Start of Something Bad?

[ORANGERT]

Hello everyone! I haven`t posted in some time but I still love polishing my vehicles. I was lucky enough to find a 92 Vette in decent mechanical shape. In other words a good driver with decent appearance, from 6 feet away! In your expert opinion does the paint look like the beginning of clear coat failure? I have washed, clayed,glazed and waxed. I was afraid to try my DA and even something as light as Meg`s 205 and a polishing pad if the clear is in fact just starting to fail. Here is a shot of the car and another close up shot of the paint on the right rear quarter. The finish on the whole car looks like this till just below the door handles. One thing has me questioning if this is clear failure on 25 year old paint or some type of damage to the clear. The previous owner worked at a battery factory.

[Ronkh]

84-90`s had terrible failure on front/rear bumpers.....

But yeah the speckles looks like it could be or some sort of bonded contamination.

[GearHead_1]

Looks like the paint is giving it up. Any possibility that this area has been repainted?

[Boden]

Quite oxidized and pitted. Is the base paint cracked anywhere?

[ORANGERT]

I was told by the previous owner of 13 years it is original paint. All of the horizontal surfaces look like this: roof, rear deck, tops of left and right rear quarter panels,tops of left and right mirrors, and the hood/fender panel. The front and rear urathane bumpers are the typical sun faded for a vette this old. It does have a clear Carfax showing no accidents per their records and I haven`t found any evidence of a repaint anywhere. What has me questioning clear coat failure is there are no white looking areas here and there plus there is no paint lifting or delaminating - "yet". All the clear coat failures I have seen had splotchy areas of peeling clear coat.
Maybe this is a early stage of clear coat failure???
Claying the paint made no difference in the appearance whatsoever, but it does feel nice and smooth now.
Would you chance using the DA and Meg`s 205? Or should I play it safe and keep using just Prima Amigo and Prima Banana Gloss to play it safe? I`m afraid a coating would enhance the "specks".

[ORANGERT]

Quite oxidized and pitted. Is the base paint cracked anywhere?

There are tiny minuscule marks/dashes mixed in with the "specks". So that makes it very hard to tell, but the base coat appears ok to me. Not at all like the cracking and crazing I have seen in older C3 and C2 vets.

[ORANGERT]

Oh and as a side note this may help. I just looked very closely at the finish on different panels using a magnifying glass. The specks look like teeny weeny craters under close scrutinity with the magnifying glass. Driving West in the evening it looks like a coat of dust on the hood when the setting sun is at a certain angle.

[GearHead_1]

Oh and as a side note this may help. I just looked very closely at the finish on different panels using a magnifying glass. The specks look like teeny weeny craters under close scrutinity with the magnifying glass. Driving West in the evening it looks like a coat of dust on the hood when the setting sun is at a certain angle.

My guess and it`s worth exactly what is being paid for it, is if the paint is OE, it`s just as you suspect clear coat has decided to check out. It would be a great test bed. Pick an isolated area and do the works, wash, clay polish and see what it looks like. If nothing else it would be a great chance to see how much, if any you might improve it.

[ORANGERT]

I`ll do a small test spot by hand. If it makes a discernible difference I will post before and after shots. Thanks for helping me!!

[Civicclutch]

What state was it in most of its life. If in a southern state were dust storms are prevalent it my be sand blasted naturally


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ShaneB]

Looks like solvent pop almost. Definitely not any type of clear coat failure we typically see from UV exposure. Since its only on horizontal surfaces, I would think its not actually solvent pop though.

You say the previous owner worked at a battery factory. I would be willing to bet some highly acidic fallout from the factory may have happened to settle on the car and was allowed to eat away at the paint. Considering the defects are below the surface, and pretty extreme IMO, repainting may be your only option.

[Boden]

There are tiny minuscule marks/dashes mixed in with the "specks". So that makes it very hard to tell, but the base coat appears ok to me. Not at all like the cracking and crazing I have seen in older C3 and C2 vets.

If you don`t see the crows feet cracks near corners that means the gel coat on the fiberglass is most likely still in good shape. This makes repainting much easier if you decide to go that route. Until then I doubt a light m205 polish to remove some of the oxidized clear will do much harm. That should clear up some of the yellowing of the clear that is making it look orange. Test first and go light.

[ORANGERT]

I`m going to try a light polish with 205 on a door mirror housing and hope I don`t see any base coat red color on a 3 inch finishing pad. Fingers crossed!

[Accumulator]

I`m going to try a light polish with 205 on a door mirror housing and hope I don`t see any base coat red color ..

Noting that I`d do some careful experimenting like that if it were mine too, note that b/c paint is pretty much terminal long before you actually hit basecoat. You need a *thick* layer of clear on there if only for the UV protection, especially with red (which can fade to pink under thin clearcoat).

I`ve had that "sorta like solvent-pop, but probably not really that" type of pitting myself! Never got better with polishing, and in one case I simply sold the car as a repaint wasn`t in the cards Hope you`re luckier, or at least less fanatical about what`s acceptable, than I was.

Just FWIW, if it were mine I`d start with a thorough chemical decontamination. If it`s some kind of acidic fallout from the battery factory it may well need to be neutralized to truly stop its progression.

[ORANGERT]

Noting that I`d do some careful experimenting like that if it were mine too, note that b/c paint is pretty much terminal long before you actually hit basecoat. You need a *thick* layer of clear on there if only for the UV protection, especially with red (which can fade to pink under thin clearcoat).

I`ve had that "sorta like solvent-pop, but probably not really that" type of pitting myself! Never got better with polishing, and in one case I simply sold the car as a repaint wasn`t in the cards Hope you`re luckier, or at least less fanatical about what`s acceptable, than I was.

Just FWIW, if it were mine I`d start with a thorough chemical decontamination. If it`s some kind of acidic fallout from the battery factory it may well need to be neutralized to truly stop its progression.

Nice to hear from you Accumulator! I did try the FK1000P on my 2014 Ram R/T and like the appearance better than the 4 coats of Klasse I put on last year. Plus it wasn`t as labor intensive.
I haven`t done any "cautious" polishing yet as we are watching the grandkids for a couple weeks. I have many little hands helping me with things around the house lol!!!
What would be a good decontamination product to use? Something like IronX? I did try Klasse all in one as a chemical cleaner on the mirror after a wash and clay. Didn`t faze it. But I really didn`t expect it to as the damage is already done whatever the cause. My goal now is to try and stop the deterioration as long as I can as well as try to improve the appearance without making it worse.