My peeling clearcoat dilemna ( bronzit content warning)

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ilovemycat
Posts: 173
Joined: Jul 03, 2017 4:05 PM
Location: victoria bc

My peeling clearcoat dilemna ( bronzit content warning)

Post by ilovemycat »

Hey folks ,
Here is my 1986 535i . factory 5 speed car , 3.73 E30 lsd diff , bronzit on nutria, with a leather manual sport seat interior that was swapped into it from a wrecked Euro market M535i back in 93'. It has been mainly my daily driver for the last 5 years I've owned it and in this time I have redone all the suspension , had all the rust on the floors repaired and more importantly converted to euro bumpers and lights. Which brings me to today's problem.

While removing the fenders to repair the floor pan corners last year , I found that the inner fender sills were horribly rusty . I replaced them with a very nice set from a white J-spec car. To do the euro conversion , I bought a new euro front valance from the dealer , had all the small trim holes for the front US bumper welded over , rear shock holes filled in , and even had the exhaust cut out portion grafted on to my rear valance that I cut off a rusty euro car in attempt to make it look more " correct".

So now , my front and rear valance both are rocking a driveway rattle can job , my fenders are white , the clearcoat is beyond gone on my roof and trunk lid and the paint is pretty scratched and faded on the rear 1/4s. The hood still is nice, the doors are OK but have some small spots of rust on the bottom sill that I just touched over with POR-15 for the time being . I have a set of blue / white 100% rust free doors if that is something I really want to get into. The sunroof is rusty but I have a glass euro one to replace it with. Basically my car has not a whole lot of factory paint on the outside worth saving as after talking to a paint guy for a while ,peeling clear on a 2 stage paint means the colours gone too. Spending the $10,000 + I've been quoted by multiple shops on a proper full respray base / clear is not an option for me ( especially as I don't even have a garage to keep the car in ). Unfortunately it seems there is no cheap and easy way out to deal with a metallic base / clear paint job as it needs much more sanding and prep work than re-doing a single stage paint .I would be OK with a colour change (not a huge fan of bronzit in the first place ) but then I would have to do door jambs , engine bay , and so on to make it look right. If I were to go with a different colour I would probably chose white for practicality's sake , easy to keep clean , cheapest colour to paint , and keeps my car cool in the summertime.

What do you guys recommend I do here? Originality is of no concern to me , I just want my car to look decent and all be the same colour without spending more than the car is worth. I've budgeted a couple thousand dollars ,I'm willing to do all the disassembly and prep work myself just not sure what my best way of going about it is . I would maybe even try spraying it myself , but no garage or space to do that in sadly. Open to any suggestions here. Thanks!

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Mike W.
Posts: 26872
Joined: Feb 12, 2006 12:00 PM
Location: California Whine Country

Re: My peeling clearcoat dilemna ( bronzit content warning)

Post by Mike W. »

Now I'm an amateur, and a better mechanic than painter. But I have painted a few cars and my spraying has been the weak link, not prep, prep has been good. I've sprayed in the garage, I've sprayed in the yard, less than ideal, but mostly just my spraying not the conditions. And after buffing them out they still came out ok.

Other than just a shade different, I'm not a fan of color changes because there is just so much to do, to do it even remotely right. A slight change in color is fine, nobody but you and half the guys here would ever notice a thing, and it would still be minor.

Yes, I agree, you're into the color, not just the clear and need to either go single stage color or base and clear. But from the looks of it it's so far gone it's almost good, there's not much left to remove. And I remove it differently, I try to use a razor blade at a 90 degree angle to remove failing paint. It's faster and you can do a better job of just removing what you want, not going too far in. Yes, there will be little gouges, that's what spot putty is for. You need to get all the failing clear off and will rub thru in spots as the color base is so so thin and soft you'll be thru it in a second once you get thru the hard clear. But, you only need to sand off the failing clear and a little ways into the good clear, as in maybe just the horizontal surfaces are maybe a little down onto the shoulder area. Good solid clearcoat is just primer once it's sanded with 500. You don't need to sand everything off down to and including the rocker panels, just where it's failing and a little past to make sure you go far enough. SEM has a couple of rattlecan primers that seem adequate for spot priming when you sand thru, leagues better than Rustolium or the like.

So at that point, at least after you take all the trim off, you're close to paint ready and perhaps some shops might be willing to do it for a reasonable price, if all they have to do is minimal mask and spray. Or a Maaco or Earl Schieb if they have those places in Canada. Now those places will spray weatherstripping if not masked or removed, but in my experience their paint isn't bad. Front and rear windshields? Get something like #12 wire, remove the plastic lockstrip at least and work the wire under there so the rubber can be masked and not painted to the body. Or do it yourself, but if your spraying is anything like mine, and it has improved with a better spray gun, expect to have to do a lot of buffing afterwards to get what amounts to overspray off.

Painting a car is a lot of work, just the masking and spraying is like a 10 hour day for me. Single stage Bronzit won't have quite the same look, but you can do 2 stage too. Or later, but it's a lot of work to remove everything again, but you can wet sand it later with 500 and spray it with clear much later. Using single stage on a car that was originally 2 stage will result in a different color, a bit darker IIRC.

Jeez Mike, are you done yet? Yes I can ramble. :laugh:
ilovemycat
Posts: 173
Joined: Jul 03, 2017 4:05 PM
Location: victoria bc

Re: My peeling clearcoat dilemna ( bronzit content warning)

Post by ilovemycat »

Hey thanks for the advice Mike.
I agree on colour changes but I would be willing to pull the motor and the whole interior :shock: to do it right . I'm probably wrong but my thinking was the ease of painting white and the lower cost of doing a single stage compared to bronzit beige metallic could make it cheaper overall. I would be cool with a slight colour change , but I can't think of anything that would be close to the bronzit beige metallic and not be a base / clear and metallic ( the two things that really drive the cost of the job up I was told ) . From what I've heard , single stage metallics don't last well as the metal "flake" will eventually wear off and are very hard to get even. I offered to take my car the shop on a trailer , glass out all the trim off and still got quotes of 7-10,000$. Maybe I need to shop around a bit more , but there's not a whole lot of options for people that do good work , are willing to work with you on it and are reasonably priced . For what its worth , where I'm from in Victoria , BC cost of living has gone insane and all the trades prices have started to follow. Painting cars doesn't seem to be as common as it is down in the states here either and not many shops are even willing to touch jobs that aren't insurance repair claims anymore. A long time hot rod / custom shop that my friend was working at just closed its doors as they couldn't find a new building.
Mike W.
Posts: 26872
Joined: Feb 12, 2006 12:00 PM
Location: California Whine Country

Re: My peeling clearcoat dilemna ( bronzit content warning)

Post by Mike W. »

From what I've seen, and I'm definitely not a pro, single state metallic holds up just fine, although like all single stage paints it will oxidize eventually, but can be buffed out even with just a cleaner wax if you keep up on it. The lack of a clearcoat might mean a little less "pop" visually, but I'm also of the opinion that you can get a better, deeper gloss with single stage. Metallic single stage doesn't color sand well, if you get a run and sand it out it shows, unlike a solid color. You can kind of fog on a light later again and buff it out. Kind of. But other than that it's fine, the metallic holds up fine.

Yes, I know about how shops just seem to want to do insurance work. I don't understand it, but while the shop owners seem to be doing ok, they're not making a killing, they're not driving around in $100K cars or trucks. I was recently quoted almost a grand to sand off clearcoat, not failing, and respray a hood, 2 stage. I about choked, said thank you for your time and went home. I'm in the very, very outer reaches of the SF Bay area, so I know about costs.
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