I recently purchased my first corvette. It's a 2016 C7 M7 Z06! I love this car and the corvette community (I find myself waving to other corvette owners regularly). When I bought the car, I knew it had a small gouge, approximately 5-6", in the fiberglass on the rocker panel in front of the driver's side tire on the line of the ppf of course. I didn't think it would bother me but I know it's there even though it's hard to see, I know you guys know what I'm talking about.

I'm hoping to fix this myself, I was quoted $2k from a body shop. I'm a younger guy so crawling around on the ground doesn't bother me and I have some decent wrenching experience (heads, oil pumps, cam, radiator, brakes, suspension, etc.), but no body/paint experience. I figure this is in the perfect place for me to try my luck. All I really want to do is fill, seal it and paint without a sprayer. Does anyone have experience with this?
I was told to look into tiger hair or evercoat. Can anyone help point me in the right direction? Is this something I could do in an afternoon? What tools will I need? Any advice would be very much appreciated. I'm so glad to finally be a part of this community!

 

You can do it. It's in a good spot so perfect isn't that big of deal. Do some research on fiberglass repair. I had a scratch on the rear of my C7 and also thought I could just leave it. I couldn't. I took my paint color code into a auto paint store. They mixed a small spray can of paint. You will also need a good clear coat. I used a blending clear coat to finish it off. The blending and polishing are important. Mine was in a really bad spot but you now can't tell

 

sand it down with 80 grit,,,, take some 40 grit right around the damage, some fiberglass reinforced filler,, sand down , regular body filler sand prime and paint... using base clear you can finish sand with 400 sand and extended area with 1000 grit where you want to blend the clear, get paint from touch up directly they sell spray cans or pints quarts etc.. their color match is outstanding. after its cleared lightly sand with 1000 grit the 2000 grit then 3000 grit and polish sould be good to go

 

The hard part is blending from the new paint to the old paint. Making the surface match the existing surface is also very difficult. You can see my 1 inch scratch required blending a long way out from the scratch.

 

Good info, thank you for the tips! What tools should I use for the sanding? Would a pneumatic die grinder work or should i do it by hand? I saw one at harbor freight for $25. Also, the gouge goes along the ppf and cuts into it a bit. Is it okay to tape it off and not remove the ppf? I'm planning to have the rock chips around the rear fender and rockers fixed in the future, I'll most likely have to replace the ppf at that time.

 

Good luck to you young man.

 

Moved to Paint/Body for more recommendations.

 

I would only use an air or electric tool to grind out the damaged fiberglass. If it is completely through the panel then you will need a barrier on the back side. Use a body puddy/fiberglass mix to fill in the space, then just puddy for the surface repair. There are hand sanding kits with up to 3000 grit pads.

 

These are some of the products i used.

 

Thanks for all the great input. I'll get the supplies together and hopefully do it in the next few weeks. I'll take pics as I go and post them here.

 

I wouldn't sand or grind anything down. I would get some home-center clear epoxy (not fast dry). Mix up a tablespoon amt and work it into the hairs ...use the hairs for strength and allow you to build up. Once hard, then sand down with some sandpaper on a paint stick or something flatter. Start with whatever grit you need to, I would start with like 120 or 220 since it's a small spot and on an edge. Try not to disturb the surrounding paint. The point wiith the sanding stage it so to get it tooled close to the shape you need. Try to finish the sanding with 320 grit sandpaper or 400 if you have it. Then daub some primer on there with a foam brush. If you use spray can paint primer... which I normally wouldn't recommend...but might be ok for a small area like this... mask the painted areas off well. Then allow the primer to sit/dry/cure....for a week. Or spray the primer into a paper cup and daub it on from there with a foam brush. Spray can primer tends to shrink, so give it time to shrink and then paint it.

Then, after it's sat a while, wetsand the primer with 400 or 600 grit, and apply the paint.

