Really bad clearcoat and very common on many cars in my country,most area's have high sunshine hours and epic levels of UV ,it's interesting it happens on cars much newer than mine. Large hand sanding board showed lots of horror and wasn't surprised bonnet has 2 layers of paint ,will update as I go.
Been looking @ the situation I have here and not having much luck getting the flaking clearcoat off so have upped to more course drylube of 220 grit and that is made a big differance,a bit hard to do as there is nothing flat about a Corrado bonnet so using my Bosch multi-tool which was great on my clearcoat issues with the 87 GTI resto. Plan is to remove as much of the top layer without too much "wood graining" which appears to be ok except for some area's where the good clearcoat is like concrete and sticking like "sh%t to a blanket''. Clearcoat is feathered off ,not that there was anymore than 10% of the surface,moved to 320 pads and then go to 400,after that I will spray a couple of heavy coats of 1k high build filler primer to see if I get "solvent pop " ???.
Well things looked ok after repainting then when I was sanding the clearcoat I got solvent pop from the basecoat,to add insult to injury I had sand thru ,was pissed off but know why and can correct that on the recoat I had a small amount of bad spots so can correct them @ the same time . Summer weather is crap and massive cyclonic storm hit the top of my country and total devastation and that pattern is heading south my way but much reduced in strength so just rain till next week. Not really too pissed off but just the material cost hurts a bit.
Think I would have have DA'd it back to steel, and started from there. But I'm pretty useless with paint.. Keep up the good work Jon
Yes I did think of doing that but instead decided to remove as much of the old paint as mentioned ,got down to the original primer as I removed 2 coats of old paint,the solvent pops were caused by the 1k primer when I touched up the second coat before applying base.
Much prefer 2K as a one application fix. Applicable to my comp vehicles as they tend to get 'rubbed' here and there so less precious about finish, more precious about the time invested. Jon
Got the base layed down well and 2 coats of clear .light sand to get the last 2 wet coats of clear on today if not too windy. Yes John that would have been better but already had the paint (VW B7 V ) and besides not a fan of 2k...its nasty stuff tend to stick with 1k cause thats what I know,cheers.
Got it done yesterday and pretty good result ,no solvent pop with 3 more coats of clear and did a last wet coat so only ended up with fine orange peel that will sand back easy enough but not ready for wet sanding as still bleeding off reducer.... interesting as time seems to see the finish shrinking back ,going to wait a few more days the most likely will get better result . Had a real good mate (car painter 40yrs ) look @ the paint and he said the clearcoat failure caused by application issue on the last repaint which it appears was around early 2005 from what the last owner told me but he told me all sorts before I bought it lol.
Thanks Jon ,more pics of your project would be nice ...we all like pics . Have let the paint settle and wet sanded one side of the bonnet today,orange peel flatted off easily with 800 and looking good ,a bit grainy to start with but with the last 2 wet coats pretty easy really,happy camper after all the previous BS . Took the wiper trims off as they were pretty crap and found out the last windscreen install guy had broken all the lower screen clips and just glued back in the trim with silicone. Moving for now as I have repaired those plastic panels and look ok. Will update,cheers.
Bonnet pre-sanded back with 1200 so if it gets any shit on it will wipe/sand off,don't what to buff till rest of paintwork done then do all area's buffed together. Pulled or I mean shoe horned the motor assembly out as the mounting bracket was rusty and always thought they wipers were slow. Painted the bracket and striped all driveshafts out and cleaned out all the caked up grease,refitted and noticeably faster with me secret grease ,good result.
Moving on to start getting the roof prepped for repaint so sunroof panel out for sanding, the panel still has a reasonably good outer seal which I can mask off and reuse,they are crazy money to buy besides . Found out why the roof wouldn't slide back as LH front slider and lock detent both broken ,think I have a remedy for this but spending time understanding working out how it works and then more "why did they do it this way ",the one in my 87 GTI was a much better system but manual. Good news is a can confirm the cables are intact by carefully winding it back manually by carefully moving broken parts I got it to retract into the roof.
Oooo the roof is a pig when the usual left hand slider breaks. If you find a solution, post up as every Corrado owner will be in your debt
You would be very much correct on that point, all starts of with the small tab on the chrome ( brass ) locking cam breaking off and instead of the piece locking in the detent it rides over it causing undue strain on the front slider forcing it upwards till this "muck metal'' part snaps. The other result is the curved lever which operates the wind deflect raise ups and snaps the top curclip off but this will still work as mine is. Not looking good @ the moment due to finding the pivot shaft on the lock is bent upwards ,steel pin pressed into cast piece ...reckon it might break if I try to straighten...will rethink another solution but not looking good unless the lock works spot on ?.
I do have some spares from a stripped out one from 9 years ago, but not the whole slider. I remember trying to join it together and failing. A company did reproduce these a year or so ago but I believe they all sold out. If you post any pics up i can check what i have.
Got the sunroof panel and sanded the bad clear away then used 2 heavy coats of high build primer ,planned to use some left over mixed basecoat as a guidecoat but not needed so I finished the first coat with what I had...real happy. Got the broken lock fixed on the sunroof but put that on the back burner as need to remove the whole cassette because the roof headliner sunroof panels have no lining left..bugger it. Cheers.
Basecoats on the sunroof panel will be on today as perfect conditions. Had issues with the primer I've been using so moved to another product....much better and NO solvent pop. Started on the roof and about 40% done as not much issue with bad clearcoat unlike the bloody bonnet,some areas need little work and this appears to be original paint which is a bonus. Topcoat lays down ok but not to my liking so upped the reducer a bit and bingo much better finish before clearcoat ,strange as the ratio appeared differant from my last full repaint with PPG but this is replacement Valspar . Happy with progress,cheers.
