Wrapping My Mustang Hood Instead of Painting It

Overview

I bought this Ford Mustang V6 back in 2019 for $3,500, and it’s been a blast despite its cosmetic issues. The hood was repainted by a previous owner, and the clear coat has completely peeled off on one side. Paint shops wanted $1,400 to fix it, which seemed ridiculous for the rest of the car’s condition. So I came up with a better solution: wrapping the hood in matte black for just $220. This will give it that classic 1960s Mustang look and match the GT-style grill I already have installed. Before the wrap goes on, I need to sand down all that peeling clear coat to create a smooth surface.

Key Moments

• Bought the Mustang for $3,500 in 2019, has cosmetic clear coat issues
• Paint shop quotes came back at $1,400—too expensive
• Found a shop that will wrap the hood for $220 in matte black
• Sanding down the peeling clear coat with 600 grit to prep for wrap
• Using a sanding block from Amazon with different grits
• Washing and cleaning the surface with grease and wax remover
• Applying Rust-Oleum automotive primer to exposed metal areas
• Planning smoked headlights to complete the aggressive look

Full Transcript (Edited)

All right, so today I’m going to be working on the Mustang a little bit. This is a car I bought a while back for I think it was $3,500 bucks in 2019, and I’ve had a lot of fun with it. It’s loud, it’s not the fastest thing because it’s a V6, but it’s got some cosmetic issues as you can see.

The Clear Coat Problem

I bought it like that. The previous owner or some previous owner repainted the hood, and as you can see, the clear coat on this side has kind of disappeared. So I came up with a… well, first thing I did was I tried to see how much it would cost to paint this, and the shops that I went to gave me some ridiculous numbers like $1,400 bucks or something.

So I didn’t want to go to Maaco because the rest of the car is in decent shape. And I also tried to do this myself. I have the paint, I bought the paint, and I have the spray guns, but honestly, it’s going to be impossible for me, somebody that has no experience painting, to get this right.

The Wrapping Solution

So I’ve come up with an even better solution, I think. In my opinion, I think I will actually like this one a lot more. So I found a place that can wrap this hood for $220 bucks. So I’m going to get it wrapped and it’s going to be a matte black wrap like the 1960s Mustangs. And it’s going to be great because this car already has the GT-style grill on it.

And to make it match better with the front, I am thinking of getting the smoked out headlights as well. So it’ll look really mean and maybe even get these guys smoked out. So we’ll see. I think once that’s done, it’s going to look really, really kickass.

I have these rims on them right now and I think I’m gonna leave them on. I also have some black rims that I could try. If I black it out and put the black rims, it might look meaner, but I kind of like how these look, so we’ll see.

Sanding Preparation

The first thing I’m going to do today is I’m going to go ahead and sand this, and we’ll see how it goes. So as you can see here, what I’m going to do is I’m going to try to sand this down so that there is no clear coat that is peeling and also so that the surface is very smooth. So that when they put the wrap on it, you don’t see any of the bulging clear coat underneath, because that’s going to look like crap if I leave that like that.

So I’m just going to get some, I think like 800 grit or 600 grit to start off with, and see how far I go and maybe blend it in because this side over here doesn’t have too much issue. So probably just blend it in until I feel it very smooth and go from there.

The Sanding Process

And to sand the hood, I got this kit from Amazon. It’s like a sanding block with some sanding paper and there are all different variations. I’m going to use the 600 grit to start with. I don’t want to take too much of the paint off, so I’m going to use this to kind of smooth the edges off, and then I’ll go with a higher grit just to kind of do a polish.

But this is kind of cool because all you do is put this like this, and then this clamp right here lets you kind of clamp the sanding paper like that on both ends, and then you can just do a zigzag pattern. Yep. So let’s start with that, but before that I’m gonna wash it.

[After sanding]

All right, so I went ahead and sanded it. Now it’s nice and smooth and I feel very few imperfections underneath. So maybe, yeah, now all I have to do is wash it and I also have to lift up the hood so that I can sand the edges, take off this stuff. There’s a little bit of clear coat still left there.

Watch Out for Edges!

Here I went a little bit too far. The crease, the edges are always dangerous when you’re sanding because you might go straight to metal like I did there and there. So I think I’m gonna put a little primer on there just so that it doesn’t rust underneath the wrap.

Next Day: Priming

All right, so it’s the next day and in two hours I’m going to take it to get wrapped. But before I do that, I want to, like I said, at least put some primer on these exposed metallic areas. But before I do that, I’m going to use some of this grease and wax remover and clean the surface. And then I’m going to use some of this Rust-Oleum automotive primer, which is a fast-drying kind, and I’ll touch up these areas, these high points right here. And then I’ll do a quick little sand with a finer grit.

I also have to do this right here. Yeah, these are always known to cause problems. It almost looks like the people that painted this hood barely used any paint. But yeah, I’m gonna do that right now and then I’ll show you the result.

Final Prep

All right, so here’s the primed surface. I still haven’t sanded it down, but as you can see, I kind of did some three coats just so I have some material. I’m probably going to use like a thousand grit or something really fine first to make sure I don’t take too much off, but I’ll let this dry for maybe half an hour or 45 minutes or so before I sand it.