I have a 59 Corvette that was stripped with a water soluable stripper in the mid 90's that I think was a product called AutoStrip. Three times since being professionally painted, there appears to be bleed-through (small bubbles) around the cowl area. The rest of the body is fine, even though the entire body was stripped with this product. My body man says it's due to the stripper bleeding through. He's cleaned, heated the area with heat lamps trying to dry it out and put a coat of fiberglass over the bad area before re-painting. It believe it to be base coat, clear coat. It comes out of his shop looking great, but after a few months, the bubbles reappear. Any ideas of a permanent fix for this?

 

Where in cowl area. If it's anywhere near master cyl it's probably brake fluid embedded in glass. When it's repaired it's removing top layer then after painting it wicks back to surface.

 

It's on both sides of the cowl vent and on top of the front fenders, just in front of the windshield. I think I have to agree with my body man that it's stripper rather than brake fluid due to where it's affected. And, regarding brake fluid, it's silicone.

 

Is he using a gelcoat or at least an epoxy primer ?

 

Any chance that the nose was replaced?? Corvette Image had some major issues back in the late 80's, early 90's with the vinyl esters that they were using. They are still showing up today on some of those parts. The only way that I've been able to fix them is to drill them out.

Just for the record, they addressed the problem years ago, and the parts that they sell today are fine.

One way to tell is that the blisters are very hard, and are in the glass--not the paint. If you sand them down, they will show up again in the exact same spot. Sometimes you'll find a little bright green spec inside the blister.

 

I would doubt it is from the chemical stripping. Sounds like Captain Lee's Spray Strip was used. It's been used on many, many cars, including mine, without issue.

 

How to repair this you asked??? When I deal with issues like this....I remove the bad body material and replace it with fresh mat and resin.

I will grind down the area rather extensively...almost to the point where I grind all the way through the panel. In some areas I may grind all the way through but where I grind through the hole is small. Then I apply the mat and resin and finish out the body as I normally do.

IN MY OPINION...by doing it this way. I am removing almost all of the bad material...and with fresh material going on top of it. I feel that that super thin layer of original body material that may have it in it is so minute..that it is doubtful that it will migrate up through the new body material.

I also clean and make sure the underside of the panel where the damage is cleaned well...and in some cases....I apply a non absorbing material (like aluminum foil tape) as a barrier so IF something is still getting on the underside of the panel it is getting stopped.

Silicone brake fluid is just as bad if not worse than the regular DOT 3.

FACT: I had a customer with a 1986 Corvette and he used the tire shine like no other., What happened was the spatter that would sling off the tire and get up under the quarter panel. In time... it saturated the quarter panel and made it so the paint bubbled up. When I stripped off the paint there was defined line where the silicone had soaked into the SMC and you could see the undamaged light gray SMC and the darker SMC. And the arc pattern in the quarter panel perfectly match the plastic liner for the rear wheel house. And that is SMC which has improved properties in it than the fiberglass you have in you Corvette...and it still failed. SO...silicone brake fluid is no joke.

I seriously doubt that chemical stripper did that. Especially with the fact that it is only doing it in one general area...which oddly enough is associated to exposure to engine compartment contaminates.

DUB

 

The nose is original. When it was stripped, it was evident it had major left front fender damage long before I purchased the car in '98. I wish it would have been replaced.

 

I've stripped many with paint stripper and have never had an issue using it, including my 1960 that I stripped 30+ years ago. If it was a problem with the stripper, it would not be localized to a specific area.