Anybody feel like painting their interior?

I just painted my dash clock and have a few pictures to illustrate what could be a write-up tutorial for anyone who would be interested.

The reason I offer is because out of all the interior parts to paint the dash clock was probably the most difficult. Its not a situation where masking tape is of much help so you sort of have to disassembly things that aren't meant to be disassembled lol.

Let me know if anyone is interested.

-Will

Ok, cool. I'll post some pictures hopefully tomorrow. To answer inphiniti's question, I painted it white. I'll discuss the pros and cons of that decision tomorrow as well.

I don't know about you guys but taping things has always been difficult for me. And often times (unfortunately) its hard to tell if something is taped properly until after its painted.

This is why I tried to totally disassemble the dash clock before painting it (removing the necessity for tape). I've also painted the door cups, ac vents, and the stereo bezel but those are pretty easy so I didn't think about posting a writeup.

Anyways, I'll try to get some more things posted tomorrow after class!

Until then, heres the final product:

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/will4fang/?action=view&current=DSCN1751.jpg

-Will

Alright, the stereo bezel, ac vents and door cups are easy peasy lemon squeezy. The dash clock however, requires not just removal but taping.

Taping is my worst enemy. So I figured out you can take it apart but you just have to do this carefully. I made a mistake or two so I figured a write up would be advantageous to anyone following in my footsteps.

Here we go:

First of all, remove the dash clock from the dash by pulling upwards. (There are two clips on the front of the clock assembly and one centered on the back)

After its removed you have this:

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/will4fang/?action=view&current=DSCN1728.jpg

So the next step would be to remove the two screws securing the actual computer from the assembly.

This step is easy so I'll not include the picture.

The following step includes separating the front of the bezel from the rear. This involves running a knife along a few of the edges to shake up some of the glue thats holding it together.

Illustration:
http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/will4fang/?action=view&current=2small.jpg

Okey dokey so once removed you should now have three pieces:
http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/will4fang/?action=view&current=3-1.jpg

Now, to make sure that this project needs absolutely no tape, we HAVE to remove the plastic window that allows visibility of the clock. I did this by first trying to loosen some of the corners of the plastic window from the back with my pocket knife and this ended up not really helping lol. Infact a piece of plastic chipped off and nailed my eye ball! Lol, ouch.

So rather than following that step you'll probably be safe just holding the assembly firmly in both hands and pushing with your thumbs like i did here:
http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/will4fang/?action=view&current=4-1.jpg
NOTE: The picture shows me using one thumb... USE TWO lol. You want the weight to be displaced evenly. (This is obvious)


Now I painted with this plastic kyrolon fusion paint. I've played around with other paints before (dupli-color) from auto stores but have found this to be just as good if not better. (a couple dollars a can from the hardware store)
http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/will4fang/?action=view&current=5-1.jpg

Ok soooo... a few coats later and its white as the driven snow. Now you have to reassemble the pieces and secure them with a few daps of glue. I used gorilla glue which is very strong but not easy to work with. If I were to do it again I would probably use a glue that doesn't expand as much as gorilla glue (Gorilla glue is known to expand 4x larger while drying).

Anyways, heres the final piece assembled and glued with some small weights on the plastic to keep the glue expansion from lifting the plastic.

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/will4fang/?action=view&current=6small.jpg

Once that sits until dried installation is a snap.

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/will4fang/?action=view&current=DSCN1751.jpg

I'll probably add more information later depending on the responses. Sorry for the brevity of descriptions lol, if you've read any other write ups of mine I'm usually much more precise with instruction but I have a 2000 word essay due tomorrow over Friedrich Nietzsche . lol

-Will

White94Cobra, the only way i could think of showing you the entire interior (short of taking a video) was with a panoramic.

Its so sunny out, though, that the panoramic turned out pretty overexposed. But anyways here's a link:

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a311/will4fang/?action=view&current=1s.jpg

davis, it seems like the green GT knows of a good solution to your question. As far as preperation, on the door cups I did a very light sanding then a simple cleaning/degreasing before painting. Preparations largely depend on the type of paint being used.

On the clock and radio/shifter bezel I just used a heavy degreaser. If your like me then you can bet on grease residue being saturated throughout most of your interior (i have been known to go a little nuts with the turtle wax f21 products) so the degreasing in my case was the only really necessary preparatory step.

turbogt, I agree that it can look cheesy, especially if you go overboard with colors like red/blue/yellow. Athough, I think white and black usually looks pretty classy .

-Will