Paint and Flaking Clear Coat

Flaking clear coat seems to be a common issue on our cars.

I've got a black car that has big spots where the clear has flaked off leaving the black paint below.

While I know re-paint is the ideal solution, in the mean time is there anything that can be done to clean this up? The black paint is dull so it would be nice to make it shine a bit so it's someone similar to the areas with clear still on them.

Any ideas?

Mike , unfortunately, there is no way to get gloss out of the basecoat, it hasn't the same resins in it as the clear. A bit like trying to make the flat black hood on an old Mach 1 shiny, - no can do.

In the interim, you *could* spray some shaker can clearcoat on it, although it likely wouldn't stick too well unless you lightly scuffed the basecoat areas, and that can sometimes change the tone of the base color. But if you don't really care about that and just want some gloss, that's about the best I can tell you.

Ford had problems with the "application bells" or high speed rotating nozzles that spray the clear via the electrostatic paint process. Personally, all the technical data I have on the issue kind of skirts around the fact they just wanted to spray as little paint on the cars as possible (even 1/2 pint more X 500.000 cars is a LOT of $$$) and the excuse that the bells were misadjusted is bogus IMO, considering they allowed it to happen for years. They HAD to know the film build they were applying, which should have been 1.7 to 2.0 MILS on the clear, but was more in the 1.3 to 1.5 area. The lack of film build resulted in poor UV percentage, and it led to many an early clearcoat failure, but usually just long enough to cover the warranty period. Compound the thin paint from the factory with buffing and polishing over the years, and sunlight in the mix, and there you go...

There are other reasons for clearcoat failure, including the UV agents and substrate chalking, ( breaks the bond, but usually this occurs at the primer level and strips the base and clear together) but this one ( film build) is documented to Ford during these years, from the data I have from Autoint.com and Ron Ketcham.

Thanks.

The clear coat is coming off in kind of small bubbles. Small like you might see in a foam. Thus my thought was I would want to remove all of the "weak" clear coat before I do anything. I understand what you mean by changing the tone of the color.

Well, I have an air compressor, I could add a moisture trap and get a paint gun. Maybe I should just sand it all down and paint it myself. I have an 89 Ranger I could practice on before I tackle a black car.

Any good websites for hobby car painters?

Here's one I know of;

These folks are very helpful; http://pub26.bravenet.com/forum/show.php?usernum=2155445526&cpv=2

It kind of depends how extensive the flaking and bubbling is, as to whether you could feather all of the clearcoat edge well enough to just respray the base it that area then reclear it. When you have to feather 1/2 of the panel down all over...it just comes out very uneven, especially for a neophyte and especially on black, which will magnify any wavering. You *could* spray a high build surfacer over it too, then block it with guide coats till you feel it's ready for new base/clear. Yeah...no easy way out really. For perfection and predictable results, stripping is the way to go.

If it were just a corner or small spot it might be worthwhile, but if it's all over, honestly....it's usually better in the long run to just strip the panel and then start over i.e.- epoxy primer then base & clear. On my wife's Miata, the top corner of the door clearcoat flaked/delaminated, about the size of a baseball, so I feathered it to where I could feel no transition edge with my finger between the exposed base and clear, then blended new base over that spot ( because once you wetsand the old base to obtain the feathering effect, you'll change the tone-so you really have to respray the base in that spot), and recleared the whole door. Came out perfect.You would wetsand the whole panel with ~800 grit after you've feathered the transition edge on the bad clear. That gives the new clear some "bite".

Best of luck, Dan H

Sounds like the best option is to just shoot the whole car and do it right. I think I'll pratice on my 89 ranger (red) that is going to my recently minted 16 year old. His summer project can be preping the surface .

The roof is probably the worst, but the hood and the trunk lid have issues as well.

Any recommendations on spray guns for starters that are reasonably priced yet good performance? Should I be looking at HPLV guns?

Thanks for all the comments.

HVLP are the choice of pros, but they demand at least a 12+ CFI air compressor as they're very volume needy. For occasional amateur spraying, an old siphon feed gun and 4 to 5 HP compressor will suffice, and it won't break the bank. I see Sharpe, Binks and DeVilbiss guns cheap at pawn shops here by me. With base/clear, you don't have to be a great painter because you can wetsand out orange peel , runs, dirt etc. and get it really flat. It's very user-friendly paint really, once you see how it goes on. I'm more skilled in wetsanding than painting-I just know how to lay the paint and avoid runs, but that's about it, I HAVE to wetsand and buff to get the results I want. I painted my SC with a very old Sharpe siphon feed gun and a 5 HP compressor, and it's earned me a 1st place trophy at an All-Ford show, with the paint being a large factor in that, so in the end it really doesn't matter. On the other hand, if you can swing the $$$, HVLP all the way, you wouldn't be sorry.

