oh my god. you have no idea. i have been debating on colors for at least a week now. lol. finally think ive found one. and hopefully ill be doin it thursday when i get back home to MA where i have a garage.

 

Cool. Just make sure to never never ever ever ever do blue. I did that when I first got my 96 and got severely flamed for it. Yeah I was a little rice boy for a bit. Thankfully I got a little dose of "act-right" from some of the guys here and guys in my car club. Thank You to the Maxima.org members that set me on the path of asthectic righteousness. I still have pics of the blue on my cardomain page.

 

haha yea i wasnt plannin on it. i thought white...then i thought that would look ricey. but i think graphite will look good.

 

that was me but ive since takin the skin off the dash and painted it. I used rustolium metalic black and used engine enamel clearcoat on top.

 

yea man, tan interior is garbage! so hard to match.

 

The metallic black sounds like a good color for a black interior as well. It's just so hard to pick a color because I dont want to screw up my interior!! I guess the only option is to test it out....what is the SEM Metallic Titanium? I originally wanted a titanium and this sounded good! What does the SEM stand for?

 

SEM is the company.

 

is that the color in that picture you posted?

 

Ok I figured it was company name. Where can you buy SEM paint? Only online?

:edit: nvm I went on their site and found that a place in East Hartford sells SEM paint. Gotta call and figure out what they actually sell....

 

we did graphite on my buddy's tan/black interior and it came out pretty nice. Duplicolor wheel paint with a their plastic adhesion promoter.

try it out and post up some pics

 

whats the plastic adhesive promoter? i saw it when i was lookin at paints but not really sure what exactly it does? makes the paint stick to plastic better im assuming? and is it a good guess that you spray it on before you spray on the paint?

 

Yeah I believe its to make the paint stick better. I think I'm gonna try the SEM tho. Seems like the quality would be better then duplicolor. Plus the idea that it's a stock match color. The promoter should work with the SEM paint correct?

 

I would guess so.

It was pretty much like a primer you put on the plastic, its rougher than the paint, but it sticks much better too. we did two layers then sanded it was 600 grit, then 2-3 light layers of paint. It came out pretty well IMO

duplicolor does kinda of have a limited selection of colors, SEM would def match the stock color better

 

well i was goin to do the whole wet sand then paint process, but i guess ill do the promoter and then paint...seems easier....

nookie you dont have pictures of it do you? did it come out lookin good?

 

I think you still need to sand before the promoter. It'll help it stick. It would be great if sanding wasnt needed with the promoter. Where did you get the promoter?

 

i havnt gotten it yet, but i saw it at autozone last time i was there

 

it looks pretty sweet

 

Sounds good. I went by a Sherwin-Williams today so I'm gonna check there tomorrow for the SEM paint and I'll hit up the Autozone or Pepboys as well.

 

As long as you allow the proper amount of time (depending on the environment the peices are drying in), and use a good primer, there's no need for any kind of plastic adhesive promoter. I used one coat of a good primer (can't recall off the top of my head), three coats (two medium, one light) of the paint, and then 3 medium coats of clear enamel and it's extremely durable.

 

so what your saying is do it this way:

take apart, wet sand, primer, 3 coats paint, 3 coats clear

right?

 

Take it apart
CLEAN THOROUGHLY
Dry
Light sand (I used 120 grit)
Clean again
Wet sand
Rinse
Dry -- also let air dry
Primer
Paint
Clear coat
That's the way I did it. (Obviously allowing it to dry for the proper time between coats)
Most important thing... do not rush.

 

ok cool. i think im gunna do it tomorow night when i get home to MA and have a garage and hopefully my buddy jack daniels will be there to help me too...

....i mean, whos jack daniels? college kids dont drink...

 

Def. a time consuming process. Only thing is that I have a few questions....
1. How long did it take you to take apart all the dash?
2. How do you take out the side vents and top vents? I've got the other parts of the dash out before. Do they all just pop out of place?
3. How long did the entire painting process take you? i want to allow enough time for myself.
Thanks for the help and sorry for all the questions. Gotta get it right, right?

 

1. About half an hour.
2. I removed the entire dashboard to remove the side vents. The top vents pop right out.
3. The entire process took me a whole weekend (two days).

 

So the side vents will only come out when the dash is out? S**t. No other way to get them out? I think I'll have to break it into parts cause I cant have the car not running for a whole weekend. Def. want to get started this weekend tho, specially if its gonna rain.

 

lilaclucymaxima...what color primer did u use? grey?

 

Isn't primer gray? Does it matter what color it is?

 

i saw black and white prime too at autozone...and probably not, i dunno...just wanna get it right.

 

you don't need to need to take the dash off to get to the trim pieces around the side vents. Mine just popped off, be careful tho I cracked the driver's side one, but it was easy to glue before paint, just took more time.

I did all my stuff in one saturday: door trim pieces, side vents, center console, cruise control cover on steering wheel.

I didn't do the trim around the gauges yet, but if I did I wouldn't do the whole thing, just the bottom part, I think the whole thing looks like rice.

But yea, I didn't use the promoter on my car and I got it to look good, but it took longer since I had to experiment with trail and error to get it to look that good.

With my friend's sentra we just washed and sanded once, sprayed the promoter, dry, then 2-3 coats of paint, dry, 2 coats of clear coat. and it looks great. I'll take some pics tonight while we're doing his custom grill.

 

Well I'm hoping to grab the promoter and the paint today. Hopefully get it done tonight/tomorrow before my cleaning! I'll post some pics as soon as I'm done.

 

No, white.

 

wooo took all the pieces off....just checkin VQpower.com to figure out how to get the hazard/defrost buttons out then its wash, sand, paint time!

 

ok...it says theres a button that u push in on the side of the hazard/defrost buttons and then u just push it out through the front...i pushed this button in and they are still getting stuck on the other side...there arnt 2 buttons on each are there? cause i dont see 2?

EDIT: nevermind, got them. but broke a clip :/ ...nothin a little super glue wont fix though.

 

Well let me know how it comes out man. I was about to go buy paint tonight but I fractured my ankle and spent all day at the doctors!! Now I can't get around enough to work on the dash....wicked pissed! What paint are you using willard?

 

i just got graphite duplicolor wheel paint and clear coat, no primer...the wheel paint is ment to stick to plastic or metal so i figured primer wasnt too nessacary. im uploading pics now so ill post em when i got em!

 

ok i know the pics suck, its 1AM and i just took them with my camera phone. so cut me some slack, ill post better ones in the AM!


^2nd coat just went on


^crappy pic 1



^crappy pic 2

like i said...better pics to come.

 

did u paint the air vents also?^^^^

 

 

yep! it was a *****, and didnt come out perfect, but u can only notice the fu.ck ups if u look close...

new pics uploading as we speak.

 

^good thing the new cd player i plan to get is silver.


^i know, the dash looks grey too...its still tan. just wierd lighting i guess.

cant believe i figured something out that goes with tan! haha

project for today/tonight possibly: painting gauge cluster trim...thoughts on that =

whatd you think?!