I know everyone has seen plastic door panels that dry out and flake. I have such a set in an older Chevy Malibu. Has anyone ever found any way to repair them? I was thinking about sanding off as much of the flaking as possible and spraying them with rocker panel coating, I think it is called Road Guard, the anti-chip stuff. I have used it before for its intended purpose and it dries quite flexible and can be painted. I know I would not have the same texture as the original panel, but, finding a set of 4 (4 door sedan) is not going to be easy. If I had a 2 door, I could get repros. Input, please...........
Speaking of the devil... He's doing it right now: http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2886&page=4
Hey Dodge, Norm is right. Follow my thread cause I just completed the repair of my panels. The Klean Strip Bull Dog Paint Adhesion promoter worked great, but I wasn't too happy with how the Krylon "wrinkle finish" worked on the panel. Not because it didn't work, but because I didn't like the finish it left. It doesn't match what was originally on there, which I know is gonna be hard to do. I'll keep tweaking it until it matches a lil better. Good luck on your repairs.
I e mailed SEM and one of their techs replied that either Color Coat or Sure Coat would do the job. CC comes in aerosols or can be mixed and shot through a gun. SC has to be mixed and is water-based. Both are supposed to be flexible, but I don't know how well they will fill in deep scratches. I am still considering the rocker panel finish as a base. I can shoot it with acrylic enamel with flattener in it to get a semi-gloss look. Guess it is a good time to experiment. I might go to my buddy's junk yard and get a couple old panels to play with and see what I can come up with.
I used the Color Coat, and it will fill light scratches. If you start with the heavy ones and get them 'flush' with the rest, then apply finish coats. That would work. Custom SEMS color mixing is about 30% more per spray can too.
Some folks have used the trunk splatter paint with some success but still will not duplicate the original pattern. I think it will be a problem for all of us dealing with plastics. With the complex curves covering with vinyl is tough to do as well. I hoping someone else has a breakthrough on this. My plastics are pretty bad in spots. I saw one car out here that the only thing left is the screw holes.I had never seen deterioration that bad before.
You gave me an idea. Years ago, people were making up all kinds of ceramic and plastic stuff, like those rear-shelf head-wagging dogs with a spray on flock material made of plastic fibres. If you layed that down, then wet coat a primer on top, you could probably get a suede finish. Silkscreen shops used that too for those pinetree car deoderizers.
DG, in case you missed it, I posted this in gpd's thread too: Here's a company that specializes in primers, treatments (prep and fillers) and finish coats. Their story starts with painting decoy ducks. http://www.rmpaint.com/ Here's the US distributor (Other countries in the combo box on the bottom left side): http://www.rmpaint.com/en_UK/contact/distributors/u_s_a.xml Found them by accident, searching for a way to plasticize this Vacuum gauge guide and keep it in the car (sun, humidity, freezing temps, grease hands). Technical Info is here: http://www.rmpaint.com/en_UK/products/index.xml
