nice job with the paint Joe.

now regarding the other comment with painting chrome, I'm not sure who's post I read, could be Mike, but painting chrome have been discussed many times on different forums, the fade and peel may not be common but it's a potential problem. It would be know what exactly caused it.

mike, what did you do differently with the second paint?

In any case I will let whoever wants to do this mod to decide what the best option is for themselves, but you definitely don’t want to use electrical tape for this job. Anyone who used vinyl would know that it is VERY easy to apply on flat and narrow surfaces like the trim. Overlays on headlights or other concave/convex surfaces can be a pain, but manageable with a heat gun. Note this is not the same vinyl as window tint, which can be difficult to get it right. I think you will be pleased with the vinyl finish. See my door handle vinyl picture above.

 

The reason I painted twice is: Initially I planned to powder coat a black chrome color... but not until after the body shop removed the trim did I realize there is molded plastic on the back (so PC was out of the question since it cant go in over) - then I was on a quest to see if it could be anodized black (long story, but that never happened)... all the while, the car was sitting at body shop for what was suppose to be 3 days... I was real into "smoked" color at the time - so in a hasty decision (to get the car put together and out of the shop, after a week), I decided on smoke anodized paint - it’s a great color, but the only thing I could find was in a can... I looked through tons of catalogs and paint swatches, nothing was close... I knew at the time that it wouldn’t last very long... it lasted 2 yrs though.

I had it re-shot sometime last yr in gunmetal body paint... should hold up well for a while.

Next attempt is possible a true black chrome plating - I'm not positive it can be done - but one of these days I'm going to take a sample to plater and see if it will work... I showed him pieces while on the car and explained the molded plastic behind aluminum strip - he thinks it "might" be able to be black chromed plated... prepping it is the tricky part - since they normally dip it in a chemical solution to strip...

Anyway - that’s it.

As for all the posts about paint fading and stripping??? I sure wish I had seem those threads - because when I first did this over 3 years ago I couldn’t find anyone that had done it (on a G sedan) - to my knowledge I'm the first one... and there haven’t been very many ppl since I've done it. So I'm not sure where all these threads on various forums are coming from - I've never seen 'em.

 

Mike, do you have any pics of how it looked when you did that smoke color the first time around?

 

It’s the same color as the grille and headlights (although, those might change soon ) Here are some old pics:



Here's the color now (and grille & headlights will probably be a darker version of gunmetal) - I think I'm going to re-do the trim again (probably buy all new and start from scratch) - but this color does match the Volk gunmetal pretty nicely




Looking at the pics its hard to tell how different the color really is... Pics dont reflect how they really look (until I finally get together with Grant for a decent shoot).

 

Looking at you guy's pics has convinced me to black out the trim and paint my grill along with headlights.

 

Where are you guys ordering your vinyl from? I have 2" wide vinyl on my G. It looks good, but I'd rather get a full coverage vinyl. Something at least 4" wide so it's easier to work with on the back pillar.

Painting the trim would be ideal, but I'm not going to risk the removal and install. You can be pretty much assured that you will damage at least one of the chrome finishers when removing them and they're not cheap to replace. Then when it comes time reinstall the painted trim, you run the risk of fatiguing the paint if the trim gets torqued a bit during fitment. Finally, then there's the issue of adhesion to chrome. You'd better hope your painter prep the crap out of the chrome to get it to adhere. As this is why I stick with vinyl. My car isn't a show car and I don't have hundreds lying around to paint the trim. Some do. I don't. Either way looks good and if you do the vinyl correctly, people don't know it's just a vinyl cover.

 

Can you guys do the rear door chrome in 1 pc? Close ups?

Mike, I like that metallic gray paint. A very oem-ish shade.

Makes me consider a dark gray shade of vinyl vs flat/shiny black.

 

thanks - it's a bit too light though (I might change it again)

If I were to do vinyl I'd do translucent smoked and try and achieve a black chrome look... before I painted (or considered the other options that didn’t work), I went to a vinyl graphics place to have custom cut & fit pieces, but they didn’t have the right color... then I tried to get Andy (bluebatmobile) to make some smoked overlays, but he never did.

Anyway, I think smoked would be a good look in vinyl.

 

Oh, that's an interesting idea. Would sorta compliment my oem coupe 19s. I don't run window tint so I don't know how a really black trim would look.

 

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