cracked clear coat on evo-r side skirts
 

Hi guys,

I have got a second hand set of Evo-r side skirts in CF. the original owner stepped on the edge and has cracked the clear coat in the middle edge of the skirt, in an area maybe 15cm long. The underside does not show any cracking so i dont think this is a structural problem.

The clear coat has just cracked into a flaky kind of residue. The original owner tried to cover this with permanent marker but its still very visible.

My normal body shop worker has little experience with this kind of material (CF) and doesnt think he can sand back the area and respray some clear coat to tidy it up.

I dont expect a perfect finish, so can anyone suggest something to minimise the damage? Or some advice on the construction/clear coat used on the piece so I can advise my panel beater?

Cheers guys

If its real cf you don't want to clear coat it with paint. You want to sand it down, clean it with alcohol, and apply a clear polyester resin to it. Once that cures you're going to want to sand the resin down to match the surface of the rest of the skirt and buff and polish it until its water clear again.

Someone please confirm, this is just from my limited knowledge of what I can recall from my materials classes. Lol.

that is basically how it goes with handling a real carbon fiber.

If you just use resin then make sure it has uv blockers in it otherwise once you repair then use clear automotive paint in order to get the uv protection or the resin will turn yellow over time exposed to the sun.

Easiest way is get some crazy glude. Make the tip of the glude like a sharp point. Locate the main crack hole on the surface. Point the tip on it and fill in the glude. Since it is like a liquid at this point to will spread out to fill in the gray crack surface. Don't put too much, cuz it will drop out.

keen on trying this but will the glue dry clear? and the surface has flakes of the original clear coat on it - should i just pull these off.

i will try to get a picture soon

No don't peel off. Have the crazy glude go under the clear coat which will let the cracked apart clear coat attached to the original. Once they do stick together, it will not be flake anymore.