I have a 1984 Regency Broughm,,,Were these clear coated at the factory?
Thanks ;
Rick

 

Rick, GM started BC/CC in 1984 with the front-drive cars. I don't believe yours had BC/CC.

 

There should be a Service Parts Identification sticker on the trunk lid or glove compartment which would tell you if your car has a base coat/clear coat system. It should be marked on the bottom left corner. Then follows the paint color code.

 

Sometimes. It's not always on there. Sometimes it will tell you, sometimes it does not. I have no idea of the rhyme or reason. My 84 H/O spid does not have anything listed, but my 85 442 has Lacquer listed. My 87 442 spid does not list anything either. I have seen a Canadian built 87 Cutlass spid with a paint designator on it, however.

 

The reason I suggested it is because mine has it.

 

It's a good suggestion, but I'm just saying there's no way to tell until you look. It may be there, it may not be.

Here's a SPID from a 1984 Regency Brougham, and it shows nothing as far as paint type. I'd bet it's lacquer though.

 

I have a 87 Delta 88 and the paint type isn't shown. All the useless info on the RPO codes and they don't bother with the paint type. It looks like urethane to me.

 

To the OP; pick an area of your car that is rarely seen and take a sharp instrument and put a slight scratch in it. If the scratch turns white (assuming your car is not white) it is clear coated.

One of these is from my '87 Ninety Eight coupe and one is from a deck lid that was on a '87 Ninety Eight coupe I bought from a salvage yard. Nearly identical cars, and look at the paint codes.

 

Thanks guys;
I have one of those service parts tags that have absolutely nothing on it referring to paint codes or type. Guess it's on to the scratch test........

 

NO! Don't do a scratch test.

You can use polishing compound on the paint, preferably with a buffer/polisher. If the pad ends up the color of the paint you know it's SS. If there's no color on the pad then it's BC/CC. Of course, this would be difficult to determine if the car is white or silver. It works better with bold colors like red and blue.

 

Is it original paint? If it's been repainted in the last oh, 25 years, it probably does have base/clear on it. But if it's original, then you could do the buff test. I wouldn't scratch the paint.

 

It is the original paint,, Beige...,,Makes it tough for the buff test

 

Why do you want to know if it's BC/CC or SS? I repainted my 71 98 a few years ago by taking an auto body course at the local vo-tech and I paint matched it with SS Sandalwood. Also, my 96 98 Regency Elite has a few paint chips. It's BC/CC but I got a SS paint touch-up pen to fix the chips before they get worse.