civic blak guard thing painting

[honda_ek4]

hi everyone.. jst saw a couple of civics around with the the black stripes on the side of the door and front and rear bodykit painted, just wondering how much it would cost to paint them.. and is it possible to just pull it off and buy the matching paint of my car and paint it myself?

here is a link for the people who are confused with what i have been talking about and what the black stripes are..
http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/8917/civic0dh.jpg

[Zdster]

This has been covered quite a few times. Try searching for painted mouldings or something similar.


In response to your questions, yes you can remove them and you can paint them or alternatively take your car to a body shop and let them do it for you. You will probably pay from $300-500 depending on who paints it and how much they are painting (just the side skirts, rear number plate surround, mirrors etc).

[jackosimm]

Id take it too a panel shop and get the whole lot done, ie. mirrors, number plate surround, skirts and all your moulds, looks hot as once done!
Probably be up around $500 for the lot, pending who again

[DOHCTR Coopz!]

^^ what he said, it'll look heaps better once you paint them! if ur not that confident or lack the experience, get the pros to do it! post pics if u get it done..
God i missssed this place.. :)

[jackosimm]

If you end up getting the whole lot done take it to a pro for sure

[shinji112]

i wanna do the same thing.. but my stripes are even longer and go all the way around the car.. but im going for a black and red theme on my car.. black mags.. black side mirrors.. black ctr grille.. black stripes.. all on a red car! could be a very interesting result!

[spacepants_fb]

I'm going to have mine color coded as well...cheapest quote I've had for the strips, the license plate backing, the side mirrors, the handles, and a rear lip is $500. Do you guys think that this is a good price? Recommend any places? Once I've got the car color coded (in 2 weeks) I'll post up some pics.

[DOHCTR Coopz!]

what state are you in space pants????

[kraftycuts]

yup get the whole lot done...

[mugeneration]

including mirrors? Thats reasonable. I had my strips, plate backing, and skirts done for a little over 300, which i could do coz my old man knew they guy who did it. But to do all that with mirrors for 500 seems reasonable. YOu will be VERY happy with the results!

[pocketrocket]

Ive done this recently to my side strip protectors, my car is white.

Look up your colour code on the inside of your passenger side door which was where mine was located, go down to your nearest automotive shop ie. autobarn or autoone or something similar and have a look at the book which the paint company provides showing the colour code, year, make and the paint code for the can to match your car.

Your door strip protectors can be removed from the inside of the car by removing the door trims and the back trims and the inside of the guards if your have any strips located on the front fenders and same with the back bumper. The strips in my case were attached on with hooks which were removed by using long nose needle nose pliers and pinching the anchor together and gently pulling the anchor out one by one.

Once done, prep the strips by sanding it with a 600 grit sandpaper to remove the clearcoating or any bumps, then light wet sand it with say 2000 or 1500 to remove any swirl marks and to make it smoother. When i wetsand i do it with water and some added detergent to make it abit smoother when sanding, what i also did was spray degresser on the thing and sanded it down, as it was soapy and did the same thing, although i used an automotive degresser not a general one that you buy in aerosol cans.

Once done degrease it all and clean it and let it dry. Spray some primer on it, best way ive found to apply paint in a can is to spray one light coat first to cover the area, wait a few minutes in between and then spray a thick coat as the first coat would make the contact abit tacky and wont give you runny paint from overspraying much. Wait for that to dry, then spray on a light coat of your colour, wait to dry for a few minutes, then spray a thicker coat until it turns out glossy but dont over do it as the paint could drip and ruin it all.

Repeat it if your want, then apply a clearcoat in the same way, light first then thick coat and wait till that drys and your done. Polish it up the next day as its recommended on the cans to leave it to dry for 24 hours to handened properly otherwise you will leave fingerprint marks and blemishes on the paint. And thats about it. Mine turned out like the body paint and i'm pleased with the results.

But like others have said in here, if its too hard for you better let a professional take on the job, white was pretty hard for me to match but on a black car shouldnt be a problem, although other colours such as red and so fourth might be abit hard to match, so if your after that perfect paint matching, do it professionally and in the end your car will look a million times better :D

Paint cost (for strips only, may be different if your painting side skirts, mirrors and etc...)
Primer for a decent brand about $9 a can
one 400mL can of your desired colour which is about $20
clearcoat $9

[jackosimm]

http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/1842/mycarpark7xn.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Nice when painted!

[Fr3aKi3]

hey pocketrocket,

I'm planning to do a DIY colour coding as well, what colour was your car and what primer did you use? From what i've read different primer (colour) will have different effects on the final colour.

My car's metallic green and i think i'm meant to use a grey primer instead of white, i'll have to double check this though.

[pocketrocket]

my car is white, the brand of paint i choose to use is called "Powerplus", its more expensive then other automotive paints in the shops but I havent had any problems with using this brand at all compared to the 2 dollar cans, as the 2 dollar cans sprayed a wierd confetti strain and ruined the whole finish when i used it once, so never again lol.

Ive had a problem with matching my car, so far in a month Ive resprayed my lip about 5 or 6 times to match lol. Friends say it might be the undercoat (primer) that brings out the final top layer and it can alter the colour in the end. For my Lip i had big problems with matching colours and i just used the white primer that was already on the fibreglass lip, ive never tried grey or any other colour, maybe i shouldve.

But for my side strips i just sanded them down and used a plastic primer on it. Plastic primer is clear like a clearcoat instead of white or grey, and the base colour of the side strips were gunmetal or dark grey cause they were stock eg strips and the sidestrips turned out amazing, almost perfect.

So i would say go for a dark colour undercoat like grey and give that a try cause the white that was on my lip gave me nothing but problems. Hope that helps. And something my friend told me which i'm abit lost about is that he told me to try a pink undercoat as this will give the best gloss finish, I dunno about that lol, sounds wierd to me. I'll post a pic of my car as it is now to show you how my car looks colour coded, and no i wont paint my side skirts *headaches*.

[pocketrocket]

here it is the beast and how the colour ended up.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y166/pocketss/DSC0820122.jpg

[spacepants_fb]

Not too shabby at all pocket rocket. Oh and DOHCTR Coopz, I'm in Sydney, sefton area if anyone knows where that is! Mugeneration, when u say skirts, are they just the side skirts or all of them including the front and the rear? Got any pics? Man, I thought I was over the whole spending on cars thing, but I guess I'm not. After this comes the audio install, just the other day put in a vti dash with tacho and reverse indiglo gauges...very nice to look at during night time...wish I didn't have to go to bed and just keep on driving! Money, money, money...

[Zdster]

Make sure you use the right primer. It needs to be a plastic primer otherwise the top coat can spider.

[simbadda54]

u have to remove some stuff from inside the car to actually take the side strips off i think

[honda_ek4]

niicceeeeee.. jackosimm

[Zdster]

u have to remove some stuff from inside the car to actually take the side strips off i think

You sure do. Need to take off the door trims to get to the side mouldings. If you need a diy post and we can give you some help.

[Terry]

if ur car is white.....without color coded also looks great~:)

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/9936/11ov4.th.jpg (http://img65.imageshack.us/my.php?image=11ov4.jpg)http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/8665/22fm.th.jpg (http://img93.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22fm.jpg)

[blu3illusion84]

http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/1842/mycarpark7xn.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Nice when painted!

nice im gona do mine as well..
what lip are they jacko? are they OEM lip?