Clear coat failing

[Don G]

Guys, thanks in advance for any insight you can give me.

Have an 82sc with original paint which is a pewter metallic clear coat. Their are millions of spider webs in the paint on many, but not all, of the panels. A local well respected detailer and a body shop have looked at it and said the original clear coat is failing. Both have said needs a complete repaint.

Not being any kind of an expert I was wondering; Can you remove just the clear and re-clear ?

Just seeing if I can save some $$$.

Thanks, Don

[962porsche]

NO you can't !
it's more than just painting over what is there the clear has to be removed .
it does not mean you have to strip the cars finish down to bare metal but you will have to strip the clear off the car . what is happening is called checking . i'm sure the worst parts are on the top of the panels but non the less all the finish will really need to be removed . if it's not the lower parts of the panels will also start to check up in a few years too .
one reason it may not be best to strip the cars finish down to bare metal is you will end up stripping off the OE undercoats that are of a quality grade product . now that is not to say they can not be replaced with the same grade of products but there is the fact that it will also remove the galvanized coating on the car and you should always try and keep that intack if you can . that too is not the end of the world if you have to remove it it can be replaced with a quality chromated etching primer but what it comes down to is if at ant broken why fix it .

[Don G]

962porsche,

thanks for the reply. What you are suggesting is really what I was trying to ask I think. How does one go about stripping just the clear ? and is that something a novice could do and then have it re-cleared by a pro ?

Don

[962porsche]

of course a novice can do it . it's forum and many others are filled with people repairing there cars for the 1st time . some got so good at it i would hire them to work for me in my shop .
get your self a good DA sander and a **** load of 80 grit DA paper .
strip all the parts off the car like door handles and such with duck tape mask off what you don't want to hit with the edge of the DA sander .
hole the DA as flat as you can and start sanding the clear coat off .
on things like the tops of the fenders don't run the DA down the fenders from front to back sand rolling the DA over the edge going up and down or bottom to top as not to put long choppy lines in the panel that you will see once the car is repainted .
don't use any grit heavier than a 80 grit as it will cut into the undercoats to much .
once you finish with stripping the clear with the 80 grit change to 180 and resand to remove the 80 grit scratches .
then with a quality filler primer spray 3 to 4 coats of primer on the car .
if you sand down to some areas to bare metal spray the bare metal with some etch or epoxy primer 1st over the bare spots then use the filler primer .
after the filler primer is dried wet or dry sand with some 400 to 320 grit paper and then send it off the a shop for paint .
EZ right ?

[Don G]

962porsche,

Well you make it sound like I can do it, although not EZ. Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. At least I now know what can be done, all I have to do is get the courage to do it.

Don

[962porsche]

it's not hard to do just takes time the 2nd or 3rd job i gave to the intern in the body shop was the same type of strip job . he did good ! when it comes to body work some of it is tedious this is that type of job .
what makes job like this a little less so is just do one panel at a time . take the need parts off and strip the clear . then do the same thing to the next panel if you look at the hole car you wil just say to your self what the **** this is a lot of work were if you just do one panel at a time it will seam to go a little better .