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      03-22-2012, 01:42 PM   #1
partlowr
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Painting Roll Bar Covers Body Color

Hey guys, this one is pretty much a no brainer but I just thought I would put together a thread and document the process I used. As we al know the roadster roll bar covers are not easily removable and usually the tabs break off and they can not be re-attached so rather than going out and dropping $245.00 on a new set I opted to paint them on the car.

I got quotes from a few body shops for this and they all quoted me over $300 to do it on the car and $175 if off the car, either way I was looking at $300-$400 so I decided to take matters into my own hands for $30.00.

I ordered some Black Sapphire BMW 475 basecoat in an aerosol can from Automotive Touchup, they can match just about any OEM color in aerosol form. I also ordered the Automotive Touchup clearcoat in an aerosol can.

I then waited for a warm day(yesterday) with low enough humidity(less than 75%) and no rain in the forecast for 24 hours. This is not that important but since I will not be baking the paint in an oven/booth drier warmer ambient air is best to allow the paint to cure.

I swept out my garage floor and hosed it down to minimize dust and particulate that could become airborn during the painting process.

I then pulled the car into my garage and dropped the top, slid my seats and recline as far forward as they would go, removed the slide in headrests, removed the upper seatbelt clips and the plastic trim from around the base of the roll bars.

I then wiped everything down with 409 but any houshold degreaser will work, be cautious of cleaners with too much amonia, it can harm some plastics.

I then took some red scotchbrite pad to the roll bar covers, you just need to scuff them very lightly, just barely take the gloss off them. DO NOT TAKE THEM DOWN TO RAW PLASTIC this will require additional steps and primers if you do.

Wipe up dust with a little more 409, allow to dry for a couple minutes and then wipe down with a clean lint free towel and a little acetone.

Mask of the car with news paper or plastic dropclothes and blue 3M painters tape. Make sure you overlap paper or plastic by about 2 inches and make sure all your seams are taped up, the onlything worse than overspray on you body panels is overspray on your interior. I masked off from my rear bumper all the way to where the windsheild meets the hood all the way to the floor on both sides.

THen I once again wet my floor down slightly by pouring a bucket of water on the floor, again this will keep the dust down.

One more quick wipe with a new clean cloth and some acetone and it's ready for paint.

I gave it 2 light dry coats followed by 2 slightly heavier coats waiting about 7minutes between each coat. Be sure to hit the inside top of the roll bars, this is difficult with the aerosol cans becuase when you tilt them upside down you loose the paint so be patient with this section. Take your time on these coats, it's easier to add extra light coats than to have to go back and sand a drip mark. Make sure your coverage is even and if you are painting a metallic like I did make sure the metallic flow is even, metallics will require more frequent shaking of the can.

Once I was done with the 4 basecoats I waited about 45 minutes to begin applying the clear coat. I applied 4 wet coats of clear about 8 minutes apart per coat.


The above steps were completed yesterday in under 2 hours time. The paint look great this morning before I left for work, I did discover one very small run in the clear coat but this is an easy fix, some 1000 grit wet sand and buffing compound will have it looking perfect in no time. There is a slight amount of orange peel on the backs of each roll bar but the tops and front look perfect, I actually suprised myself with how well the paint laid out. Again, a little wet sanding and polish will have them looking of OEM quality. I will probably take on the wetsanding and buffing tomorrow as I want to give it time to cure.

In the mean time here are a few photos I snapped along the way. I posted a before pic for reference. I will post some pics of the finished product when complete in the next day or two.
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Last edited by partlowr; 03-22-2012 at 01:50 PM..
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      03-22-2012, 01:59 PM   #2
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First painted photo is last coat of basecoat and the last photo is after a couple coats of clearcoat.
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      03-22-2012, 02:21 PM   #3
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Those turned out nicely - you'll have to post some pictures of how they look on the car, with the masking removed.

The covers can be removed and reinstalled if you work carefully - I was able to remove mine and only broke something like 3 of the 32 total tabs. I painted the fronts on mine satin black, and kept the rears as 'Chromeline', which matches the interior door pulls and steering wheel trim.





Having them off the car let me fully sand, paint, and then bake the enamel. Turned out a nice hard and smooth finish.
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      03-22-2012, 02:23 PM   #4
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very nice! i will be attempting this at some point im sure!
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      03-22-2012, 03:03 PM   #5
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WestCDA, care to share a DIY as to how you removed the covers only braking only 3 of the 30 plus locking tabs?

