Re-paint failed clear coat areas

Are there any tips to successfully remove old clear coat layers and reapply clear to the existing base coat?
My 04 DC is peeling on the hood and top, but a total repaint/clear is a bit expensive for my use.
(Phantom Gray - 1E3 color code)
Thanks

 

YouTube is your best bet. Sand, prime, paint, and clear. Or get a small sheet of vinyl wrap and just wrap the hood and top.

 

You're one of probably 2-3 dozen people with green or red trucks I've seen ask this question since I got here. You can ask 10 different people this question and you'll get half a dozen different answers, ranging from, "fuck it, why not?!" to "no, repaint".

My short answer is: No. Not effectively, at least, in a way that's going to hold up for more than a couple-few years, if done perfectly.

It's legitimately too difficult to sand away only the clear, to the basecoat, evenly. And while you can sand the edges smooth and feather in the clear, chances are it's going to be noticeable, and if not, if the edges were already lifting up, the rest of the paint you don't clear will be bubbling/failing before you know it. Understand, the clear is foggy and peeling because the bond between the clear and base coat has failed. The only real solution to that is to fully take off the clear, which is virtually impossible to do "cleanly" because 80-90% of the bond is still intact everywhere else.

Your best bet is to strategically repaint certain areas. For example. If the roof and the hood are toast, have someone repaint between the roof racks, and repaint the hood, it'll make a marked difference in appearance. Repainting the fender flares can help a lot also. These are all things you can probably get done for a few hundred bucks, and it'll refresh the truck a lot. But in all my years of working on cars, I've yet to see anyone successfully take a vehicle that wasn't properly washed and waxed, and thus has clearcoat failure, actually fix their clearcoat in a way that didnt look like shit a few years later.

 

Having an ugly red Tundra with failed clearcoat after 25 years in the Southern sun, I’ve come to the same conclusion as @shifty`.

 

It’s a tundra thing
01 and hasn’t had a bath (except the redneck car wash) since 2006
Roof and hood are rusted and clear coat peeling on flairs
My 95 taco is the same color of green, has had a far more neglected life but not the lose except at the drivers window where one’s arm would sit and stone pings on the hood.

 

This right here.

Personally I just live with it on the 04 sequoia we have. I have considered just using a line-x type of restoration but I'd rather spend money on LBJ's and other known wearables.

 

My green 2006 has bad clearcoat on top of fenders and tops of doors. I don’t intend to do much with it I wax what clearcoat is left and deal with it. I live in SE Texas so the suns going to just continue to fry it