Paint, touch up, some beyond simple scratch.
 

1986 XJ-6

First of all my sincere thanks to the forum members who helped me locate a fuel tank selector switch and instructions for dissembling the dash to install it--it was easy, but not if you did not know how it was supposed to come apart.

My question now regards doing some touch-up painting. I have no desire to redo the whole car.

My inclination is to use some single stage urethane, reducer and hardener but I am not sure if that will conflict with the old paint on the 1986, which is a glossy black original finish.

Yes, I know to look at the driver's side door panel for the label, which properly says it was built in Coventry and some ID numbers, but I do not find a color code which I understand is supposed to be there. I think all the cars of that year had the same general type of paint, but what was it. I called a Jaguar dealer but they seemed to know even less than I did about it; they did say they found reference to it being a 'colored lacquer' but that is not enough to tell me what I should be using, or what might conflict. (And no, I am not trying to restore to concours condition, but I don't want to screw it up. And yes, I do want to do it myself; I am fairly handy, though when it gets to the stage of needing a complete job I'll have the pros do it.) Thanks for any help you can provide.

OK ill give you my take on this. Ive owned a body shop and for the last 37 years been involved in the auto industry, currently a licensed dealer (small) and buy, fix and paint my own Jaguars. If... the car is Black, solid Black, any version of single stage should work fine. As long as the rest of the car is polished out and shiny it should match fine.

Try to do your paintwork on an area where you have body panel separation where you dont have to blend it or have a paint line show.

I will also say if clean the panel with wax and grease removed, then sand it, prime it with a urethane primer then sand that with some 400 or 600, de wax and grease again and shoot it with the color.

Lastly, since your a hobbiest I would suggest going to any bodyshop supply and asked for them to mix you a spray can (unless you were touching up with a brush) of standard black, single stage. I usually shoot either Dupont or PPG but there are many paint companies out there. They will mix it ready to go with the color, clear and hardner in there. I have used this for repairs on bumpers, lower section of a door under the side molding, those kind of things. You cant blend into another panel or paint a whole door with a spray can (least I cant) but its great for smaller stuff. Most of the time it will dry nice and glossy but......if need be wait a few day and polish out by hand with some compound to get a better finish.

Good luck.

I post as someone who had a complete respray done around 1993 on a white 1980 XJ6 Series 3 after major body and mechanical work. A mini-rebuild if you like. This repaint did not last long, about 18 months, before I got bubbling under the paint and all manner of other failures. The paintshop had, by this time gone bust, but I learnt later that it was not really their fault; they had done their best, but were unaware of the concealed Jaguar paintwork trap. Also my car would not fit the garage at my new house, and was outside in all weathers, and it is pretty damp most months in England.

The Trap
Series 3 Jaguar XJ saloons from 1979 onwards were painted in TPA (Thermoplastic Acrylic) paint. This paint is essentially a layer of perspex on the steel body, and gave a dreadful orange-peel finish on initial application, then the paint oven was supposed to reheat the paint so it flowed out into a glass-like finish. Essentially this didn't work and the whole paint installation was a complete disaster for many months. So bad was this disaster, that only bright red, mustard yellow, and white cars left the factory for months on end. Not exactly popular colours are they ?

The reality is that TPA was just about the worst paint finish known to man, not because it didn't last, but because repairs over it couldn't be done successfully using normal bodyshop repair paints. TPA could only be applied in a multi-million pound plant and even then it was no good. Nobody in the old (pre-Ford) management thought about this, indeed they thought very little about anything in those days of the 70s !! I know because I was there at the time living in Birmingham. And if you think this is bad, paintwork on the Rover saloons made down the road in Solihull at the same time could be peeled off in strips from the car leaving bare steel !!

About 2 years ago there was an article on this fiasco in the Jaguar Enthusiast Club magazine by one of the senior production managers, (a Mr Waeland, I think). Repairs done following paintwork defects during painting, or during car build, (due to production line damage), barely made it to the end of the warranty period after which the old Jaguar company could not have cared less about their customers. Some customers got repaints that then failed yet again ,but by then the car was either out of warranty or had been sold on.
Anyway, under Ford ownership, a decision was made to convert to "Clear over Base" which is the current and excellent system except that the base coat is now water-based. However, I am fairly sure this was done after the XJ40 had been introduced. The later years of the Series 3 saw much work done to alleviate the worst features of TPA, but it remained in use until the end of Series 3 production.

Owner DIY painting
So, how do you carry out minor paintwork on your car ? This is a difficult thing to answer, but in my view, you really need to strip a panel back to bare steel and repaint from scratch. The absolute minimum is to remove all trace of the TPA finish and get back to primer. That is if you want the repaint to last any length of time. However, nowadays, most cars of your era are not usually everyday, all weather cars, so if your car is in a dry environment, and is a low-use cherished car, any repaints you do over the TPA should last reasonably long enough provided they are done carefully and methodically using good quality auto paint.

Guess Ive been corrected. Ill shuddup now.