I gave my son and his friend a sawzall and had them cut up the bad panels to recycle. They had fun with it. So today I started cleaning up the good panels. I was able to get the oil out of the grain, and on one of my panels there are some pretty messed up gouges. The gouges have turned the plastic white, but after I took my hot air solder wand to them and semi melted the surface of the panel, the gouges turned back to dark grey and the sun faded parts also changed back to grey. It’s time consuming using the solder wand but it’s a non chemical conversion back to normal.
I need a UV stabilizer for my panels, anyone have any ideas?
So I also tried Maguire’s trim restorer. It worked pretty ok but left the surface of the panel with an oily feel. Not sure I’m gonna like it. So I also got most of the old weatherstrip glue off the panels, but now I need to clean the rubber strips and clean the old glue out of them too. I’m not looking forward to this part... When I get done, I should have freshly sealed weatherstrip that will hopefully be leak free.
You do realize this was posted over 11 years ago, right? Just sayin, it’s either fixed, replaced or the guy moved on by now.
I was in the middle of typing a response to an 8 yr old question myself, not yet realizing the age, and just happened to scroll to see if anyone else answered it when I saw this lol...
I used most of the inner application packets from two packages of the trim product.
There may have been one or two packets left over.
An EXT or an Avalanche with the painted upper cladding can easily get by with one package that contains 10 inner packets with several inner packets left over.
I used a total of two packages to treat my EXT, cladded Avalanche and my wife's GMC Acadia.
I bought the 2 vehicle kit of the headlight restoration product to treat my EXT and my wife's Acadia.
One full kit for each vehicle.
I just bought all new front lights for my Avalanche when I bought the truck since the old OEM lights were in pretty bad shape.
This has been the single biggest issue I've had with my truck in 6.5yrs.. Tried multiple different wipe on treatments=some two part some single wipe, light sanding, heat gun, and prayer; and honestly nothing worked for more than two or three months. There were a lot that looked better than others immediately after, but faded fast. The only two I DONT recommend: 1.heat gun -and- 2.Wipe New, unless your plastics are in perfect condition, because it left a hard slick clear coat over my lovely spotty grayish finish that took forever to wear off!
A couple months ago, I finally decided to go all in and make the trucks most unsightly flaw it's best looking(or try to anyway). I pulled all of the (supposed to be) black plastic trim pieces/panels off the truck and prepped then painted them with rattle can Dupli-color Bumper and Trim paint. Kind of long process but absolutely phenomenal result so far! Two months in and showing zero signs of UV faded or scuff damage. Curious to see how summer sun and fun treat the finish. If it still looks this good at my first football pregame I'll probably spray them with some matte or satin clear coat and call it done! (process from here on):
Pulled the 3rd break light trim, inner and outer sail panels, storage lids, vents, tailgate spoiler, and panels, along with the mirrors(after multiple 6 month plastidip attempts), and the lower windshield cowling(around wipers and antenna); everything black plastic on mine except door handles and grill. This isn't for the faint of heart lol, esp the sail panels, spoiler and those little vents. It is loud and they flex a lot and your going to break some so **tip- do not attempt in cold air (< 55)** .....and be prepared to make some minor repairs as needed. I read somewhere that if one was super careful they could do it without breaking more than a couple of the retainer clips, so knowing myself, I purchased 30 for about $1.00 a piece from a local Body Shop Supply Store **tip- don't waste time on CHEAP Amazon clips at .10cents a piece** in advance and only broke 11 lol. An 18" prybar covered in tape was my most effective method, placing the tip near where I thought a clip was located and prying off the body produced the least damage **tip- only pry off body in areas that are behind trim and will be hidden by the trim panels just in case. Also, I broke 4-5 out of about 50 total of the little clip position towers or horseshoe shaped clip holder areas or whatever you want to call them on the backsides of the trim pieces as expected. Those were repaired easily with JB Weld for plastics, wood clamps, a couple wood blocks, and a few hours of dry time **tip- indoors= dehumidifier exhaust air speeds ALL drying, prob 10x faster than rice for a phone/electronics. outside= the good old fashioned awesomeness of hot sunlight works even better than dehumid.
To be honest once everything was off it was a little overwhelming, so unless you have the cleaning and drying space and have zero anxiety issues, I recommend doing a few pieces at a time. Cleaning every corner and crevice of all those pieces at once felt extremely tedious but it was necessary as prep is the most important part of any paint job period. Then it all needs wet-scuffed with Scotch Brite or similar 600 grit pads, some type of gritty rubbing compound and warm water; theoretically you could start with the scuffing, it just depends on the condition of the trim pieces. But, if you're OCD(like the author of this novel) and lose sleep over having to do something again because you didn't do it correctly the first time= clean it before and after you scuff it. **tip- before final wash is the time to do any repairs or minor sanding to any beat up areas on side you're going to paint, honestly would only do this to the highest visibility areas like outer sail panels and mirrors, Then laid out about 40sqft of plastic in my driveway started wiping down 6-8 pieces at a time with denatured alcohol. Next was 2 light coats, 3 in a few areas, of adhesion promoter. Then 2 light coats, 3 in some areas, and a final medium coat of the Dupli-color product. **tip= a light coat is not a total covering, it's an approx 60-75% coverage, if item is white and I'm painting it blue you will still see some event scattered white after coat 1. **tip shake the $hit out of the cans before beginning and every four or five passes **tip- watch a video or 3 on proper spraying gun or rattle can painting techniques if you need to
Well that got out of control in a hurry lol, in fact I need to copy and paste that in the "plastics finish/repair" isle! Going to link a couple pics and do that now