308 paint cracks

Normal. Will only get worse until you repaint it.

 

Lacquer paints have a tendency to 'craze' (crack) over time.

Your car probably has laquer paint. The only way to correct the problem is a repaint.

Unless there's some new repair I'm not aware of??

 

Cracking is totally normal for the OE lacquer paint. Differential expansion between the metal and very hard paint causes it to look like mosaic tiles after a while.

Yes you have to take the car down to metal to paint it properly. The key term here is 'properly' as all the substrates are old technology which need to be replaced. Now the bad news is that a paint job is not cheap $5000-$7000 for a good driver job and north of $10K for a show job. I know you may be thinking that 'Well I can get it for $2000'. Truth is you can't get a good job for that money. Here is a link to probably the best article on the subject out there:

http://www.ferraris-online.com/Articles/SCM_0006.html

 

Danny,my 1981 308GTSi also has a few spots on it like that. It was a very low mileage car when I bought it,and never had any Body or Paint work. As has already been stated,Lacquer Paint does this. I've seen older Show Cars with Lacquer Paint,as well as an old Maserati Merak with this "Crazing" too. So,it's just a "Lacquer Paint thing"...I just live with it right now. Use some Mequiars Showcar Glaze (No.7) on it,and it will be so shiny,it wont even be noticable.

 

very informative link...... i looked at some of the cars for sale also... wow! love the race car serial no 2........

 

Very common problem...but I am not so sure you "must" take it down to bare metal. I purchased a 78 308 GTS that had been repainted in the late 1980's. Not sure of the reasons why, but it was done without going to bare metal, and updated using the brighter red shade of the later 308 QV's. Looked stunning, and I never had any problems with paint cracking or anything...I would assume it is still looking great, but I have not spoken to the current owner in a couple years.

Dave

 

If it was the black one that was on Ebay IMHO it definitely needs to be taken down, resealed and painted correctly by a shop who has experience in this. Like post above don't try to get away with a cheap job as it will return. It may not return right away but it will return. It that was the car then it went fairly cheap/lower end of the spectrum so you should expect to put some $$$ in it.

 

.

The big difference is that this car's paint is exhibiting 'checking' which is fine cracks in the paint that almost always go all the way thru the primer, and possibly thru underlying filler.

Suspect davehanda's old finish was dull/lifeless or had other prooblems, but checking hadn't set in, or at least hadn't penetrated into the primer

On a '82 Caprice Wagon I used to have, mild checking startd on one of the door panels. I was lucky enough to get at it early in the process & found the primer sound after chemical stripping the topcoat off. Primer/sealed it & respray with color. Was still good 4 or 5 years later when I gave it away.

However, if the checking's into the primer, it's got to be stripped or sanded off until there's something sound to build on. Otherwise the checking will re-appear within a year or so.

 

I trust that when/if I take my car for paintwork they'll know how to handle this, but when you mention getting to something sound to build on, are you saying keep going till it's smooth (i.e. not trying to fill in the cracks with more primer) or something more? If I was doing it (which I won't be!) I'd work my way down till I found something smooth, then begin the paint process from there. Sound reasoning, no?
P.S.-we're talking about the same thing that's also called crazing, right? I've got areas of cracking with large chunks, maybe 1cm x 1cm and deep cracks, and then another area (that may be repainted) with tiny little blocks of <1mm and very shallow crack depth that mainly takes the shine off the paint; I had to look at it very closely to determine that it was cracking.

 

The 1mm surface defects are 'crazing', the 1cm/deep cracks are 'checking'.

The crazing can probably just be sanded down to the old primer coat.

The checking has got to be completely eliminated. Can't just be sanded smooth. There can't be the slightest trace of a crack of any kind. BTW, Wet sanding can fill in a crack with the material being sanded off & hide it. Have to wash carefully when wet sanding. If in doubt, take it down to the metal.

Most high-end shops will just insist on going down to metal to avoid all risk of the job coming back. Most of the time that'll be required anyway as checking cracks tend to spread downward pretty fast once it appears.

 

If it is checking you do have to go down all the way and start from scratch. Laquer based paints had checking issues on many 80s cars not specific to Ferrari.

 

my 78 308 euro had the original laquer. here is a shot just after chemical stripping. the car should be ready with new polyurethene base coat/clear coat at the end of the month.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login