Anybody know of a way to remove the clearcoat on a car without removing the base coat? The clearcoat is peeling on several cars I've got and I thought maybe i can get away with reclearing a couple without having to do an entire paint job? Am I crazier than usual?
Doesn't really work that way, you can sand"to" the clear coat but the issue is that the color coat is usually VERY thin and the exixting clear coat will lift regardless.
So what you're saying is you can't re-clearcoat without painting? Or ir'a not suggested to re-clearcoat? What if no primer shows through? I'm asking and interested in this also as the clear is coming off on a couple of my vehicles also. My 95 F150 has clearcoat coming off the hood and roof and my 99 Miata has a little coming off the hood. Truck is dark blue and Miata is green if that is a factor. I haven't asked a painter about it yet.
X3 The clearcoat on the hood of my E28 BMW peeled on almost a quarter of the hood. It started out as a bubble then got worse from there. A couple of bubbles are showing on the roof too. I'm thinking of feathering it and just re-clearing just the peeled section but that might be too ghetto.
If some clear is starting to peel, the rest may also peel. It's tough to sand just the clear, because as soon as you get through the clear, you'll go through the color. If you want to try, do so with a fine paper, and quit sanding when your dust turns the color of the car.
The best solution (and the probable one, if you try the above), is to remove the clear and color, then respray. Use a DA or VS buffer, with a sanding pad (velcro will make the job easier, as you'll be changing discs/grits a lot).
If you've never done this, plan on spending some money and doing it right.
GRM articals reference some sort of company that matches your color, then puts it into a super-duper convenient aerosol can that you just shake and spray. I am going to try that for my Miata in the spring.
I have found, by mistake, that blue painters tape removes the clear coat quite easily on Miatas. By the way, is your Miata actually green or is it that weird "Montego Blue" that I think is blue but nearly 80% of passersby think is green?
Shotgun.
The clearcoat on my pickup got up and peeled away. I bought a can of aerosol clearcoat but the stuff is toxic, cost 25$ for a 12oz aerosol, and has a potlife of only 2hours. I'm going to sand down the hood of my pickup to bare metal, prime, sand, and then paint and clear coat. I bought the clear coat to do the benz but only would have sprayed like two or three shots and 25$ is down the drain. From what I hear the clearcoat is nasty stuff and you have to be very careful not to inhale or touch the stuff. Good luck!
I also noticed that the painters tape tooks some of my clear coat with it, oh well.
confuZion3 wrote: GRM articals reference some sort of company that matches your color, then puts it into a super-duper convenient aerosol can that you just shake and spray. I am going to try that for my Miata in the spring. I have found, by mistake, that blue painters tape removes the clear coat quite easily on Miatas. By the way, is your Miata actually green or is it that weird "Montego Blue" that I think is blue but nearly 80% of passersby think is green?
Most paint stores can do this. Don't count on a good match though.
confuZion3 wrote: GRM articals reference some sort of company that matches your color, then puts it into a super-duper convenient aerosol can that you just shake and spray. I am going to try that for my Miata in the spring. I have found, by mistake, that blue painters tape removes the clear coat quite easily on Miatas. By the way, is your Miata actually green or is it that weird "Montego Blue" that I think is blue but nearly 80% of passersby think is green?
Don't know what Mazda calls it but it is close to BRG. My 99 Miata Will have to look into that aerosol can stuff.
You cannot remove just the clearcoat and re-apply. Won't work. It's not that much more work to repaint the color, just the expense of the paint and some time.
At the school I'm attending we have a color match system from Dupont called the "VINdicator" If you put in the paint code from your car and the VIN number it tell what variiation/variant of the color you have. You can get the best match with this system.
Only way to do it is sand off all of the clear and repaint. I'm doing it now with the original paint on y Rx-7. Razor blade does wonders if the clearcoat is dry. I get flakes about 6" x4" with it. 
benzbaron wrote: I also noticed that the painters tape tooks some of my clear coat with it, oh well.
Never again will I make a tape racing stripe.
I too had a badly peeling clearcoat. Took it to a paint shop and the guy wanted 4 grand to repaint it. the car is not even worth $4000 so I decided (since I had an air compressor) to paint it myself. How hard could it be right? After all, I have painted furniture before. Well, I will never do that again. It took almost a year to finish. mostly because of the prep. I sanded all the way to the metal - sprayed primer - sanded smooth - sprayed base let it tack (like i read it all the books and forums) then sprayed clear. It looked pretty good. It had some orange peel in places but the paint store guy recommended this stuff called micro finish to buff out the orange peel. It worked like a charm. I got all my paint supplies at an auto paint store (not walmart), so I spent arount $1500 for that. It lasted about 2 years, now the clearcoat is peeling again. Now it looks worse than before.
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