Removing flaking clear coat to try and save the 2002 original base coat ?

Hi , 

is there a way to remove the original clear coat that is flaking from being out in the sun for years ?

it looks like the base coat is still good  ,  original color is a dark blue .

Thanks for your ideas , :)

I have blown sheets of it off with an air hose. 

I also wasn't trying to save anything, I was just having fun blowing clear coat off. 

I made a decent 5-footer out of a black 93 probe GT with flaking clear. I used a razor blade to carefully scrape back the flaking / peeling, then wet-sanded to feather the edge, then masked about 6" beyond the feathered edge and hit it with rattle can clear. Wet-sanded that and it polished up nice.

Honda? 
I used to work at a paint and body supply store. I had a customer come in and planned to sand the whole panel and re-clear. I sold him some good sandpaper and a couple cans of 2k clear. I told him explicitly to come and let me know how it worked out. Never saw him again. 
But his plan sounded reasonable. How much metallic in the paint ? 

The clear is peeling from my mercedes, base is still alright.  I hit it with polishing compound to blend and polish it take out the opaque clear down.  The problem is I don't think the base coat has hardener in it so it is really soft and seems to scratch and blemish easily.  Basically, it is what it is, it will look better than failed clear coat.   

Exactly what Angry said. There are eleventy thousand youtube videos on this. The more prep the better the results but even a quick job looks much better at 5 feet. 

I would look into how this might help.

Color sand to blend and remove a lot of the old clear, Wipe with this stuff to re-energize the surface of the old clear, and shoot new clear.

I spent time and money doing the remove the flakes/feather sand/2k clearcoat restoration attempt on my 2006 Civic's front bumper cap, and while it looked pretty OK for a while, it didn't last.  Generally speaking, (and I'm not a 'paint guy' so bear with me), it appears as though the problem is lack of continued adhesion of the factory clear to the paint below it.  The remaining factory clear in my case continued to lose that bond, and the delamination continued.  At that point, I said "looks good enough for the teenage driver to use", and left it alone.

Can be done, more prep the better it will turn out. 

1SlowVW said:

Honda? 
I used to work at a paint and body supply store. I had a customer come in and planned to sand the whole panel and re-clear. I sold him some good sandpaper and a couple cans of 2k clear. I told him explicitly to come and let me know how it worked out. Never saw him again. 
But his plan sounded reasonable. How much metallic in the paint ? 

Something like this ? I don't know if it's clear coat failure or oxidation ? 
 

Pic did not work last time.

Worth a try?

I think its water based PPG clear coat ,  many cars had a problem  with the clear coat turning white and then flaking , 

This just looks worse because its mostly on the front hood and some on the roof ,  and the base is dark blue , 

maybe it needs a "wrap"

In reply to californiamilleghia :

That is true. If it's just the hood, a black wrapped hood looks good on most sports cars. 

NOHOME said:

Pic did not work last time.

Worth a try?

Woah, this just made the bodywork on my 300CE so much easier.