checked paint-anything besides repaint?

From my experience, you're fighting a lost cause.

Even coloured waxes won't hide the crazing (that's the actual term for the condition).

 

I have discussed with my paint tech and he says NOT a bare metal job, FWIW.

It's the paint that has gone bad not the factory polyester (?) filler, so somewhere in there you stop sanding and reseal the surface and go back with modern paint compounds.

I think it is less labor intensive to chemically strip the car, maybe that's where it comes from......you have to disassemble really far to do that though.

 

Was the original Ferrari paint Laquer in the 70's-80's? if so , laquer drys very hard and is not as flexible a enamel. I think too much time in the Sun can cause laquer to crack as well. I painted a Corvette years ago, they used laquer paints back then (70's) and because of the fiberglass, flex cracks in the paint were common. When I repainted mine, I used a "Flex" additive that made the laquer more flexible.

 

I agree with BigTex,
A lot depends on how far into the paint the cracks go.

You have to strip it down until the remaining layers don't have any flaws, otherwise the checking will be back in a few months.

One panel I refinished had checking that only went thru the color coat, and the underlying primer was good. Sanded the color coat off, sprayed with a primer/sealer & color & it was still good 5 years later when I sold the car.

On another car I did for someone, the checking was part way thru the primer. Sanded down to filler & metal, lightly filled, sprayed primer/sealer & color. No problems last I'd heard.

If the checking is in the filler, then the filler has to come off.

Since the 308s were built with lots of filler to hide tooling marks & other metalwork flaws, you really don't want to strip to bare metal unless the filler is failing. While chemical stripping a panel makes taking the old surface off easy, on 3x8s, the subsequent re-filling & sanding to get the surface ready for priming more than makes up for the difference.

Yes, the early 308s were lacquer, At some point in the '80s Ferrari went to single stage acrylic enamel, then in the very late 80s to a urethane w/clear coat.

 

Verell- I have an 85'qv - I need to do some paint touch up (front spoiler etc), how can I find out if it's laquer ?
Steve

 

I was just about to start a thread on this. I just bought a 1976 Mercedes 450 SL, white over blue leather, which is in very nice shape cosmetically except that the paint is crazed almost everywhere. There are also a few minor chips that have rusted, which are of course very visible given the color contrast.

My question is the same: any alternative to a respray?

Ron

 

I had a little mishap on my 86 328, & put a small dent on the fender. Had it paintless dent repaired, but the paint cracked a little. they warned me but I wanted the dent out....it still needs a little massaging on the dent as it's near an edge. anyway I was thinking about having it airbrushed/ touch up, but not sure about sanding down to metal.
I know Aero Colours does the painting, anyone familiar w/them? experience?..good/bad?

 

spiderseeker
The big difference between lacquer & other paints is that lacquer is always soluble in lacquer thinner. The other paints are a 2-part catalyst/base that permanently cures.

Put some lacquer thinner on a piece of cloth & wipe someplace well out of sight. If you get a smear of paint color on the cloth, you've got lacquer.

Mike,
Any good body shop will be able to do a spot repair/touch-up. Altho, most will want to respray the fender to ensure the blend is invisible as it takes skill to do an invisibly blended spot repair. A really good shop can do an invisible spot repair with computer color matched paint & blending.

Just searched the web. Sounds like Aero Colours specializes in just the kind of repair you need.

 

We intended to do a similar respray job on my '78 GTB... and found that there was for the most part a full layer of filler under the original paint all over the car... and that it was not in great shape. I ended up taking the car down to bare metal all over.

Bill