You'll go through more paint with a siphon feed gun for sure, but unless you're going to do it on a continual basis, it really doesn't justify the expense of HVLP and the high volume compressor. The latter being the bigger cost.

Mike, make sure you find a way to protect your lungs, the isocyanates in the activators for the clear can literally kill you, or give you permanent asthma at the least, and there's no OSHA approved respirator for isocyanates either. You must use a positive air system. I used a scuba tank when I painted my SC (man are they ever heavy on land!) so you can improvise. The important part is to make it a priority, because no paint job is worth your lungs.

Wow... That's something to consider. I'll have to check around. Maybe a local body shop will let me use their facility to shoot the car for a reasonable cost and I'll just do all the labor.

I can vent my garage pretty well, but the rear wall is the east wall of the interior of the house (attached garage).

I'll have to check out that web forum you suggested and do a bit more reading. My father and I did all of the body work on my first car, a 1965 Corvair. Fiberglass hole repairs. Bondo, and then wet sanding down to the primer , some places the steel on the whole vehicle. We applied the new primer in the garage using a cheap siphon gun and a home made air compressor my grandfather made using an old oil tank and a refrigerator compressor.

A few runs but not to bad. For the final paint we took it to Maaco for a $150.00 paint job. It didn't turn out too bad. It too me a good 3 months to do all the body work and sand it down to be ready for primer. I spent an entire summer in the driveway with a hose and 3M sand paper.

That experience will only help you with the in's and out's if you take on the job. Mine took me 2 weeks from degreasing to scuffing to removing everything, then painting, waiting a week and finally wetsanding and buffing.

You come to appreciate just why good shops get $4-6k for a top quality paint job. I used to paint cars a lot more when I was younger, but the most I do since my SC is a bumper, door or fender here and there. It kind of wears me out just doing small stuff now. Best of luck Mike.

P.S. Every paint manufacturer has economy, midline and top shelf paint...Buy the best quality paint line you can afford, you won't regret it.

You guys make a new paint job seem soooooo worth it!

Here's my question: What happens if I try to wax my car's base coat (black) instead of using a top/clear coat?

If I use all the world's elbow-grease (and the BEST polish/wax), can I make it shine better than a clear coat?

If I use all the world's elbow-grease (and the BEST polish/wax), can I make it shine better than a clear coat?

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Mike, as I said to the other Mike, basecolor doesn't contain those kinds of resins / solids that produce high gloss. You can probably bring it up a little, but it will never have the high gloss of clearcoat, sorry.
It just isn't chemically engineered to be a topcoat and shine, but rather only to provide color tone.

Still, I wonder what it would look like...

This is why Fords are prone to CC peel:

The paint process used at the time involved shooting the color coat - The car would sit for anywhere from 24-72 hours, then a particular color block would be brought back for the CC. In the meantime, small contaminants would become imbedded in the uncured color coat. A product would be sprayed onto the car to promote adhesion of the color coat and the CC-without removing these imbedded impurities. Over time, they would work up and bubble the CC. Washing a car by hand, or "color sanding" will speed the process of delamination of the CC.

Ford now uses a single 2-step process where the color coat is shot-the cars stand in a area similar to a paint oven for 1 hour, then the CC is shot and placed under heat for one hour. This all takes place in a "Clean Room", so that no contaminants work into the paint. I have pics from Wixom, if anyone would like to see them.

The plot thickens

That's interesting info I have never heard before Tony ( where ya been all this time? lol) . Any tech data on it would be appreciated to include into a FAQ on it. Pics would be great! ( I dig this kind of thing as you probably already guessed). Maybe we can get all the data together and figure out when it came into play. Here is the link to Automotive International's page on clearcoat failure, with pics;

http://www.autoint.com/oemclearcoatfail.htm

Ron Ketcham of this site writes tech data for Ford GM and Daimler/Chrysler and has corresponded with me in the past on this issue, as well as posted at Autopia.com about the application bell issue as it relates to Ford. It's possible they have info pertaining to Lorain Ohio plants vs. Wixom, where your info comes in, but there's a definite difference in what they say caused it vs. Autoint. Do you know if your info affected all Ford plants? We could have a myriad of issues that are not mutually exclusive here, although it seems a stretch they would use different processes at different plants too.

