Time To Throw Some Paint At The Xm, You'd have to be bloody nuts !

[DoubleChevron]

Yep..... Lets do another paint job... This time my first ever 2pack urethane attempt

We all see cars with peeling clear coat, so lets see if it'll be easy & simple to repaint one.

OK ....

This is the car .... peeling clear coat sucks







This is what I'm up against .... Hmmm...




The pealing paint ont he bonnet and nose cone I scraped back until I couldn't get any more off with a razor blade.

............

I'm not sure what is the easiest way to scuff the paint. I tried 400grit dry on it, however found the finishing sander with 120grit paper was less aggressive .... :confused:



Hmm, maybe I'll try one of those "sandpaper" blocks

[DoubleChevron]

Another issue I'm contemplating is masking/stripping of the car.



There is a plastic bit on the top of the Cpillar glass that will need to be taped out... the C pillar glass has a really hard, plastic ? (not rubber as expected).



door handles should come out easy enough so no masking there.



I wonder how these door strips come off... and I need to pull that chrome trim from them without breakage (that'll be fun :clown: ).

Badging and sidelight will be removed. Mirrors... I think they'll tape up well, they are almost entirely body colour.



I think the door seal will pry up and off.



The foglights... I'll pull the bumper, remove them then refit bumper for painting.



More of that rock hard rubber/plastic edging around the hatch window, I'm assuming it's a trim that's bonded in there with the glass. Wiper will need to come out, I think it'll be best to remove the spoiler for seperate painting too.



I wonder how I'll paint & remove the headlight washers... More of that chrome trim to get out without damage too.... Hmmm...





roofseal looks bonded and should pull away.



It might be easier to remove the skuttle for painting, than to leave it in place.

[DoubleChevron]

arial will need to come off... sunroof I thought would be a problem.



We only need to open it and tape up the hole though !



More of that hard plastic/rubber trim... Possibly I'll try a really fine brushcutter line under it's edge to lift it for taping ?

Well the fun has started ....

Look at the front bumper fastener .... (groan)



Whipped the nose cone off (you just press the centre out of the two expanding plastic clips in the grill and remove bolts behind parking lights).



Unbolt the bumper... The headlight washers.... Just grab 'em and pull, they'll slide up exposing a clip that you can grab and remove.

I had to remove the shock absorbing layer behind the bumper with the bumper due to the rusted bolts.





I've decided on a plan of attack... I'll paint the bumpers, scuttle, nose cone, boot spoiler, mirrors, colour coded side strips, tail light lense sections etc....... Everything that comes off will be painted first. I'll just have to live with any slight colour difference due to being painted on different days. So prep, paint clear all removed bits, then prep the main car body then (much) masking up.

I've been looking at paints... I finally found the colour code infront of the battery. "ERY".

I have some un-used epoxy primer and hardener/reducer here. So I'm thinking I'll try to get a primer that'll use the existing hardeners and reducers tinted. So save priming the entire car.

seeya,
Shane L.

[DoubleChevron]

After I removed the bumper support from the bumper.... Damn, looks like the sand blaster and POR15 will be getting a workout.... Bloody pommy cars that rust where cars shouldn't rust I've had a good look at the car and the only other evidence of rust I can find is surface rust on the front subframe (well since covered in much oil since the cars been in Australia :joker: ). Crazy poms dumping salt on there roads !



I just broke the plastic out around the rusty blob of metal that was once a bolthead to remove the rusty bumper frame above.



I hadn't noticed this before.... Looks like I'll be learning plastic welding......



I found prying up the lower edge of the trim "snaps" the locking tabs out allowing removal.



These are the plastic tabs that retain the trim.



These are the bump protection trims down the side of the car. These along with the top visible areas of the bumpers are the only "non factory" paint I can find. The paint has been applied poorly with HEAPS of orange peal. My guess is it's had the trims replaced and bumpers painted in the UK before it was bought to Australia (as they'd be cheap over there, the expensive bit being getting them painted body colour).



I found they unscrewed from behind. Thankfully torx head screws, so you can easily unwind where access is poor.



The reason the trim goes a horrible cloudy colour is this .... The trim is black plastic, with what appears to be alluminium foil over it, then covered with the clear plastic. It appear the plastic goes manky with exposure to UV, and the alluminium beneath gets very corroded. The car come with a new peice of trim (sadly only the front small ones).




This is what the new trim looks like.... It'd look stupid if I fitted two new trims and left the rest looking as they do.

Probably best would be to peal the plastic and corroded alluminum off these trims, then spray paint them silver, possibly putting some metal flake in the clear to liven 'em up a bit :confused: I'm not brave enough to even price new trim pieces.




To remove this trim, from the back, pry the trim sideways as far as it will go, then lift then lift the front edge....

[DoubleChevron]

To remove indicators, a putty knife from beneath releases them.

[Peter.N.]

I've got one like that in black (I think yours is blue) and the paint is almost perfect, but the red estate has gone just like yours. I have just put a clutch in mine - looks a lot easier than your job

I used to respray practically every car I bought, years ago, but that was in cellulose - a lot safer. I used to spray them outside when the weather was good and didn't even use a mask, so there are probably several different colours of paint on the inside of my lungs, I like the smell of it though

I wish you every sucess and look forward to seeing the finished product.

Peter.N.

[Jan-hendrik]

Shane's XM looks green to me.
I once did a total showroom condition restore of a 1953 Traction Avant. Took me 2 years. I can't imagine now where and how I found the energy to do it

[techmanagain]

Probably best would be to peal the plastic and corroded alluminum off these trims, then spray paint them silver, possibly putting some metal flake in the clear to liven 'em up a bit :confused: I'm not brave enough to even price new trim pieces.

