CherALkee

Went to remove a fender flare - jeep was painted with them on so it peeled off some paint. There’s a ton of paint touch up pens/jars out there, and I’ve found the silver paint code (PS5). But could someone give me some insight if just a “pen” would work with that’s going on, or so I need to make sure I’ve got primer, clear coat, and paint? I’m not sure how to go by applying it based on the type of “trauma”, and it’s my first time messing with car paint.

pics below: one area was under the misaligned flare (worn out/light area) and the others are more or less areas where paint was pulled off, causing paint chips. Do I need to prime-paint-clear coat all?

lucked out with an awesome paint job on this thing, and would love to bring it back.

robsjeep

The touch up may look worse than the defect you want to hide. unless the defect is exposing bare metal and thus a rust risk, you may wish to leave it alone. a touch up pen or rattle can fix may end up looking worse.
Now perhaps you should loosen the flares and move them up a bit to cover the defect? this may require minor trimming of the flare where the flare meets bends in the body however.
to fix correctly you will need to remove flares, sand, prime, repaint. unless you got a perfect color match ( which is difficult to do with off the shelf aerosol cans) and unless you are really good at blending, color sanding etc... the end result might be worse than the existing defect.

it is a tough call, to make that defect really go away and still look good may require a lot more time, skill and cost than it is worth. of course if there is bare metal, and rust issues, then even a mismatched brush on repair that looks bad might be in the long term the right thing to do.

the correct fix is to sand the defects away, and respray the fender, and hope that the respray paint is a perfect match.

there is no quick cheap fix that will properly correct this defect unfortunatly, other than perhaps raising the flares up a bit, but again, you may end up having to trim the flares, and have an unsightly defect elsewhere as result of moving the flare up.

fb97xj1

Those fender flare studs have been known to tist off. Rusty or not, i have twisted a few. Found a how-to fix on another forum. https://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/...te-up-3728009/

If it were mine i would pull the flare to sand the fender a bit to feather the edges a bit. Better results. If you do not, the seperation between the flare and fender can lead to cracked and flaking paint later on and you are back to square one. You do not need to sand the entire fender for this. Youtube covers such a repair. Might not be a Jeep, but its done the same way. I cant see it well from that angle, but the nick in the flare doesnt look that bad. You might get away with a pen being such a small spot, but you should clean up the nick as best you can beforehand. Sanding it to smooth it out some might be best. Dont feel bad if you need body filler or spot putty for small repairs like that. Body shops use that stuff all the time. Just dont go overboard with it. Like said, Youtube. Watching another do it can be a huge help. If it is too much work, a shop should have no problem doing it. Dont be surprised if they snap those studs should they remove the flares. It happens.