I sanded the texture off of my interior pieces and painted them. I have a few pics on my page (click www below) on page 10 but will get a picture tomorrow of all the pieces together. I wish I had my car to get pics of them installed but I do not.

I was thinking of offering this to you guys on here.

Here is what you would get painted:

Upper trim piece that houses the clock and upper vents (all painted or painted with the center left black like mine)

Radio trim piece

Shifter surround

Ash tray

Tray under the radio

The trim that houses the window switches on all 4 doors + the ash trays in the rear.

If you want more painted we can negotiate on additional prices.

Here is what I will do (more detail than needed just to show the amount of prep and work involved):

Wash the pieces

Clean the piece with a good grease cleaner (PPG Acryli-clean)

I will sand the pieces smooth or leave textured...your call. I use 3 different grit sand paper to do this.

Wash the pieces again

Clean with cleaner again

Use tack rag

Spray with adhesive promoter (needed for plastic pieces)

Use tack rag

Prime the piece and sand, prime and sand again...not sure on exact amount of times because I will do it until the piece is slick enough.

Wash the piece and then clean it once more with the PPG cleaner

Use tack rag again

Spray 3 coats of base

Use tack rag

Spray 3 coats of clear

allow to dry for 24 hrs then:

Sand pieces with 1000Grt followed by 1500Grt and finally 2000Grt sand paper to smooth out any orange peal. This step down in paper isnt really necesarry except it is alot easier to polish 2k grt paper by hand than 1k but 2k alone wouldnt get all the orange peal out.

For pollishing I have a wool pad for the cutting and terry pad for the polishing...I do the last step and all parts not reached with my pad by hand.

Cut with 3M Perfect-It rubbing compound

Polish with 3M Perfect-It machine glaze (swirl remover)

and finally finish it off with 3M Perfect-It finishing glaze

What you get are trim pieces that are the quality of a high end automotive paint job (no macco stuff)...these pieces will probably look better than most peoples paint jobs...that is unless they really polish on their car.

Like I said I will post more pics tomorrow of all the pieces.

A couple of org members saw the shifter surround that I did for my car and although it was polished when they saw it I re did it with my new polishing pads and it is even slicker than it was then...I will not name them because I havent asked for their permission.

The pieces will be truly high quality and the pics really do no justice to them because you cant really see how slick they are.

Here is the price though. As you can see that it is a lot of work to get these pieces to the quality they will be and I need to be paid for my time...not to mention automotive paint and clear isnt exactly cheap.

I will do all these pieces for $250 including shipping back to you. The only paint that may be more is the Pearl white and that is because it is a 3 part paint system...if anyone with this color is interested let me know and I will get the additional cost. Although this sounds high it really isnt when you factor in the material (sand paper, polish, buffing pads, paint, tack rags...etc.) and time involved in doing this the right way. It is still cheaper than most Quality dash kits and its not stuck on.

You dont have to do them body color. If you want silver or gun metal or any other color I will do it.

If it is a hassle for someone to take their pieces out and send them to me I will get some pieces from a junk yard and paint them and charge a core charge which you will get back when I recieve your pieces in non broken form (if your pieces are boken you dont get your core charge back)

Just let me know if any one is interested...my email is in my sig. I dont expect many to want to do this because of the price. I just figured I would offer this anyway to anyone that was interested. You dont have to have a 3rd gen either...I will do this same deal for other cars but just have to see how many pieces before I gave you a price.

Again if you dont think $250 is cheap then go by a quality shop and ask then what it would cost to do what I described. I have spent probably 12 hrs on all the pieces.

 

Hey Mike.. how about doing the E36 lights like yours also? I'm sure there's a lot of people (HA!) that would pay to have a set that actually looked good on the car- especially after they've done a crappy job and are mad that it didn't turn out nice.

 

Mike.I'm interested in the e36 lights. I want mine to countour to the hood like that. I'm now on my second set of GTO covers and still can't get it that clean like yours.

 

Dont want to do the light thing. I have had several people email me and ask me to do it for them in the past but it really isnt something I would want to do unless I had the car to fit it to. All cars are different and I would want to fit the lights and align them before I do the covers on them.

Now if someone was close to MS and wanted me to do the headlights then thats a different story.

 

that really isant a bad price considering all that yyou would have to do. body shop labor is about 50 bucks in ny, times 12 hrs, plus paint and materials, easily over 7 bills, besides the fact that most shops dont want to take time out from money making work to do some kid's trim pieces

 

mike ya.. beat me to it...
but u do alot more work then i was going to do...and it looks AMAZING! well worth the 250
-i have all my parts sanded smooth (twice) its some hard work
-im 2 days into the project... and i still dont have the color i want i like the blue u have on ur site.. whats that color called?
- o yeah.. where did you get adhesive promoter?

- looks great keep up the good work

 

I hear you Mike

People used to e-mail me about the mesh grilles and would b*tch when I'd charge $100....and they were expecting like $25 or so.

Nobody understands I'd spend a full week a couple hours a day doing that crap and tear the sh*t out of my hands in the process on top of all the cost of filler, epoxy, primer, sealer, clear coat, mesh, and various stages of sandpaper. And even at that it still, sadly wasnt worth my time for the 50 bucks I'd make....which is why I dont do it anymore

 

go to a shop that sells automotive paints and ask for an adhesive promoter. It may be over kill on the dash pieces but I do everything that way. I just want to make sure the paint sticks to the plastic.

It has to be sprayed with a paint gun as does the paint I used and will use for others. I used the actual paint I am using on my car...not just the actual color.

good luck and I hope it turns out nice for you...it is definately a lot of work.

 

i'm working on the bimmer lights now and its NOT something i'd want to replicate after i'm done.

 

oh and plug for Michael...

I've seen the shifter piece in person and it's gorgeous. Michael is definitely a perfectionist and does great work. Sh*t....the damn guy picked my car apart in like 5 mins. stuff people just don't normally see

nice meeting you Michael