flaking paint touch up

[187sks]

I have a red LC2 Accent and the Mobis grille. I like the way the Mobis grille looked when new but the paint had begun to chip very badly. Black paint chipping off revealing the chrome painted plastic below so it was very noticable. So one day I decided to go ahead and repaint the grille black...

Here's the tape off job. I didn't have patience to tape off the individual parts of the crooked H so I taped that whole section off for now. you can see plainly the flaking paint.




Here you can see even better


I prepped by taping off as shown above, sanding lightly with 1500 grit sandpaper, then spraying on two light coats of Bulldog Adhesion Promoter 5 minutes apart. The adhesion promoter really helps when painting plastic surfaces. After that I waited 10 minutes and applied 5 light coats of Dupli-Color High Heat Black paint. Obviously high heat won't be a problem for this grille but the high heat paint is pretty durable and a nice flat black so that's what I chose.

The result:


Note that I also painted the factory red grille in back of the Mobis grille in place with the overspray. I intended on doing this but it covered pretty well considering. Compare above with the second pic where you clearly see the red grille behind.


Now, there is another problem with the paint situation on the front end of the Accent. You see in the pic above the factory paint is also chipping and flaking away. This is not even close to the worst spot. See below.






So I had some aerosol factory matched paint from an earlier project from
Automotivetouchup.com Touch Up Paint, Aerosol Spray Paint and Paint Touch Up Accessories
So I sanded the plastic where the paint had chipped off as well as the surrounding paint then again used the adhesion promoter on the sanded area. I then applied several extremely light coats of the factory matched paint. I did not tape off boundaries for painting, but I did protect the areas I did not want to get painted. If you paint to a line it will leave an obvious boundary. I have a technique for painting like this but it's hard to explain...I begin the spray on a piece of paper that's about 6 inches from the car and sweep from on the paper to actually painting the car. I have the most trouble making it look right at the point where I begin spraying and this method controls that problem without giving a defined edge.

On my car there is no need for clearcoat so I am done for now. The paint did not completely fill in the area where the paint was missing so I need to sand down and smooth out the area and then repaint. That's a project for another day though.

[187sks]

Finished pictures. Did not paint the center sections of missing paint yet. Next time I will:

[cclngthr]

On the bumper, you need to have that refinished using a flex additive and a high adhesion paint and baking the piece before and after painting it. The problem with the poly bumpers is there is oils in the material that when heated by the sub will boil the oil out to the surface and make the paint flake off.

You need to have a body shop strip the bumper and cook it at 165 degree F heat for several hours, then wash it with enamel reducer or acetone and prep it for paint. After it is painted, a 2 hour bake time will make it look new.

[187sks]

This stuff is pretty flexible, it's what I had painted my old plastic scoop with and I could bend it like crazy with no problems. As much as I am sure that you are telling me the proper way to deal with the problem there is no way that I'm going to go through all that pain to deal with it. I don't even care if I have to repaint every couple of months my way. I've never had paint come off a plastic body piece if prepped by sanding and using the adhesion promoter, although I am in no way certain that it will stay stuck on this time.

I'll update if it doesn't work this way.

[cclngthr]

Originally Posted by 187sks

This stuff is pretty flexible, it's what I had painted my old plastic scoop with and I could bend it like crazy with no problems. As much as I am sure that you are telling me the proper way to deal with the problem there is no way that I'm going to go through all that pain to deal with it. I don't even care if I have to repaint every couple of months my way. I've never had paint come off a plastic body piece if prepped by sanding and using the adhesion promoter, although I am in no way certain that it will stay stuck on this time.

I'll update if it doesn't work this way.

The plastic hood scoop you had was made of a different polymer than the bumper cover.

You could sand the bumper smooth and shoot it with a matched paint from PaintScratch Touch-Up Paint (rs), Spray Cans, Spray Paint, Paint Pens, Car Paint, Automotive Paint and use an adhesion promoter before you paint it.

[187sks]

Originally Posted by cclngthr

The plastic hood scoop you had was made of a different polymer than the bumper cover.

You could sand the bumper smooth and shoot it with a matched paint from PaintScratch Touch-Up Paint (rs), Spray Cans, Spray Paint, Paint Pens, Car Paint, Automotive Paint and use an adhesion promoter before you paint it.

LOL. That's exactly what I'm doing...only I used a different website's factory matched paint. And I'm doing it in 2 phases. The first phase I roughened the bumper by sanding, and then sprayed the adhesion promoter, then painted. For the second phase I'm going to sand down what I painted and make it smooth and if I hit black again I'll use more adhesion promoter.

[cclngthr]

Originally Posted by 187sks

LOL. That's exactly what I'm doing...only I used a different website's factory matched paint. And I'm doing it in 2 phases. The first phase I roughened the bumper by sanding, and then sprayed the adhesion promoter, then painted. For the second phase I'm going to sand down what I painted and make it smooth and if I hit black again I'll use more adhesion promoter.

Here is what I would do..

Sand the bumper on the bad spots so the surface is smooth, but sand the whole bumper to paint the whole thing (trust me, you will want to do this or the paint will appear spotchy).

Clean the bumper with enamel reducer or acetone.

Spray an adhesion promoter over the entire surface, and spray a good primer over it. I generally use an epoxy self etching primer. Spray 3 coats on, then sand that. Spray more primer then again sand that.

After the final coat of primer, wetsand that, dry/clean that and put 1 coat of white paint on that. Here, what you are doing is laying down the base where the red will appear brighter. If you go with a dark color under the red, the bumper will appear darker than the color of the car. Lay down at least 4 coats of color and then lightly wetsand that. If you need to shoot more red on it. Then clear the whole bumper.

[187sks]

The color already matches the rest of the bumper and the rest of the car.

I'll see how it looks when I do the second phase to it and then maybe I'll pull and pait the bumper. If I pull that bumper I think I'm putting on a new one from a body kit though. Only problem is that I don't really care for any of the available ones. Might do it anyways though just for the uniqueness.

[cclngthr]

However on bright colors, a white base makes matching the paint much easier. I had the problem when I shot the bumper on my 01 Accent. The red would turn darker as it dried.

With the clear, it will appear duller around the edges because you can't blend clear that well. Shooting the whole thing is necessary to get a uniform look.

[accent0002]

Originally Posted by cclngthr

Clean the bumper with enamel reducer or acetone.

are you kidding?