Sqanch88

Hey everyone,

my knowledge of paint and body work is pretty limited. But the hood on 90 gta I bought has seen better days. Looks like a bunch of sun fade and cracking?

As well clear coat seems to be peeling or gone in most places.
I i know in the end a pro job might be the only shot. But I figure my only option would be to sand it down and start fresh with paint and I've seen lots of videos just making sure thats my only real option. Doesn't seem to be any rust anywhere atleast!





hopefully these pictures show what im talking about. But any input is appreciated. Thanks all

Reddragon88gta

It looks pretty sun beat, have you tried any buffing etc? It looks too far gone for that but its worth a shot. The hood on my 88' GTA was in bad shape with clear coat almost all gone etc and I wound up having a pro do base/clear on that when I replaced my destroyed original Aero spoiler with the Hawks repro. I had quotes from $450 to $1300 USD for that work last year in case your trying to get an idea on cost. Ironically the rest of the paint was in pretty decent shape minus a few tiny dents/scratches and a buff really brightened it up.

You could definitely save some $$$ if you removed it and did the sanding work yourself, I painted a black Z24 with my dad in high school and the prep is where its critical and it shows if you did it wrong, white is more forgiving which is good. There are lots of members on here who know bodywork who can point you in the right direction.

Sqanch88

Thanks a lot. Yeah I figured if I did the sanding my self would definitely save some cost. For sure.

dagwood

iTrader: (5)

I'm a professional painter at a body shop. If you sand it yourself, use 320 grit sandpaper. It's enough grit to smooth out your imperfections, and a coat of sealer will fill in the 320 sand scratches. Any rougher grit and the sand scratches won't cover with sealer and will result in priming the hood, and then sanding the primer with 320. Then your painter can just shoot a coat of sealer, paint, and clear.

Be sure to remove all of your hood vents...

And FEATHER OUT your heavy sanded areas. Keep your sander FLAT so you don't leave "rings"

In all reality, you're probably going to save the shop about 1 hr of work.....and if you don't do a nice job of sanding it (leaving rings, etc) they could add more than that amount of time trying to fix it before they paint it. A nice prep job is VERY CRUCIAL to a nice paint job. You may just want to leave it to the pros...

dagwood

iTrader: (5)

Oh, and I can see in the pics that the damage you have is FOR SURE not going to sand and buff out.