Quote:
Originally Posted by kevinr1970
On my '86 swb the clear is coming off real bad. It looks horrible.
I took it to a car wash and while rinsing it I noticed the pressure washer would take the flaking clear off pretty nicely. So I decided that would be a smart thing to do; blast it to get the bubbling/flaking clear off.
Unfortuneatly in a few spots it blasted the paint of in 6" diameter pieces. 
So in this situation does it need to come down to the primer/metal? What I mean is if its only the clear coming off do I need to get to the primer or will sanding until the clear is gone be enough?
BTW, I found a nine page journal of the original owner trying to get GM to repaint the truck. The paint peeled in less than a year! (1986) They said it was because he lived in the mountains and didn't clean the snow off as often as he should have. LESS THAN ONE YEAR OLD!
After trying a few different dealers he finally got them to repaint it in 1993 but they would only pay half. And (according to him) they agreed to repaint the entire truck including replacing all the chrome trim but when they gave it back to him SIX WEEKS later (said it would be ~10 days) they had only repainted the top of the body and refused to even look at the bed.
He wrote that he had an estimate from an independant shop to do what they agreed to do for a little more than the "half" he agreed to pay. He went to the dealer because he thought they would do a better job. He felt different after finally getting his truck back? |
This is going to take a little time, first of all, there is no way that you can properly sand JUST the clear off. You will undoubtedly get into the basecoat and that will require a repaint of the color base. NOW; with that said, you can look at your adhesion capabilities of your basecoat and decide if the body is providing a good surface or not. Odds are the clear is giving up due to something that did not react properly with it and the base color. This one may only require a sanding and prepping the same as any other vehicle that just needs a repaint. Again, you also need to decide if you want to do the job once and not ever again, this will tell you how far to go in the prep. MAACO is not your friend, here. You need to use quality stuff, if you plan on keeping the truck for a long time.
In the past years the manufacturers made many approaches to controlling the NASTY rust that we saw in the mid Seventies. They tried a zinc coating on the metal, they tried different types of metal and then they tried paints of all kinds. Every one of the ideas crashed badly and created the problems that you are dealing with now. I went to bare metal in 1996 on my GMC SWB and it is still on there with some updates to add the flames at a later date. Quality paint, quality body prep, and time is what you need.
Stay away from a body shop that wants to do it for next to nothing--they are using the lower quality paints---Maybe you should do it yourself, getting input from others that do the work. I had a personal hand in all of my body work and paint.
As for the paint coming off, due to setting out in the cold and the snow is not removed---I have only one word and it is BULL. They did this so that they wouyld not have to turn a claim into the corporation for work done in warranty---they would loose money on that.
All of the companies had problems with paint, some worse than others.