Rocket Man's 02 Denali Build Thread AKA "THE BEAST"

[Rocket Man]

I’ve been doing some work on my door panels and painting the exterior door handles that were worn and had white plastic showing through. I painted the speaker grills with the same color paint that the console is done in, kind of a dark pewter I think it is. Not too much of a change but I like it, a bit of contrast.

 

[ivin74]

Can you share a pic of the paint can used, thx

 

[Rocket Man]

The door handles were going good until they weren’t. I got the rear doors completed this morning after the paint on the handles dried overnight. They came out perfect. I had most of a can of Automotive Touchup left over from an other project and half a can of U Pol #1 clear, plenty to do the fronts too so today I pulled everything apart. I disassembled and scuffed/sanded the handles, painted them and cleared them. I thought I did a perfect job until I noticed one of the parts, the driver escutcheon or whatever it’s called, had a spot in the clear that was messed up. I tried to respray it but noooo. So I removed all the clear, re-scuffed, painted and cleared again. Then as I was spraying a second coat of clear I saw I messed up
and left some clear on the top edge. I then removed all the clear AGAIN, re-scuffed and realized I now had just enough paint for one more try. I just got that done. No more paint. I might have enough clear to do it if I shoot one coat. The next can won’t be here for 3 days. My truck is sitting in my driveway with no handles for the second night. Damn. Sometimes I hate painting.

 

[Rocket Man]

Can you share a pic of the paint can used, thx

Here’s all of them. Yes the interior is a Fo*d color, it matches the dash and console original color.

 

[ivin74]

That's my next mod, thx

 

[Rocket Man]

I just shot the clear. Finally nailed it and there’s nothing but fumes in both the base and clear cans. Whew. That was a close call.

 

[iamdub]

That's the newer/revised formula of the U-Pol that I was trying to avoid. Since you seem to be having no issues with it, maybe I'll give it a whirl. Although, I did find a NOS can of the original stuff that I'm gonna use first.

 

[Rocket Man]

A couple notes. On the passenger front, the lock had been punched in and I had put a piece of black plastic in there back during the aftermath of the break in. I hadn’t pulled the handle then, so this time I did a better job. I removed the lock cylinder from the rod inside the door where it was hanging, removed the rod so it’s disabled, and used the lock cylinder to hold a part of a plastic plug I modded to fit. It’s held in good now and I was able to paint it with the handle. It’s much better than before. The lock is attached with a clip and it pushes down on the plastic to hold it in place.

 

[Rocket Man]

That's the newer/revised formula of the U-Pol that I was trying to avoid. Since you seem to be having no issues with it, maybe I'll give it a whirl. Although, I did find a NOS can of the original stuff that I'm gonna use first.

It’s working awesome for me.

 

[Rocket Man]

A couple more pics. I also removed and re-glued the carpet on the front door panels because when I first did it, the glue didn't hold well. I used 3M Super 77 this time. You can see the darker color of the grills better on the fronts.