I must say, you had me sold till you said this;

Washing a car by hand, or "color sanding" will speed the process of delamination of the CC.

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The color sanding makes complete sense, and it's noted in the Autoint info, but hand washing? Can you elaborate on how hand washing affects delamanation? I'm not dismissing it at all, I'd just really like to know, because I never heard this anywhere, and it's a pretty provocative statement. Color sanding will surely remove a LOT of paint, but...hand washing? Maybe you meant to say 'hand rubbing" which is akin to sanding? Thanks Tony.


P.S. As many also know, the early cars ( '89 '90) seemed to hold up much better as far as clearcoat. Any idea if the process changed to what your data suggests, sometime in the early '90's?

Yeah my clear on my 89 is still great. Won first place last year at WFC6 with it. The car was well taken care of by the previous owner, but you don't often see 15 year old cars with this good of paint. My parents had a 1988 Sable and the clear started going after 5 years, but the car was buffed to blend with two different accidents and I'm sure some clear was lost. I think the best thing to do is not remove any clear with buffing if possible. I only clay bar and wax the paint. I use Liquid Glass brand wax as I have had very good success with it.

If I was to buy a newer Ford what year did they start making good paint jobs. I know the middle 90's are bad.

Jerry

Handwashing can leave microscopic scratches in the CC, which is thin as it is. The scratches allow contaminants to work in and eventually bubble the clearcoat.

A couple questions.

#1 - If not hand washing... then what?

#2 - If the Clear Coat is properly bonded to the primary color, shouldn't it be unlikely that anything would be able to seperate the two?

I guess I picture clear coat as being bonded with the paint just like superglue will bond your finger to steel. It's not going to come a part at the bond.

MikeKanterakis said:

Still, I wonder what it would look like...

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I thought about this a bit. Most likely it will only look nice and black for a short period of time after waxing. As the wax wears away the color would turn more and more gray.

On my 89 I drove around for a year with a primer black hood. I could wash and wax it to a darker black that at least looked like I cared. But it would be going gray by morning.

You'd likely get an even color, but it's likely not going to look all that great.

Hand washing is pretty much the most benign thing you can do with a car, so if Tony's info is correct, it's futile. Certainly you could ostensibly cause micro scratching wiping the car with anything if grit was present, so unless you were indifferent enough to just leave the car dirty all the time, there wouldn't be much hope (long term) for your paint.

My '89 also had perfect paint up till 1997, when a couple of insurance claims from dents provoked poor color matching at the body shop(s). It would likely still be pristine light titanium paint if not for that. There was no sign of clear failure on the horizon, so the process either had to be different those years or I (and other early SC owners) were incredibly lucky, or Tony's info refers to a specific model car or plant. Or ...a combination of everything above.

I don't mind being lucky though.

OK-I started a new thread in the Tech section.

As far as handwashing being the most benign-do you toss your wash sponge into the garbage after each handwash?

I use either a local wand-type car wash-forcfed93 and I use one that we KNOW is clean and well maintained-or a hose and Mr Clean Autodry. If I have to dry the occasional wet spot, I use a microfiber towel and toss it when done. Waxing is done with Meguiars liquid and a diaper, and the diaper is thrown away and not reused.

Micro scratching still occurs Tony, with your method, it's just that you can't visibly see it happening the same way you would with a dirty wash mitt etc. So if your info on causation is correct for the SC's that have the problem, then the question becomes what SIZE scratch starts the process. If ANY micro scratching can cause it, well, then everyone is doomed, because on a micro level even microfiber towels (and diapers) scratch. We just can't always see it.

I still personally don't can't comprehend how how a fine scratch cutting perhaps 1/1000th of a MIL on the surface can affect what goes on 1.8 mils below it, with solid clearcoat resin in between, unless the clear has such porosity that it's like a balloon in physical integrity. I would need a chemical engineer to explain it to me, and maybe someone here can.

I personally still lean to the UV factor and lack of film build for the SC, but I'm trying to keep an open mind here too. At least we got some interest in the topic going for good debate.