Paint Without Stripping?

[paul67]

Can a car with older (somewhat faded) but solid, uncracked paint be simply sanded, primed and painted? Or is the complete stripping necessary? The current paint is lacquer (circa 1988) and I wish to go with the same Goodwood Green in base/clear. The car is a driver not show.

[SSTibet]

Paul, is this a fiberglass car like C4??? Or is it metal?

[paul67]

It is fiberglass.

[Firemist1]

There are probably a lot more experts out there about paint than me, but my experience has been that the underlying paint continues to deteriorate and will affect the top coats over time. I painted my '67 in 1986 and put a high quality sealer over the old remaining paint on the entire car, but 10 years later, the old paint underneath started cracking to the point where I had to strip to bare fiberglass and repaint the car.

[paul67]

At my age 10 years later would be just fine.

[Sky65]

Originally Posted by paul79

Can a car with older (somewhat faded) but solid, uncracked paint be simply sanded, primed and painted? Or is the complete stripping necessary? The current paint is lacquer (circa 1988) and I wish to go with the same Goodwood Green in base/clear. The car is a driver not show.

If the paint is not cracked, does not have any adhesion problems and you do not want to change colors, I would clay bar the current paint before doing any paint work. Maybe you could bring back the faded color. A good detail shop may have some ideas as well.

[vette]

If the car is lacquer now you should not put ureathane over it. The two are like oil and water. The solvents in lacquer are never really gone. If you put ureathane over it, it will seal it up like a plastic bag. When the solvents try to breathe it will lift the ureathane right off in sheets. The two should never meet. If you wanted to do the car in lacquer again then you could with no problem.

[paul67]

Does a typical base/clear paint job use urethane?

[JohnZ]

Yes - base/clear is acrylic urethane.

[paul67]

Pardon the bad pun but I guess the answer is clear: strip the car and do the job right.