paint on the top edge by masking around along the body line and spraying it with bedliner - if nothing else, it won't get scratched up when getting things in/out of the trunk, and again, the bumper's going away later, anyhow. Aside from the "Mustang" logo on the rear bumper, the outside is now 100% badgeless. From the driver's side, it looks pretty good; passenger side would look better, if not for the messed-up, sanded-down paint on the upper front fender. Thought about re-spraying with Plasti-Dip to hide it again until I have time to paint, but that stuff was a royal pain to remove. Might just use black primer to recreate the stripes, just for now. If I don't have time to finish it this month, then it probably won't get done until next Spring or Summer because it'll likely be too cold for the paint to cure and it'll be raining outside more often.
Also, the top of the third brake light is all chewed up from the sun - bleached and has a rough texture, pretty much normal for that part on these cars, especially in AZ. So, I masked off everything but the damaged top side and sprayed that with bedliner, too - looks like the same texture it had, but at least it's all black now. Might replace it later with an LED aftermarket piece, but for now, it'll do.
Anyway ... couple of pics for now. Looks decent from some angles and from a few yards away, but up close, you can see all of the glaring faults WAY more easily. And yes, there are water spots galore on my front bumper - some stupid sprinkler system at a dental place I was parked at for about an hour.
That's not overspray running from the edge, it's actually from sweat that drooled out from within the rubber gloves I was wearing while I was removing the masking tape. And the badge holes look bad, but that's just because I half-assed it on the paint - just gave it a couple of very quick little squirts to cover the filler.
You can see how bad the paint is jacked up on the front here. The fender stripes they had on there only hid the clear coat loss for so long before it spread beyond those stripes - now it just looks gross.