Repairing peeling clear coat

[21TonyK]

Anyone whos looked at an older red mini will know what I am on about. They all seem to shed their clearcoat in patches, some more, some less but all of them enough to need work.

Is it practical/possible? Im thinking remove anything that will come off, flat back and rattle can new clearcoat over then compound the life out of it.

As an example.. poor pic off the web.

Edited by 21TonyK on Wednesday 30th July 19:21

[mike9009]

There are some useful YouTube videos on it that seem to get it right. Gawd knows how easy it is and how successful it was.

I was recently looking for an old shed, one of which had the same affliction as yours. So has a look. I didn't pull the trigger though.....

[steveo3002]

find a cleaner one , will be a shonky patch up job at best

[21TonyK]

steveo3002 said:

find a cleaner one , will be a shonky patch up job at best

This is the problem, dont think there is such a thing. Any red pre 2007 mini thats seen daylight seems to have the issue and a proper respray is going to cost more the the car is worth.

[steveo3002]

do you want to drive around with some half assed diy bodge up though? it needs all sanding off and repainted properly not just a bit of aerosol clear dusted about on a afternoon

[M138]

If you can peel the lifted clearcoat carefully then a bit of t-cut and a polish it will look presentable.

[SystemOfAFrown]

21TonyK said:

rattle can new clearcoat

FYI rattle can clear coat is not great, the regular acrylic stuff is unbelievably soft and prone to scratching even after months of curing. The "2K" clear coat in aerosols is better, but still nowhere near as hard as the OE stuff.

The problem you will have is that the line between the original clear coat and the new stuff will always be quite obvious, and the existing stuff will continue to degrade and peel. You can temporarily make it look better by simply cutting back the base coat and edges of the peeled clear coat, but the paint without clear coat will fade faster than the stuff with.

[DaveF-SkinnysAutos]

I'm afraid you can't do anything other than respray each panel where the lacquer is peeling. You cant blend clear coat, each panel is an 'island' and needs clear over the whole panel.
Unfortunately the red that's been exposed will also likely have faded so you would need to also paint those sections with matched red base before applying 2K clear (you can blend the base).
Anything else you've seen on social media etc is just clickbait, it might provide a very short period looking better but that's all.