Is this a type of clearcoat failure?

[MustangMikeFL]

These cracks have been on my hood since I bought the car and lately I've noticed more further up on the hood towards the windshield. My hood's insulation was trashed when i bought the car so I removed it and I believe that's the main culprit behind these new cracks. The cracks are basically centered on the hood right above the intake manifold. Is it just in the clear or is the heat affecting the paint too? I'm thinking about repainting the hood and headlight covers myself and I'm wondering if I need to actually paint more black or just re-clear everything. Obviously I'm going to get a new heat blanket back on the underside of the hood to prevent this from happening again. P.S. sorry for the waterspots, it had just rained before taking the pics.

 

[BobbyG]

To be honest, it's hard to tell from the photo. Has the hood ever been refinished?

If the clear is beginning to separate from the color coat due to excessively high temperatures from the engine compartment then I suspect that the delamination goes much deeper.

 

[MustangMikeFL]

To be honest, it's hard to tell from the photo. Has the hood ever been refinished?

If the clear is beginning to separate from the color coat due to excessively high temperatures from the engine compartment then I suspect that the delamination goes much deeper.

I do not believe so, there are also a couple of clearcoat peels on the lower part of the hood near the bumper as well. I can definitely feel these little cracks with my fingernail. I remember I found a pic with these cracks somewhere else and I think they called it early clearcoat failure. I'll prob just sand down all of the clear, re-shoot a few coats of black, and then shoot 5-6 coats of clear just to give myself the extra thickness to wetsand to a nice finish. I'm no painting pro but I think I can make it look pretty nice, definitely better than it looks now LOL

 

[flatstick]

looks like it to me. there is a term for it, the life of me can not remember it clearcoat checkering maybe ? below is a link that I found to show what is looks like. I had a 96 Jimmy that has has that for the last 6 years and it is still the same, no real change in its appearance. my son has been driving it and does not want to spend the money to get the hood repainted .what I do is put a glaze like clearkote rmg and top it with 845. since you are repainting you can just do the hood .


Clearcoat crack?

 

[tuscarora dave]

Typically these cracks form in the shape of a "Y" and they are called "crow's feet" though sometimes they are just straight cracks. They get packed full of polish and or wax and stand out like a sore thumb on an otherwise perfectly finished car.

"Lacquer checking" is a different phenomenon but not that unlike what the OP has going on. Below is a photo of lacquer checking.

I did some testing on this particular car to see just how deep the lacquer checking goes. I wet sanded until I got to the bottom of the "Depth of checking" and found that it goes about half way through the primer's film build. After my testing, I was obviously left with a big "clam shell" of an area with no paint. The clam shell was taped around and filled with primer surfacer and sanded flat before being repainted.