So I waited two days to let the paint get good and dry. Applied the decals and did a light, very light, wet sanding of the machine using 2000 grit. Then applied a very light coat of clearcoat. I used self-sticking decals and not waterslide. Not sure that makes a difference but unfortunately three of the decals ran really bad....
I don't know what to do at this point except to request replacement decals from the ebay store I bought them from. Carefully, remove the decals that ran, resand and hopefully not have to repaint...reapply the new decals and hope they don't run.
This machine is going to my grandson so I don't think he'll even notice but it's just that I want to do this renovation right. Hopefully, this will end well for this little machine. More to come.