strutaeng's 04 2500 4x4 project Suburban

strutaeng said:

Not much progress. I did get the carpet in. I painted the rear plastic panels because they are all scuffed up. This Duplicolor spray bomb is actually pretty good color match.

I ordered some 2k sealer from Amazon. I went to Summit Racing over the weekend and of course, they are out of the medium temperature activator. I was going to buy some black single stage black for the roof rack, but just decided to skip the Summit stuff altogether. I'm just going to get any generic black base and shoot it with the 2k clear when I do the roof. Hopefully this weekend.

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How'd you prep the plastics before painting them?

Tonyrodz said:

How'd you prep the plastics before painting them?

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I cleaned it with soapy water, then scuff sanded with 220# and removed the dust. I have painted a few of the plastics on my 06 Suburban daily driver by using this method and it seems to be holding up nicely.

The instructions do mention an optional adhesion promoter, but I haven't used it.

strutaeng said:

I cleaned it with soapy water, then scuff sanded with 220# and removed the dust. I have painted a few of the plastics on my 06 Suburban daily driver by using this method and it seems to be holding up nicely.

The instructions do mention an optional adhesion promoter, but I haven't used it.

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That's what I was curious about--a plastic adhesion promoter. Some people say you need it for the spray to adhere--and last.

I started sanding the top side of the hood now. There was a small little dent and I'm trying this body filler called Icing which is supposed to be smoother and for smaller repairs.

I also started sanding my roof rack. On one rail the aluminum was almost all exposed but the other side it's nearly all black. Is this powder coating? It's kinda textured and seems pretty tough. Except where it's almost all aluminum, the coating didn't really come off with 120# sandpaper. I'll sand with 220# and call it good.

This auto refinishing business is so darn complicated and has a huge learning curve. Lots of different products (primers, primer-surfacers, sealers... I'm still trying to figure that out), body fillers, activators, reducers, sandpaper grits. Oh well, no turning back now. LoL.

Oh, I did find a single stage for these misc. black pieces (roof rack and wiper arms) I'll be re-painting at my local auto paint store. It was like $42/qt including the activator. Great price I think.

I got my hood primed today. I decided to remove the roof rack on my 06 Suburban to paint it as well, but I opened a can of worms: the mount pads had a TON of silicone! And the bottom little plastics were all missing. I'm guessing the previous owners did this. The screws are really rusty as well. Doh!

That truck has a moon roof and I've had intermittent roof leaks but thought it was from the moon roof. So I'm going to get those pads from the wrecking yard. But I did paint both racks.

I also removed all wiper arms from the 2 suburbans and my 99 Silverado to paint as well...3 for the price of 1!

The single stage "jet black" paint sprayed out very nicely. I think I'll start using that instead of Rust-Oleum black spray bombs for better gloss and durability.

Ok, I finally was able to paint the hood. Didn't come out too bad in my opinion. IDK

strutaeng said:

Not much progress. I did get the carpet in. I painted the rear plastic panels because they are all scuffed up. This Duplicolor spray bomb is actually pretty good color match.

I ordered some 2k sealer from Amazon. I went to Summit Racing over the weekend and of course, they are out of the medium temperature activator. I was going to buy some black single stage black for the roof rack, but just decided to skip the Summit stuff altogether. I'm just going to get any generic black base and shoot it with the 2k clear when I do the roof. Hopefully this weekend.

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I found the flat black from Home Depot, Rustoleum matches factory pretty darn well. Did that with 3 different roof racks and all have held up well. Might not need to spend much more for roof rack touch up.

I got the roof sanded and prepped this weekend. The clear was in really rough shape and I wound up pretty much removing all of it off, down to the base and original primer. I used 100, 220 and finished with 360 grit sandpaper on a 5" and 6" ROS electric sanders meant for woodworking. Wasn't too bad, but it's still a large area. Pretty boring work.

Last night I had to hurry up and used an aerosol self etching primer to spot prime the areas with bare metal burn through, as we have been getting dew overnight here and didn't want those bright metal areas to flash rust.

strutaeng said:

Ok, I finally was able to paint the hood. Didn't come out too bad in my opinion. IDK

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Looks good to me.