I just bought my wife a 1986 trans am, which I would classify as a survivor. Most of the car is in good shape except for three spots

1. clear came off the passenger side mirror, base is fine

2. Clear came off the back hatch, base is fine

3. one medium dent that I might be able to get out without messing up the base, but the clear is scratched

On a car this old, is there any chance I can spray some universal on the two panels without clear and get them to shine again? do I want to scuff or sand them first before I try?

and the spot that I'm going to try to have the dent removed. I would be trying to apply clear over clear. Same question... scuff or sand the existing clear after the dent is removed?

help me save this car, I don't want to have to repaint and try to match paint, and the rest of the car is too nice to mess with a full repaint

 

you MIGHT do that with some success. but usually the answer is no you cant. IMHO clear coat is a dismal failure. why it was ever thought to be better than acrylic enamel is beyond me.

 

Yeah, clear coat sucks. I love the depth-less shine enamel gives. That's why all the high dollar show cars are using it.

You can't just spray clear onto the panels that are peeling. The clear protects the base, and as soon as it's gone, it starts losing pigment. You can do it, but it'll look like crap. You'll have to respray the whole panel from scratch.

 

most of us build DRIVERS dude, NOT trailer queens. and as for dull shine . ever heard of colour sanding? how about buffing and polishing? apparently not. and really, I don't want a pissing match. thing is acrylic enamel properly done is slick as any babys ***. fuc% a bunch of peeling clear coat garbage. forgive me for coming from a place before all that EPA bull *****. but hey ,its not your fault for not knowing any thing better.

 

The best, deepest shine I've ever seen in a car was on a lacquer paint job... but it takes hell of a lot of work to keep it like that

Clear coat technology has come a long way in the last 30 years. The crap that G was putting out in the 80's was criminal. If my car hadn't been garaged all of its life, it wouldn't be in as good of shape as it is

 

agreed, my point being with all tech advancing . we STILL haven't made a clear that is indifferent to UV. not that it cant be done, just that they obviously don't give a big f%$#. now I have been painting since the 60s. and it takes MAD skill to do a laquer paint job. and they look great. BUT laquer is not durable. that is where acrylic enamel with hardener added shines. if you treat it properly, and you do proper prep work. it will last for years and years. and sun be damned. a good wash and wax. and the occasional buffing and you can see yourself.

 

this is the last lacquer job I did on my dad's 58 (hence my username)

 

No... Single stage fades out in the way that base/clear never does, and it doesn't protect against UV rays like base/clear does. You can't color sand metallic single stage and even just buffing can mess up it up. The EPA has nothing to do with it, it takes more than twice as much material for base/clear. You have no idea what your talking about.

To the original poster - the damage has already been done, as Nowherefast said, once the clear is gone the base starts fading. If you were to re-clear it would stick out like a sore thumb, especially on the brighter colors. Theres a couple of other problems too, right now you have a hard line where the clear coat has peeled off. If you sand it smooth you'll need to re-base. If you just clear coat it as it is, you will see the lines. Also, the old clear coat will probably continue peeling off over time. Sorry, but you're best leaving it alone or doing it right.

 

Two corrections...

you CAN sand single stage metallic paint, people did it for decades before clear coat came along. It's just a different technique of spraying. I had to paint my 58 three times until I learn how to spray it so I could color sand it without tiger stripes




Also, on my car, the panels in question have NO clear. it's all gone, so no lines.

 

Perhaps, but I don't dare trying it with factory single stage. It displaces the metallics.

And the entire panel, eh? Thats pretty odd. I've see plenty of third gens with clear falling off but I've never seen that. In any case it won't match anymore if you re-clear.

 

Considering trying it. It looks like crap now, and if it looks like a different version of crap, I'm no worse off.

If it looks decent for 9 months or so that's all I need before I start the full repaint. If it looks good for longer, I may not repaint at all

 

Well you've got nothing to loose by trying then, post how it goes if you get the chance

 

I'm going to sand lightly with 800 or 1000, clean the ever loving crap out of it, and use 2K clear.

I'm never one to shy away from an experiment.

 

Single stage cant't even compare to base/clear.

However, what my painter told me was if there is any oxidizing or peeling clear coat it has to be sanded down to metal or it would begin to oxidize underneath the coat you applied over it.

 

well your painter is wrong. clear coming off has nothing to do with the undercoat. the reason clear sucked in the 80s is because america was trying to compete with japanese cars in price and one way they thought of doing that was cutting paint cost. clear is most expensive by far so they thought it would be brilliant to cut out some of the uv additive in the clear. so thats why most 80s cars have peeling clear, cuz there is little to no uv protection.
your best bet to make the car to look really top notch would be to repaint the panels that peeled, and blend into the adjacent panels with base, then clear the bad panels, and adjacent panels at the same time. thats the best way to make the color match, and have no distinct difference in cleared areas.

 

I've done this several times and it looked terrible every time. Typically I would clean everything thoroughly with wax and grease remover. That base is really fragile and really thin. Use a very "cold" solvent to clean it. I've even used unscented Windex with ammonia with success. Gray scotchbrite everything gently, then clear it. In the end, you'll see the peeling clear line and any inconsistent fade in the paint will be amplified. How about a trial run on the mirror? Make a decision from there. Ultimately, you know what I would suggest.

 

thanks haps! I think I'm going to try it using the good advice on this thread. I really have nothing to lose but a little material