I have mild crazing on the hood of my 86 regent grey XJS - which has thermoplastic paint. I am wondering if anyone has successfully had a smaller area, like a panel, re-painted with modern paint, and got a good match. If so, what kind of paint did they use?

 

The base coat is awfully thin. My clear coat started blowing out about 2 years ago now. On the hood and roof it is flaking, but the entire deck lid, which blew out months ahead of everything else, is just consistently flat now.

I don't think there is any chance you could get down to the base and apply a new clear coat, but I am assuming since you mentioned a color match that your intention is a new base and clear, right?

Should be easy enough to go to a local PPG or something with your color code and get a pint or so mixed up to see what you think. Try painting somewhere inconspicuous, like on the inside of the deck lid, to check whether it matches. Btw the Jag code for regent grey is LDL

 

I'm talking about the thermoplastic acrylic paint, which is one-stage and does not have clearcoat.

 

Hi Mark- I have an 83 with thermoplastic gray paint (either Seville or something f else I can’t remember) which was heavily crazed. When stripping it off I was surprised to find one fender was base and clear... obviously repaired accident damage. The match was pretty good! So it can be done, but... I bet with new clear it would look funny. So maybe go for a single stage paint like PPG DCC: https://buyat.ppg.com/RefinishProduc...9-1D6AAC087000

I love DCC because I’m a terrible painter! Lay it on thick, pick out the bugs and dirt, and sand it till it shines! That won’t work with metallic though.

I went for a full repaint on mine instead of trying to match because it was all crazed. Wow going bare metal with thermoplastic paint was an insane process. The paint melts before it sands off. If you’re going bare metal let me know because I have some specific products/methods you’d need to use.

-John

 

Thanks for the reply. I've heard that chemical paint stripper is the way to go, would you agree?

 

I’ll be repainting my car soon. I’ll be matching the original BRG on the car.

 

I had zero luck with aircraft brand stripper. I think I tried a couple of other consumer type brands and this paint didn’t behave like normal car paint would. It’s almost like trying to strip powder coat. Stripper is cheap enough for you try it on your own though. Maybe a body shop supplier has something better.

To get the paint off I used 3M Green Corps Roloc 36 grit discs (which are little... 2” maybe) on an air powered angle grinder to scuff away maybe 80% of the color. I did my best to avoid touching the metal with the angle grinder, so the primer was showing through but not metal. Then I used 3M “Purple” 80 grit on a 8 or 10” dewalt buffer to take the rest off down to the metal. On a normal car you could sand down a hood in ten minutes with a buffer and 80 grit...

 

Vee, your car is a 95 or 96 or something like that right? You don’t have to worry about Thermoplastic paint. Anything post facelift (and maybe a little earlier) used utterly conventional base/clear. You would never want to go bare metal on the later cars because they are galvanized.

 

I just noticed Mark that you’re in California. PPG DCC, like many good useful things, is banned in California (and Canada). You’re probably looking at something water based, and certainly not anything single stage.

 

I would recommend chemical stripping. I used a regular paint stripper from my local hardware store. The secret is to scratch the paint lightly with a knife before you apply the stripper.

I resprayed mine in 2 pack with clear coat and it looks good.

 

Yes that does look good

 

Hi Warrjon- is your XJ-S an 89? Thermoplastic was over by 86 or 87. If you car was an 89 then it was normal paint which behaves as you photographed. The thermoplastic just didn’t budge with stripper for me. It is worth it no doubt for Mark SF to try stripper, but I expect he’ll have the same problem I did. -John

 

Yes mine is an 89 and had many repairs and repaint, and some areas the paint turned to goop so I used wire wool and gloves to remove it, this worked well.

What happens to thermoplastic paint with stripper.

 

TPA turns liquid with the paint stripper one gets in hardware stores. It is really dreadful stuff to take off, but needs total removal if any re-paint is to succeed long term. I had to strip off a complete door that needed some rust repairs, and it really was a PITA to do.

One of the Jaguar production managers, a Mr Deryck Waeland, I think it was, once described the problems with it in the JEC magazine. Spot repairs failed very quickly and they couldn't wait to get rid of it. Jaguar were definitely sold a pup with that paint system.

 

There are numerous kinds of paint stripper available in hardware stores, at least out here. The traditional stuff is based on methylene chloride. Awful stuff, but effective. Then there are various safer modern versions, like 3M Safest Stripper (soy-based solvent I think).

I suspect that the methylene chloride stuff is the one that works on TPA.

 

Good article about TPA paint

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