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Clear coat fix

Bent77

Bent77

I am CK5
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So this 94 Camaro has an interesting color code from the factory
Optimally is like to see if I can resurrect this rather than strip it, so it will match
I do have enough room to be able to sheet off part of the shop as a quasi paint booth

Suggestions on making this better?
IMG_1118.jpegIMG_1119.jpeg

I am tempted to lightly wire brush or steel wool the part where my buddy clay barred it, turning the cracking white. Thinking of scratching up the surface and going clear back over it
I do have an air orbital
 
It will show through the new clear coat. Buy some wax remover from an automotive paint supply store. Spray it on. What you see before it dries, is what the finish will look like
 
I have that

If i scratch up the whole hood, why would the next coat over not bond and fill in the gaps?
 
You would need to smooth the gaps to not be there. Yes, it will fill them, but they still show. Especially at night and when looking at it from the side.
 
You cant get it clean enough. If it's got anything left on residue-wise and you scuff it, it's gonna rub that into the surface and you'll play hell getting it clean enough to recoat.
 
Bent77 said:
I have that

If i scratch up the whole hood, why would the next coat over not bond and fill in the gaps?
Click to expand...
If you can get the cracks to become more like waves they will be less visible under the clear coat if they are scratches they will show
 
If I were gonna try this, I'd clean the bejezus out of it, and then knock it down w/ a DA with something like 500grit until it's uniform and then respray. Just have to be careful not to get into the base coat. I'm not sure what clearcoats are any good w/ 90's gm base. They were playing w/ that water based crap around that time and had lots of paint problems.

Who's our resident body/paint guy..?
 
New paint doesn't hide flaws. It magnifies them. You wish it was self-leveling (and I think people confuse their experience painting walls with latex to auto paint), but what it does is dry to a uniform thickness. So the cracks will still be there, except now the surface is shiny, so they stand out more. The other thing that could happen is the new solvent would raise every single edge on the old finish and make it worse. Some research or test section is smart.

Maybe after sanding the old finish as much as you dare, build it up with a couple coats of clear, then sand back to where it's flat.
 
I don't know how much this will prevent the old material from further degrading. Clear coat is supposed to have UV resistance, but I don't know how much it protects the layers underneath.

Paging @ryoken
 
If you sanding block it with 1500 grit to get rid of the fissures and spray a couple new coats of ChromaPremier on it, it will look OKish. There are other clears that don't react with anything, but I don't know what they are anymore. A lot of cheap clears don't self-level so if there is any surface imperfection it gets amplified.

https://www.spiuserforum.com/ has a bunch of nerdy no bullshit oldtimers on it with lots of experience doing stuff like this. I'd peruse there for a bit.
 
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It could be worse, I don't even see issues in the pics you posted. My new truck looks wet all of the time, but it is just large air pockets under a newer clearcoat someone thought would fix things.

20251214_163245.jpg
 
Is that Polo Green metallic? That doesn't look like deteriorated factory paint to me. That looks like a deteriorated re-spray. Either way, it needs sanded, sealed and repainted. Anything else will just look worse, imho.
 
kennyw said:
It could be worse, I don't even see issues in the pics you posted. My new truck looks wet all of the time, but it is just large air pockets under a newer clearcoat someone thought would fix things.

View attachment 518955
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Oh go back and look at the cracks in there. It looks like chicken scratch all over the hood
 
USSkoval said:
Is that Polo Green metallic? That doesn't look like deteriorated factory paint to me. That looks like a deteriorated re-spray. Either way, it needs sanded, sealed and repainted. Anything else will just look worse, imho.
Click to expand...
Gunbarrel Metallic per the Chevrolet sheet, it is the clear coat.
Factory paint, I've been with the car since it left the lot
 
Bent77 said:
Gunbarrel Metallic per the Chevrolet sheet, it is the clear coat.
Factory paint, I've been with the car since it left the lot
Click to expand...

Gonna need pictures of the car itself too. You know, for an accurate assessment of the paint quality lol.
 
Other than the hood, the top, and a select few spots, it’s not awful
But that cracking on the hood is really obvious and a real eyesore

image.jpg
 
I notice
It’s bad
Not sure the wipe on will do much for the hood


It does not have a top end shut off though
Well it does, at 255
Pretty sure I’ll never see that
 
4th gen "dark green gray metallic". Was a fairly rare paint code.

The 93-97s they had a lot of problems getting the paint to stick to the SMC with dark colors. The SMC changes size rapidly and for a long time everyone struggled with all the plastics changing shape at different rates with heat cycles. On the greens and grays you could really see which ones were stored outside in the sun. Not sure why the black ones held up. White anything back then struggled to not have the paint crystallize and flake off in sheets.

Also, a lot of the earlier paints didn't take kindly to force drying any better than the clears. So you'd downdraft with heat and/or infrared and cook it in place, toss on some clear, rinse, repeat and you'd get fissures in the paint, especially as it ages.
 
CyberSniper said:
4th gen "dark green gray metallic". Was a fairly rare paint code.

The 93-97s they had a lot of problems getting the paint to stick to the SMC with dark colors. The SMC changes size rapidly and for a long time everyone struggled with all the plastics changing shape at different rates with heat cycles. On the greens and grays you could really see which ones were stored outside in the sun. Not sure why the black ones held up. White anything back then struggled to not have the paint crystallize and flake off in sheets.

Also, a lot of the earlier paints didn't take kindly to force drying any better than the clears. So you'd downdraft with heat and/or infrared and cook it in place, toss on some clear, rinse, repeat and you'd get fissures in the paint, especially as it ages.
Click to expand...

Would that be the same Dark Green Gray that was used starting in '92? Definitely an uncommon color. And maybe the same as what was offered on the B-body?

Sorry. I'm currently too lazy to go looking through my old PPG books, lol.
 
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