BUMPER CLEAR COAT REPAIR

Bad or damaged clear coat can look bad and lead to damaged paint. Fixing up your clear coat can be done fairly fast and inexpensively. Just be careful if the paint is scuffed and the primer is showing. You may also need to do some paint touchup work if the primer is showing through the paint.

Bad clear coat looks bad and can spread
Before starting anything the area being worked on needs to be cleaned and rinsed
I start wet sanding with 400 grit, but only use the 400 around the damaged areas
I use 600 grit to sand the whole bumper
At all times sanding is wet sanding, and I use a foam block for all sanding other than the 400 grip paper
After 600, I go to 800 grit
The last grit I use is 1500 grit and again I wet sand the whole bumper with this
Once sanding is done I rinsed the bumper off
I also wipe the bumper down with some duplicolor cleaner. Other products are available and could be used as well
This wiped down will ensure that no wax or grease is on the bumper
This is what a paint that is sanded into the primer looks like. If you clear coat this it will look bad
I touch up the paint with 38R Mazda paint by Duplicolor. I found the color match is very close, but also the paint was very runny
First I spray the touch up paint on the damaged areas only, after it fully dried I lightly dry sanded with 800 grit over all of the freshly painted areas
I then did a second coat of paint on the piece around the emblem. I allow the second coat to drie fo 30 minutes at least before using the clear coat.
Its a cool day so I leave the clear coat in warm water
While the paint was drying I taped everything up
For the clear coat I did 3 coats. I would rather do 4 but I ran out of clear. Coat one should be fairly light
The second coat is also fairly light, note that I also use a P-100 mask
Final coat is a bit heavier than the first 2 coats
Wait at least 48 hours for the clear to cure, then use 2000 and 3000 grit to remove orange peel effect and clear coat imperfections
This is all wet sanding with a sanding sponge
3000 grit is the final sanding level that I use. Once the bumper is sanded give it a rinse before polishing
I use a Meguiar's Cutting compound and drill attachment to do a cut on the clear coat
I then wipe off the cutting compound
I then use Meguiar's polish
The polish also goes on with the Meguiar's drill attachement
This is what it looked like after just the polish
I then apply Meguiar's Wax to the whole bumper
After the wax sits for 10 minutes I wipe it all off with a microfiber cloth
Here is the end result

Tools and Equipment Used:

Paint – https://amzn.to/3esodPl
3M Sanding Paper – https://amzn.to/3L4CTAz
Meguiar’s Buffer – https://amzn.to/3ATnMVI
Meguiar’s Pads – https://amzn.to/3eoKIF5
Meguiar’s Wax – https://amzn.to/3RV7pPk
Meguiar’s Ultimate Compound – https://amzn.to/3Rl5unB
Meguiar’s Polish – https://amzn.to/3RhccLp
Bucket Dirt Trap – https://amzn.to/3TW7CUD
Soap – https://amzn.to/3qbjC6G
Hand Soaper – https://amzn.to/3TGnNVM
Micro-Fiber Towels – https://amzn.to/3RzVXZs

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