Just can't resist the chance to make a sale here! I can supply Stainless Steel side trims which - will not rust or corrode.
PM on this site for info.

[DoubleChevron]

To remove the lock we pull the rubber plug and push an allan key down there and back the grub screw off (don't completelly remove).



I pried the lock mechanism out from under the handle. That way if you do mark any of the plastic it's hidden !



Then work the handle towards the back of the car and it lifts out (I wonder if I'll be able to get the bloody things back on)....





Remove door trim ... handle bolts



Handle surround will pry off.



Pry the surround off.



The door mirror harness is a PITA passenger side. It has about 5 bloody plugs running to it you need to feed out of the door.... Yes I tried pulling the mirror to bits thinking I could unplug it mirror end.... You can't don't try.... It's soldered to the circuit board once your far enough in !



See the bit of wire ?? If you grab that with a screwdriver it will release the mirror (bloody brilliant, no smashing the mirror to remove !).



The wire is just this retaining spring... All your doing it popping it apart.

[DoubleChevron]

The bolts for the external door trims can be just reached through the rubber plugs and access holes in the doors.

You will need a 1/4 10mm tube socket to remove the tail lights ... unless you have more patience that I do (by about a million miles).





There is two peices of body colour trim to remove from each taillight.



I wonder if we got the colour right :joker: All the fiddling around comparing and searching for colour codes .... and here it's labelled with the colour.

If you drop the trim off the hatch, there is several torx screw to remove, you then pry the spoiler off again it's plastic retaining clips.







The scuttle panel is just a few screws after you smash the skuttle end peices off (don't worry someone will have already performed this task for you in the past).

That's all the body colour bits off by the looks of it.

seeya,
Shane L.

[DoubleChevron]

Gee's there's gonna be more prep/paint work involved in all this fiddly sh!t than there cars body itself !



We have the bump strips from the doors and guard, and it's highlight internal trim.... I think I'll use the blackout treatment on the lightlight trim now i think about it. The alternative is replacement either way, so it won't hurt to try.



Skuttle, mirrors, tail light base, tail light centres, skuttle end peices, headlight washers, hatch spoiler .....



bumpers and nose cone...

This should keep me busy for a bit !!

seeya,
Shane L.

[DoubleChevron]

Well I've been reading up on plastic welding.... and it appears all you need is a big solderi..... er, "plastic welder" and some welding rod... Well a bit of BX bumper will do for welding rod...



So I clamped the bumper section down so the crack closed up...





As suggested in several articles if you google "plastic welding"... First 'V' out the cracks... I did this from both sides.



Then filled the weld area over with new plastic.... Bugger me it's ugly but appears amazingly strong !



There was this big chunk of plastic torn up too, so I just used my, um, "plastic welder" and welded it back down.



The really ugly bits I found I could scrape away, and were like plastic filler with not enough hardener added.



Which brings the next question... How do I shrink "highs" in plastic.... Hmmm, maybe the heat gun ?

Somehow I think these trim bits are going to be more work than the whole car body (well I guess they have done an exceptional job of protecting the cars body from damage !).

seeya,
Shane L.

[DoubleChevron]

Well the heat issue is solved... This tiny little thing will even bake the paint if I leave the shed (so I don't die of heat exhaustion) and leave this little thing running full bore :joker:









booths all done, all I'll do is hold the walls against the floor with some heavy RHS I have here. It works amazingly well. I'll mount the jetfire at the top next to the fan blower when painting. The exhaust is at the back of the booth at floor level, blowing through a hole SWMBO just happened to notice I'd cut in the shed wall :clown: "what the hell did you cut a big hole in the shed wall for :nownow: "Um... It's going to be a door.... a doggie door" :roflmao: She's now telling everyone I'm crazier than ever... Why on earth would I line the shed with plastic .... It looks like I'm going to be cutting up bodies in there :crazy:









Damn there's some marks and bangs in the bumpers. On the bright side, that plastic filler is bloody amazing, it spreads like hot butter.... Man it's nice stuff to use !! It does clog paper very quickly. I found 120 D/A paper works best without clogging, yet doesn't scratch up the plastic. By the weekend I should have the bits 'n' peices in primer. Then next weeks top/clear for all of these, then they can get thrown outside somewhere and I'll start on the body :b2: :b2:

I could even paint of an evening now I have a dust/insect proof(ish) area and heat !

seeya,
Shane L.

[DoubleChevron]

This is what all the trims look like on the car.... I was going to paint them black with bumper paint..... but I've just found something out when I was prep'ing them for paint.





What the trims are is an aluminium type foil covered with plastic.



This is after wet sanding the trim with 600grit painting so they could be painted.



Bugger me !!! I'm just gonna put clearcoat on them, they should really sparkle then, and they'll be protected from going horrible again by the UV inhibitors in the clear coat.

the only really bad trims are the front guard trims that come with the car. They have corroded underneath. Luckily these two trims come with new replacements with the car :b2:



Bumpers and nose cone and spoiler are ready for some high build primer. all the other bits are ready for paint... I'll get me some paint tomorrow..... We should have all this stuff done by next weekend, then be ready to wheel the car into the shed :b2: :b2: :b2:



The door trims have massive orange peal. The only doortrim that appears to not be original I scraped the paint from in big strips with a putty knife ..... Hmmm..... I'll try to re-create the "massive orange peal" look again when they are painted. That should hide the bangs and scrapes they'll suffer in carparks (it should be easy enough to setup the gun for massive orange peal, the trick will be trying NOT to cover everything with orange peal :clown: ).

seeya,
Shane L.

[jorgy9]

Hi Shane

Sorry if it's a dumb question but:

re. the aluminium trims, u mean you removed & binned the plastic cover layer and then sanded the aluminium foil, right? Is this foil thick/strong enough to sand it then? Is it glued to the main part?

cheers
George