Can anyone tell me what paint system is used on the Z's from the factory, is it 2pak or Acrylic. Thanks Dave
Wekk yes and no. The outside of the car is 2 pac, BUT I have a suspicion that the bits you cant see are not. Reason is that if you put thinner on the engine bay paint it comes straight off which is very NOT 2 pack. I think they use 2 different paints. Its the same in the door jams etc
graham is right dave, i stupidly tested this with battery acid. engine bay deteriorated very quickly and the guard, slower.. and i had the car done in 2pak.
Oh well that does make sence, I gave a small area of the engine bay a wipe not realising that the rag had previously been used with Acrylic Thinner, looked at the rag and there was a full coating of black paint on it. Oh well it worked well, removed the chaulky surface layer of paint, probably not the ideal way to do it thou. Dave
Whats the chances that it still is 2pac, but without hardener/clear? 2pac on its own, will dry, and can ge wiped off with harsh solvents. Food for thought though. Have to be carefull.
It also depends on the colour for how the car was painted. Solid colours were under coated, then used a clear over base 2k system. Metalic's were not undercoated in the usual manner, they were base coated direct to the etch primer with tinted bases and then cleared. I do not believe the metalic's are a proper 2k system.
How did you come to that conclusion? It sounds reasonable. I have always been curious of the methods used, but never heard of that before. It makes perfect sense, but did you work that out from sanding the layers away on various vehicles? Or was it documented somewhere? Needless to say, regardless of the prep work. The 2pac clear, albeit base or metallic, should still withstand some form of solvents. That's why i thought they may leave the clear off, under the bonnet and on the sills. But seems strange.
It is in one of the zed car history books or dvd's. I agree, door jams etc are not clear coated by the look of them.
Ive been repairing few Nissan cars in last 10 years and so know thing or two about this. Also was intrigued how Nissan does it compared to other manufacturers. door jambs, inside part of the door, tailgate/boot, and body are all painted with 2pk paint system for metallic colours. engine bay, under bonnet, under tailgate/boot, are all solid colours minus the metallic and pearls from the original paint code. now there is a exception to this. lighter colours and Red use base colours as mentioned above. Most Dark coloured cars ie Blue,Green,Black use jet black for engine bays under bonnet and under boot tailgate areas. Check S15, Skylines, pulsars , etc.... my s14 200sx is jungle green with jet black engine bay and under bonnet/boot areas from factory. I painted an n15 pulsar in the blue pearl. i needed to paint part of rad support and engine bay and took a piece to paint place to colour match. they used the original code taken out the pearls and metallics and gave it to me. it was a match. they said manufacturers to save money on expensive colours, basecoat the cars in same colour minus the expensive bits. therefore less coats of proper colour is required to have sufficent cover up. than they hit it with 2pk clear and bake it. basically the engine bay and under panel is same base colour as the car minus pearls and metallic and obviously no clear. add the extra heat from the engine and same will happen as to solid colours left on the sun. fade and get "dusty" hence when u wipe with harsh chemical like thinners it wipes it almost all the way to the primer.
in the process of trying to so some repairs to my paint job, I have the mettallic red pearl (AH3) it definately has a clear coat over top and thinners takes the colour off, where the clear has deteriated, with no effort. My car has been keyed and has several sun damaged areas to the clear coat, and I am using the touch up for practice at the moment before it gets a complete respray, not to mention the big F##& word scratched into the bonnet was more than I could handle, Chances are people may even know this car from that.
