Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hello

Iam a new member/owner and have a plus2 which has micro blisters on every single panel of the car... the car has always been kept in a carcoon and ive read that this may be a cause of such a thing?
The car is still in a bubble but due to the extent of a repair, if the car was to be rubbed down for respray, id want to be sure not to cause the same effect in the future.

has anyone else ran into this problem? and if it was sorted was it a very expensive procedure?

Cheers Russell

You can do a search on fiberglass osmosis to get a feel for the various approaches, but if you want to cure the cause and not the symptom temporarily this is an extensive work.

Yeah, it is basically getting in from the back, unless there was a problem with the painting

so the thinking is, that the paint or fibreglass hasnt been sealed properly?
Its original paint... and its is covered from tip to tip in micro blisters, its like lizard skin lol

cheers Russell

I had micro blisters on some of the panels on my car that had been painted in the 1980's and when I rubbed the area down there was no sign of any blistering or pitting on the surface once the paint had been removed. I believe the blistering had been caused by poor preparation of the old respray, possibly not letting the surface dry completely before spraying. When I prepared the body to respray I did not use any water such as wet or dry abrasives, and so far 18 months with no sign of blisters returning on the cellulose finish(early days!!),
Mick

poorly prepped !. Could be someone unused to GRP resprays has prepped using wet n dry paper and a bucket of soapy water ( as they did back in the day ) and not baked out the water before painting

@Mick SNAP !

@Russell ...or you could just learn to love your lizard skin patina

Here are some pics of my blistered paint. As you can see it's quite serious. It has been painted several times and I have removed 10 layers of paint. The blistering goes back to a filler coat applied two colours ago and when you burst a blister a brown substance emerges. I think its a reaction between the different paints that have been applied. The earlier paint was cellulose and later paints are two pack, so your blistering may not be just osmosis but may something similar. The only solution is to remove it all and start again.

Well, that is just bad painting, cannot make any judgements as to cause with that much paint on it

I stripped my car to gel and repainted with acrylic urethane and got some many tiny blisters on the front quarters forward of the tires. and a few on the drivers door

all after several years

Burton4130 wrote:so the thinking is, that the paint or fibreglass hasnt been sealed properly?
Its original paint... and its is covered from tip to tip in micro blisters, its like lizard skin lol

cheers Russell

Original paint has in fact exceeded its expected lifespan.....

Condensation in the compressor?

There are many reasons you get blisters like that....... If it was fresh (paint job under two years old) i'd say moisture contamination but if it's old and only recently gone like that then it's mosture / Osmosis damage.

That looks nasty and from past experience you get blisters like that when it's not been ground sealed, then some one has used reface over the car as high build (polyester spray filler) was very common back in the day but is very porous so acts like a sponge if you put it over a porous GRP shell, so once it's full of moisture you only get one decent freeze for it to start lifting the paint.

Carcoon's are usually good as long as you put the car in on a nice warm day, if you leave it until winter has closed in you need to dehumidify it or your defeating the object.

I think you're probably right with my problem. There is actually 3 colour changes but the last two have a thick layer of sprayed filler with what looks like a sealing coat beneath that. In places where there is only one paint change the blisters go through to the grp. Otherwise it goes through the next paint change through the filler layer and stops at the sealing layer.

Thanks Guys!

Its not had paint in at least, the last 20yrs and the micro blisters have multiplied over the last decade without reason.

I thought the whole reason for using the carcoon was to slowly allow a vehicle to dry and then maintain or slow down the changes in temperature within the bubble, thus reducing condensation etc?

I think you may be right... i need to embrace the inner lizard and love it in its unoriginal/original flava...

who else uses a carcoon?