Dying or painting interior plastic.

[boostedinaz]

I am going to be redoing an extra headliner I have for the Galant in black suede. When I do this it will drive me crazy to have the stock grayish interior plastic pieces with a black headliner.

I see that VHT sells a plastic paint that claims to not peal or wrinkle plus it comes in factory Mitsu colors. I will admit I am skeptical of using spray paint for my interior, after all I am not Unique Whips. My other option is dying the plastic, but I couldn't really find any good info on the net about how to, or even products intended for dying plastic let alone examples.

Anyone have experiance with this? What did you use and did it match? Is the VHT paint even a decent option? /ubbthreads/images//graemlins/dunno.gif

 

[Andy_S]

The VHT paint claims to actually change the pigment of the plastic. I have not used it personally, but some of my friends have. I thought their results looked really good. Looks like it may be pretty messy to work with though.

 

[boostedinaz]

Hmmm. That's good to hear so far. I may just give it a shot on some pieces I have laying around and see what happens. Maybe it is better than I thought.

 

[89Mirageman]

SEM also makes paint for interior plastics. I get mine from Napa. Although its pricey at $12 a can, to me its worth it. I always clean my parts with degreaser and an SOS pad, let them dry and then wipe them down again with wax & grease remover. I am in the process of redoing the funky blue interior in my Mirage at this time. It takes a while to remove everything, clean it and prep it but the end result is well worth it. I also use adhesion promoter as well.

 

[boostedinaz]

Would an etching primer be a good idea to use with either the VHT or SEM paint?

 

[89Mirageman]

I think etching primer is for bare metal. Never heard of using it on plastic.

 

[boostedinaz]

Yeah, I don't know why I didn't think about that. Stupid question on my part.

 

[14u2nV]

I've used regular spray paint on my mirror/dome light surround and a few other things, and don't have any issues with pealing. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif

 

[boostedinaz]

Yeah they aren't "high traffic" parts that would neeb to be painted to I doubt they would be a problem, but I always like to make sure somethign is done right the first time.

I think I will just go with a good cleaning and use the VHT since I can get it around the corner form my house.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Nijasan]

I used the SEM stuff mentioned above and it worked great.

Although apparently I'm blind because the new plastic panels I put on for my manual belt conversion don't match the rest of the plastics in the car, and I didn't realize this for a few months before someone pointed it out to me. So take my word with a grain of salt.

 

[pachood_1953]

+1 on sem products. I go through tons of sem rattle can stuff in the body shop. I have nothing but love for their trim black's.

Scuff up the plastic good with an appropriate scuff pad (you could probably get away with a red pad)
Clean the plastic with an ALCOHOL BASED degreaser or something made specifically for plastic (I would use dx103 myself)
spray THIN coats, you dont want full coverage on the first spray..follow the directions on the can.

 

[teet]

use bulldog adhesion primer before SEM paint...results are great and very durable.

click