What to do about Miata clearcoat peeling and bubbling an oxidizing?

 So my Miata has the usual clearcoat destruction going on. I’m not going to do anything crazy, like painting it with a professional gun or anything. At least not right now.

I priced out doing a simple plastidip spray bomb job and it works out to about 50 bucks. My concern though is what I should do to get rid of the clearcoat so that the rough surfaces do not shine through and disrupt the smoothness of the plastidip when applied. I can hit it with the sander but then the paint underneath is going to look like garbage. 

On the other hand, the plastidip will protect the paint, right?

You can wet-sand away the peeled clearcoat, use a fine grit. Plastidip should be applied to smooth paint, and it will prevent the paint underneath from being further damaged by the sun.

on my '93 probe gt i used a razor blade to scrape back all the loose clearcoat around the edges of the peeled area, then wet-sanded the whole area with 1000 grit and soapy water, then rinsed, then spray-bombed the damaged areas with clear krylon from hardware store.   as mika hakkinen used to say, "was good result."

Ha ha! Thanks guys. I’ll do the wet sanding and razor blades. 

AngryCorvair said:

on my '93 probe gt i used a razor blade to scrape back all the loose clearcoat around the edges of the peeled area, then wet-sanded the whole area with 1000 grit and soapy water, then rinsed, then spray-bombed the damaged areas with clear krylon from hardware store.   as mika hakkinen used to say, "was good result."

going to try that on my truck

Funny, we had a '93 PGT in my family that was garage kept most of it's life up until the early 00's upon which the glossy Rio Red paint went to E36 M3 and faded by the sun within a few short years.  They really seemed to have poor paint quality back then.  Although not as bad as ChryCo which peeled away in huge sheets.  

In reply to Stanger2000 :

It was the start of the water-based paint era.  They didn't have it down when first introduced on a large scale.

In reply to _ :

I, too, have a clear coat lifting problem on my 911. I've done a lot of research and I'm kind of in the same boat in that I don't want to go to a professional clear coat situation. As I understand it, the problem with using Krylon or Rust-Oleum clear is twofold. Number one there is no hardener in budget spray paint therefore it does not last long. And number two it usually yellows in a matter of months. That being said I have found this product call Spray Max 2K clear coat. It actually has a hardener that you inject in the can before using. The spray can is good for about 48 hours after activation of hardener before it hardens too much. I'm planning on doing this in the next week or two so I can report back with the results. From what I've seen both on YouTube and my goggle machine this seems to be a viable option. It is a little pricey but it works supposedly. About $15 to $20 p e r shipped spray bomb. Look into it I think it will work.

here's worse spot of what I'm trying to clean up.  About 6 or 8 inch long

Ovid_and_Flem said:

In reply to _ :

I, too, have a clear coat lifting problem on my 911. I've done a lot of research and I'm kind of in the same boat in that I don't want to go to a professional clear coat situation. As I understand it, the problem with using Krylon or Rust-Oleum clear is twofold. Number one there is no hardener in budget spray paint therefore it does not last long. And number two it usually yellows in a matter of months. That being said I have found this product call Spray Max 2K clear coat. It actually has a hardener that you inject in the can before using. The spray can is good for about 48 hours after activation of hardener before it hardens too much. I'm planning on doing this in the next week or two so I can report back with the results. From what I've seen both on YouTube and my goggle machine this seems to be a viable option. It is a little pricey but it works supposedly. About $15 to $20 p e r shipped spray bomb. Look into it I think it will work.

Along those same lines, many auto paint supply stores (brick & mortar) have the ability to fill spray cans with whatever automotive grade paint you want, including clear. 

Hmm... I might just wait until you show us some results then. This could be a viable option. 

_ said:

Hmm... I might just wait until you show us some results then. This could be a viable option. 

I'm waiting for a break in this goofy weather patern even tho car is in my garage.  what size area is your problem paint area?  Better yet post some pics.  As an aside, when I shot Plasti Dip on some dead paint on C4 challenge car it didn't want to come off and actually stained the paint coat on the car. Of course this was 30 year old dead paint on a fiberglass C4.

YMMV