On the paint, depends how good you want it to be. Honestly the simpliest and easiest would be to daub some black on the primer with a foam brush. Let it cure and do another coat with the foam brush. You would be able to tell at close distance, but nobody would see it from standing distance. And if you go to refinish it completely and repaint the panel, then you run into paint adhesion issues, runs and a whole bunch of issues you'd be opening up a pandora's box on....so just daub some paint on the area. The better paint you use the better it will turn out. Spray can paint will look 'ok'...which is probably suitable for a job like this. Automotive paint is a lot more expensive, but has greater chip reisitance. But that seems like a lot of extra expense for a small scratch. You could even use some enamel with a bit of hardener in it. and daub it on. If you know a guy who does paint work he might have some automotive grade paint around and a bit of hardener....and mix up a spoonful which is all you'd need to daub some on that area. But spray can paint will probably be fine for that small spot.

 

Great info here, thank you. I'll probably take you up on using automotive paint. My hope is that this is such an inconspicuous place that I'll have a little leeway with it since it's my first time trying this. It probably couldn't have happened in a better place for newbie like me.

 

What did you end up doing? How did it turn out?

 

Sorry for the late response! Shortly after my OP I had a catastrophic failure in my cammed GMC Sierra. I snapped a valve spring and dropped an intake valve. It basically shattered the piston and snapped the connecting rod. Amazingly, I was able to drive it home which was a couple miles away (still not sure how that 5.3 managed it). Long story short, pulled the engine and bought a remanufactured 6.0. I immediately did a vvt delete and added a btr truck norris cam along with a 2800 circle d torque converter, bigger injectors and a larger trans cooler. Needless to say, the damage on the rocker of the car took a back seat. I'll probably tackle it in the spring. I'll give an update when I have it.

 

Update:
I used a dremel to clean up the damaged area a bit.

Used a heat fun and peeled of some of the PPF. Cleaned the area with acetone. Let it flash off and mixed up some fiber tech with the hardening cream and applied my first layer.


After sanding, I found some low spots and reapplied the fiber tech, then sanded again.


I then mixed up some USC Icing and applied to fill in the smaller areas. Sanding again with up to 320 grit.

I tried to feather the edges and I think it looks okay so far. Again, my first attempt at something like this. I'm planning to start again tomorrow night with primer. I have aersol sandable primer, but I'm not sure if I should apply it with a foam brush or spray it on. Any tips? What do you all think so far, I'm open to advice.

 

Looks like you're on the right track.

The key thing to remember on most off-the-shelf enamel...or even lacquer-based primers (Plastikote/Rust-Oleum/DupliColor, etc) is they cure by air ..and sloooow. Esp if you apply thick-ish. I would give a solid week after you spray it until you wetsand it. Start with like 400# under a paint stick, then progress to 600. Honestly I would wait a couple weeks myself before painting. It tends to 'shrink' under paint over time revealing sand-scratches below. But you probably don't want to wait that long, and it's down low where most people don't look. I don't know how visible sand scratches (if they did telegraph through the paint) would be. Probably not noticeable by others. You could spray a coat of black primer on the repair area to mask the color difference as you were waiting ..as an option. By waiting before you wetsand it, you allow all (or most) shrinking to occur before sanding, then, like I say, you won't have as many sand-scratches telegraph through the black paint ...later on. It's not just sand scratches, a bondo area can also telegraph through too. A little precaution can prevent that.

Primer shrinking used to be a feature of older lacquer-based primers we all used in the 70's and early 80's. It was common after priming a vehicle, to park it and let it sit a couple weeks or a month (if it was applied thick) ..to allow it to fully cure -- to avoid shrinkage. It used to be real easy to pick out exact patches where filler was used b/c a couple months later the primer would shrink revealing it. Some guys on Corvettes would let them sit longer than a month. And back then we would put the car in the sun and let the primer warm & get hot, you could work it faster. I do the same with urethane primer today. I still wait a few days for urethane 2k primers to fully cure before sanding it, and I know other guys who do as well.

Good luck. Show us the finished product

 

Thanks for the input Mark, good tips! This has been an odd project for me. I haven't worked on too many things where they end up looking worse before they look better. I'll follow your advice on the cure time. I was told by someone to spray a fine mist of black paint over the primer before dry sanding to show any high/low spots. Is it okay to do dry sanding on the primer before it fully cures? Then wait for a full cure to wet sand? Should I bother with dry sanding the primer at this point or just wait to fully cure and wet sand?