[Zr1Owner]

Hi all

Anyone have any experience with painting certain plastic pieces under the hood. Would dress up the car a bit. Not sure if the heat would be enough to warrant hi-temp paint.

I'm not a big painter, so I wonder what steps one would need to follow to paint, say, the engine cover.

Any ideas from those who know?

 

[tiger20005]

I did engine parts and colored wire loom on my 01 Solara, but have to say it is not something I want to do again! It takes a lot of care afterwards to keep grime off of the nice colored parts. If you let it go it just gets caked on and will not come off easily or when you get it off the paint chips a little. Don't get me wrong it looks beautiful at first until later when you start to get lazy and ignore cleaning the parts.

 

[Robotech]

Not hard to do. Just a lot of prep work to make it look good and, as has been mentioned, a lot of upkeep. Think about a black car and a white car when it comes to grease. You hardley see it on the black car but on the white car...uhg...nasty.

I am thinking about finding some dark blue color that may match my paint and do the engine cover. I keep my engines very clean (as you can see) so it isn't a big deal for me to do the upkeep.

Just sand, primer, sand, paint, sand, clear, sand, clear some more...the more time you take in the painting process the better it comes out.

 

[REDSKY]

No More Motors For Me...lol

Hi all

Anyone have any experience with painting certain plastic pieces under the hood. Would dress up the car a bit. Not sure if the heat would be enough to warrant hi-temp paint.

I'm not a big painter, so I wonder what steps one would need to follow to paint, say, the engine cover.

Any ideas from those who know?

ALOHA Bro,

I have had way too much experience...:lol:

I have painted every motor I ever put in...

Painting plastic and painting metal or iron etc. are difference processes.

If you just want to paint some plastic covers you won't need HI-TEMP.


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Remove the plastic cover, place it on your garage floor under newspaper.
(personally I hang most pieces with a coat hanger from a mount I have in my garage to do smaller pieces and those the size of the Engine cover.)

Just wash off the plastic engine cover, let it dry.

Mask the logo area

Prime it, let it dry (possible second coat)

Paint it, let it dry (possible second coat)

Just go by your judgment of how the color looks...

BIG WORD OF ADVICE....it's better to go light and have to do a few coats then to over spray....BELIEVE ME! You don't want to sand the whole thing down and start the process ALL OVER AGAIN! :banghead:

And by the way below if an IMAGE of what I think you are talking about...Is that what you want to do???

 

[Zr1Owner]

That's Great!

Thanks, my macadamia nut land friend .

That's exactly what I want to do. May be hard to match my silver pearl exterior, so I may just go bright red to match the seats.

I may try some chrome paint on some of the other plastic covers and caps here and there, but not anything that conducts heat.

Thanks for lesson and photo.
G