cracks in paint/clearcoat

imported_Baby50

New member
I have a car i am working on were it appears paint/clearcoat has small surface cracks on surface of hood and it appears to have minuet amounts of old wax/polish in cracks. How can you remove this and am i correct in assuming this is old wax that I am looking at? Old wives tale is that if you apply vinegar and water 1-10 parts that it will remove but need confirmation on that and advise in general as to what to do.
 
White95Max said:
What kind of car is it?



Last summer I did a Jaguar XJ-S coupe that had this problem. I used P21s GEPC to fill the cracks. Here's my thread if you want to see the results.

http://autopia.org/forum/showthread.php?t=60746&highlight=V12+garage+queen+XJ-S

White95Max, looking at your Jag thread, my '96 MBZ C280 has exactly that defect in the paint on the hood, and I had despaired of ever fixing (or reducing) it short of repainting.



I'd really appreciate it if you could elaborate a little on what you did and the result (the "after" pic appears to be farther away).



How completely was the defect reduced/concealed?



Was the GEPC the key, or did the SSR2 contribute?



Would the GEPC work by hand? The PC is in storage, but I could break it out.



Is GEPC a filling product, or does it remove completely? I wonder if a glaze+carnauba might help even a little more.



Did you put UPP over this area too?



I use Menzerna+Zaino, but I'd be willing to switch if I could clean up that area significantly.



Sorry for all the questions, but it would make my week if I could make progress on this thing.



Edit: I also have this defect in a very narrow strip of the hood that goes down on either side of the grill, very difficult area to get with the PC.
 
The after pic is indeed father away. It was basically to show that after the GEPC, the cracks were hardly even noticeable unless you were right up next to the paint. GEPC has lots of fillers and that's why I chose it. I made the owner aware that the cracks could not be fully repaired without a repaint. I told him that all I could do about them was to possibly fill them in with a filling polish and then seal the fillers in.



SSR2 has no filling capabilities that I'm aware of. I don't recall there being any improvement in the cracks after using SSR2.

Yes I did apply UPP over the entire car.



GEPC does work by hand, but I can't really say how the filling capabilities would be affected, if at all, from using it by hand vs. via PC.



A glaze and carnauba probably would help even more. I'd say give it a try.
 
OK, you have convinced me, but it will have to wait til next weekend. I'll break out the PC and go over the area with Menzerna IP -- it might at the very least hit the edges of the cracks a little. Then GEPC, and I'll find some sort of glaze, and top with S100 which I have on hand.



Any ideas where to find GEPC locally? (Los Angeles)
 
The Autopia store carries it, but I don't know if there's any way to pick it up from them, or how far away they are. I'd just order it online from Autopia, and you'll get it the next day.
 
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