Body Work Help.

[80VetteL82]

I got my car back from the paint shop late March. It has all the original body parts, and the nose was pretty cracked up. We filled the nose properly and did the rest of the body work. We painted it with 2 base coats (OEM Midnight black) and 3 Clear Coats. Everything was fine, then about a week later the nose started to bubble up. It got worse over the next week. By the end of the second week it had about 6 hard and soft bubbles on the nose, and some of the bubbles were so big the paint split on them. I brought it back down and we stripped the nose, resanded and repainted it. Its been about a week and a half and the same thing has started. It has 9 bubbles(4 really small ones, and 5 about the size of quarters or half dollars). Does anyone know why this is happening!?!?! My body guy said it might be a chemical reaction ? Any input please. I was thinking it might be from all the filler we had to use? ad

Thanks for any input,
80VetteL82

 

[arcticvette]

did you use a flex agent in the paint for the nose? mine was painted by a previous owner and is peeling on the nose, was told that it wasn't done properly. sounds similar.
Mike

 

[80VetteL82]

yah it was a flex agent I forget what. The guy that did it was trained by Dupont. He just painted his 1981, and he repaired his nose the same way and his had no problem. We cant figure out what the hell is going on.

 

[lonestarvette64]

Flex agents are used on BC/CC paint jobs only in the clear coat. Generally, if flexable parts are painted while bolted to the car, it is not always necessary to use a flex agent. On the other hand... if flexible parts are painted off of the car a flex agent should be used. If you used a chemical stripper on your flexible parts, you need to follow it with a neutralizer or good soap and water bath and allow at least a week for any residual chemicals to evaporate from the poors of the part before topcoating with anything! There is still no guarantee a chemical stripper won't react.

Remote chance of moisture which could cause blistering as well.

Hope this helps!

Chuck

 

[80VetteL82]

Flex agents are used on BC/CC paint jobs only in the clear coat. Generally, if flexable parts are painted while bolted to the car, it is not always necessary to use a flex agent. On the other hand... if flexible parts are painted off of the car a flex agent should be used. If you used a chemical stripper on your flexible parts, you need to follow it with a neutralizer or good soap and water bath and allow at least a week for any residual chemicals to evaporate from the poors of the part before topcoating with anything! There is still no guarantee a chemical stripper won't react.

Remote chance of moisture which could cause blistering as well.

Hope this helps!

Chuck

Yeah, Thats definitely something I look into.

Thanks.

 

[zachh]

If there is moisture under the paint, in the fiberglass, that would cause it to flex just the smallest bit, to either crack or bubble your paint. The previose owner of mine had it painted, they didn't do something right, now parts of the back bumper and the underside of the pace car fin are crackin and bubbling.(just small ones) Also, your paint may not be sticking to your car. This could be caused by many reasons that I don't know anything about.

Hope this helps

zachh

 

[bill81vette]

Same thing happened to me with my vette on the front right where the emblem goes,It had happened last june within a week of being painted,and I just had it fixed last month.My body man got thru the bubble and the glass and found that the fiberglass was bad!He told me that at some point in its life it had to be bare fiberglass and was exposed to the sun for a period of time(which it was,It had front end damge on it when I bought it and the fellow tried to fix it several years,b/4 I got it! So far since they have been repaired (he fixed it for free,even though it wasn't his fault it had happened) no more bubbles have showed up!


good luck

 

[80VetteL82]

alright so if my fiberglass had indeed been exposed to the sun, and thats what is causing the bubbling, how should I go about fixing it?

 

[bill81vette]

he had to replace the fiberglass underneath the paint anthe reseal/and repaint it.

 

[Evolution1980]

Your bubbles are caused because the primer used on the urethane had some sort of acid in it. Possibly PaintDaddy here at the CAC could tell you more.
I have the same problem on my front bumper. I had the front & rear bumper prep'd by someone else and then took it to be painted by a pro shop. Although the primer used wasn't supposed to contain any type of acidic compound, apparently it did. At least this is what the paint shop told me. I don't think they'd lie to me. They took the car back and re-did the bumper, but the bubbles came back in exact same spot a week or so later. They said that the acid is now bonded with the urethane so there ain't no fixin' it. "Too bad, so sad" essentially!
It's kinda like pouring brake fluid on to a painted metal surface. Not only will the paint almost instantly bubble and rub off, good luck on getting paint to ever adhere to that spot again!

 

[80VetteL82]

i see. It might just be easier to buy a new nose.

 

[Evolution1980]

i see. It might just be easier to buy a new nose.

I'm gonna have to one of these days...as much as I'm not looking forward to that! Like I said ("was told")...once it's in there, ain't nothing to do to correct it...

 

[80VetteL82]

yah thats going to suck. I think its like 300 or 400 for a fiberglass nose, and 500 for a urethane one. Plus Ive heard theyre a PAIN to install. I could use a rear bumper too. Its got the notorious wave, because they didnt start using the stress bar in the rear spoiler until 1981 O well.

 

[Evolution1980]

yah thats going to suck. I think its like 300 or 400 for a fiberglass nose, and 500 for a urethane one. Plus Ive heard theyre a PAIN to install. I could use a rear bumper too. Its got the notorious wave, because they didnt start using the stress bar in the rear spoiler until 1981 O well.

I would HIGHLY suggest against a fiberglass front bumper. Rear, OK. Front, no way. It's just too easy to bump our nose into things or for other people to hit it because it's so far below the usual sight-lines. (i had a cabbie back up into me...didn't know my nose was there...) Fiberglass just won't take the small dings the way urethane will.
Rear bumpers really don't get hit as much (by us or others) because it's more easily seen so I'd be OK with a fiberglass rear.

 

[80VetteL82]

yah I wouldnt want the fiberglass one.