I wish I had know there was a way to do it, but at $240 a set I didn't want to do too much self experimentation. I spent $30 on the paint and $8 on tape so for under $40 and what will come to less than 3 hours of my life after they are wet sanded and buffed. I am exstatic with the finish already before wet sanding and buffing witht he exception of the one tiny run and minimal orange peel.

I will post up pics of the final product this weekend.
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      03-22-2012, 04:06 PM   #6
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I used a 1" flexible metal putty knife, carefully prying out the plastic at the points where the tabs were attached then pulling them back - I had an advantage, as I'd ordered the replacement covers so knew where the attaching points were. I still had to be very careful as I was keeping the original 'chromeline' backs, so they had to be reinstalled.

This gives an indication of where all the tabs are - the front is on the left, and as there is only a single tab halfway up the outside, it's a good place to start.



As for the price, where did the price of 240 come from? Each grey/silver rollbar cover was only 25 dollars from Tischer (100 dollars for all four). I'd ordered all four as I was originally planning on repainting all of them satin black, and didn't want to ruin the original chromeline covers (which are considerably more expensive than the grey/silver ones).

Look forward to the pictures!
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      03-22-2012, 04:14 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WestCDA View Post
I used a 1" flexible metal putty knife, carefully prying out the plastic at the points where the tabs were attached then pulling them back - I had an advantage, as I'd ordered the replacement covers so knew where the attaching points were. I still had to be very careful as I was keeping the original 'chromeline' backs, so they had to be reinstalled.

This gives an indication of where all the tabs are - the front is on the left, and as there is only a single tab halfway up the outside, it's a good place to start.



As for the price, where did the price of 240 come from? Each grey/silver rollbar cover was only 25 dollars from Tischer (100 dollars for all four). I'd ordered all four as I was originally planning on repainting all of them satin black, and didn't want to ruin the original chromeline covers (which are considerably more expensive than the grey/silver ones).

Look forward to the pictures!
Thanks...as for the $240, that was what my local Stealership parts department quoted me (Bill Jacobs BMW in Naperville). Had I know I could get them for $100 I would have ponied up that amount. Thanks again, those photos you posted showing the tabs should prove helpful for others that don't want to tackle it with them mounted.
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      03-23-2012, 10:41 AM   #8
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Nice job looks pretty cool. Cant wait to see the finished product. I love little touches like this. To me its the little things that add up and make a really nice car
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      03-23-2012, 11:02 AM   #9
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Last night I wet sanded the small run in the clear and the part with the orange peel with 1000 and then 1500 and then hand polished it with some polishing cutter and it turned out perfect. I removed all the masking tape and paper and it looks very nice. A storm was moving in and it was overcast and lighting was terrible so the pics I took sucked. I'm going to try to get out of the office early today so I can get home and reinstal the trim around the base of the roll bars(look like a royal PITA) and try to snap a couple decent pics of the finished product.

The paint match appears perfect, but then again it is a foot away from any painted body panel so if there is a slight variance it will not be noticable. My only real complaint it the finish on the roll bars is actually better than the rest of the car...looks like I have a paint restoration project ahead of me
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      03-23-2012, 12:14 PM   #10
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Look forward to seeing the results!

As for the markup on the parts, you're not alone - I had to buy some electrical pin connectors for a power seat retrofit, and had to pay over 20.00 at the local dealer for a 4 sets of crimp on pins that would have cost about 3.50 from Tischer or similar.

The dealer's markups from the RealOEM list price ranged from 319% to 731% - how's that for profit? I hate to feed these guys, but with the additional postage costs and the time to ship them here, I had to swallow hard and buy local this time.

Tischer's prices would have been 16% to 21% cheaper than list, which I've found to be typical. There's a lesson to be learned in there somewhere ...
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      03-26-2012, 09:15 AM   #11
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Here are a quick pic I snapped yesterday with my phone.
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      05-19-2014, 07:15 PM   #12
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Another option is to just remove the entire plastic cover and paint the actual steel rollbar. I never liked the plastic covers (they always made the rollbars look "fake" to me) so when I got my Z, I just ripped them off. I sanded the factory paint to make sure it was smooth, then prepped and painted.





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