BigRed93xj

The hood has been like this since I bought it. The clear coat is peeling off. Its the only part of my xj that I really dont like but thats why I'm asking this question. Is there any way to salvage the appearance of this hood? Im no painter, I know a few though, but is there a way to get the old clear coat off and then match it to the rest of my rig.... Its going to be kinda hard to match the paint on the rest of my Cherokee because its the original paint job, meaning its custom faded and would be hard to match.
Anyways how would you all go about to make the hood look better.... I want to put some hood vents in but I want to take care of the paint issue first. Any advice.... thanks.
Here are those pics of my "custom" faded hood.

96Cherokee113

Had a similar problem on my old Dodge Dakota. All I did was wet sand everything smooth and re-clear coat it. It was a couple days worth of work, but looked much better in the end.

Rmart30

X2.... If you arent able to paint or spray clear coat do the wet sanding yourself. Find a local paint shop and see what they will charge to shoot it if you sand it. Should save a fair amount.

BigRed93xj

that sounds like a great idea. I think I will give that a try. I could do the sanding myself and one of friends is great with a spray can... We just bedlined the back of my xj, looks great.
In regards to the wet sanding, will this get all of the clear coat off? Because its peeling in some areas but not in others. Would the sanding take all of it off? Should I worry about the paint underneith the clear coat...

Jeep Jeep

I would wet sand it with a medium grit but take it easy on the places where the clear coat pealed up just want to smooth it up

fishtaconc

I agree get one of those palm sanding blocks, move up to finer grit to feather the edges wher the clear has come off. check periodally with a rag if you get red dust you are getting into the paint. when its smoothed out go over the whole hood with 320 or red scotch brite grit before you paint. just my $.02

caged

sand it and paint it flat black... like a real mopar. haha.

that's what i would do. lol.

muddpigg

i would also put those vents in between sanding clear coat and applying new clear coat - that way you don't eff up the clear job. here's a trick to try - get a can of primer (gray will do fine) and spot up the entire hood - like small droplets, not for total coverage - lots of small "dots". allow to dry. begin block sanding. the primer will fill in some low spots and some high spots. when all the primer is gone, your hood is sanded smooth. by doing this you'll get a better clearcoat application. good luck...

BigRed93xj

All this information is great. I will defenitly be doing this tomorrow on saterday. I don't have the hood vents yet though, should I wait to get the vents before I do all this to my hood? I figure it's ok to do the vents afterwards though. I think I may have to paint a bit of the hood before putting the new clear coat on. Parts of the hood are a much lighter red than the rest of the body.... How do I go about trying to match the faded areas?

fishtaconc

Just another idea you could try color sanding the areas that the clear has come off, there is a bunch of info on the subject on the web it just depends on how much time you want to put into it. Im not gonna lie its a lot of work i did it once on a ranger i had with single stage paint it came out noticeably different, it should be some decent paint under the oxidation where the clear has come off.