Painting plastic interior panels
 

Okay, after much research and getting over the "I don't wanna go through the hassle of ripping everything out" feeling, I finally have started to paint my interior.

Let me be a bit more specific- I'm starting with the trim panel that surrounds the shifter, and working up. My "wood" trim panel there was highly scratched and very ugly, I tried covering it with vinyl, etc. All not satisfactory.

I came upon the Krylon FUSION paint (for plastics) in my travels and noticed that they had gloss black- the color I was looking for.

THIS IS THE STUFF!

After hesitantly sanding down the panel, and applying a few coats of this paint, I realized how different from typical spray paint it truly was. It is very thick and highly durable- will not crack, or chip. Dries very quickly to a nice shine. I am very pleased with the results of this. I have intentions of continuing to revitalize all my wood interior panels likewise. Luckily for me, I have the SVX off the road at the moment and can afford the time to gut the interior- which I did- to both repair and enhance the appearance.

Now I will have to remove the whole center dash to paint such things as the trim around the cigarette lighter. Does anyone have a service manual of how the dash trim goes together? Or a how-to? :D

Thanks all, and I will post a picture of the final product afterwards.

-Sz


Krylon FUSION weblink:

http://www.krylon.com/main/product_t...roduct_details

It'll crack eventually. Put fusion on my XT radio butoons. Took the radio about 6 months but it finally started to wear. It happened when the interior started to heat up when summer hit.

I don't think I would recommend painting anything that is in constant contact and use, such as buttons or levers.

Still trying to remove that cigarette lighter panel. Argh.

Sounds like someone can't find a decent station to listen to or maybe has some ADD genes. I rarely changed the thing. NPR 95% of the time. It just looked horrible from a previous owner. Now its gone as it didn't look much better a few months later.

I believe that of all the fake wood dash panels the cigarette lighter panel is supposed to be the most difficult. (2 screws from behind the dash somewhere)

Well it's not too difficult for me. (Mine's broken off :D)

It's funny, I've never heard of this Fusion stuff but today I see a commercial for it. And then there's a post about it. Weird...

same here! never heard of it till this thread, then 2 hours later i see an ad on tv! FREAKY

Sound's like it's paint with a little extra thinner in it to help attack and melt the plastic, hence 'fuse' to the plastic.

Anyway, please don't paint the SVXs interior. It only looks good for a little while, then it cracks, chips, fades etc and you're going to make it a horrible time for the next owner.