I have received numerous inquiries into how I painted my spoiler so I thought I would post it for the archives. First let me say that if you do not have time and patience do not start it, and this information is from a person that has NEVER done any body work before. I also had access to a paint booth and a painter that has been painting for 20 years to show me how to use the gun and how to sand. I began with getting the paint color of of the door panel sticker. I had my local paint store order me the paint accordingly. I bought 1 pint of (brand name) Glasurit that came with 3 parts. Once the paint had arrived I began the task of taking apart my spoiler. I experienced right off that some of the screws were rusted in and that by trying to loosen them only caused the nut plates to break away from their holders inside of the spoiler. Once broken they will be useless unless you can rebond them to the spoiler. I haven't reached that point because in the year it took me to finish it, I have lost all my hardware. It is in a very safe place :-). If I can get some replacement hardware, I am going to try and use plastic bonding with some fiberglass as my reinforcement. With hind sight I should have stopped after the first rusted screw and just tried to paint the spoiler as a whole and not three separate pieces. In case your wondering what the three pieces are they are the spoiler frame, the brake light housing, and the bottom of the top wing comes off. Well I decided to press on and figure out how to fix it later. I then took of the front nose cowl and removed the Merkur emblem, which is held on with a screw and some bonding tape. Someone sent me a post about using a hairdryer to heat up the glue, and you know what , it worked. thanks for the suggestion, sorry I forgot who you were. I took a razor blade and cut off the rubber molding around the cowl, being careful as to not cut it in half, as we all know that part cannot be found. Next I got some wet/dry 600 grit sandpaper and a sanding block and began to sand using water. I just sprayed down my part and began to sand. Rinse the part and the sand paper off periodically. Use long strokes, so as to keep the paint even. All you really need to do is remove the 11 years of wax build up so that the paint will stick. If you do your nose piece you will have to sand down far enough to get rid of the rock chips. It sounds real easy but it is not. it is time consuming and very boring. But, your hard work should pay off. After getting the wax and assorted build up off, I closed me eyes and ran my fingers and palm across the surface trying to fell anything out of the ordinary. When I came across something I would mark it with a pen and continue sanding until it was a smooth transition from side to side. On the nose this was a very long process. Once the sanding was done I brought it to our paint booth at work and applied a coat of primer so that I could see where my high and lows were going to be. With that done and set overnight, I began to sand yet again and again until it was smooth. I applied one more coat of primer to make sure and minus a few flaws, that are hard to see, I painted it black. I used two coats of paint and one heavy coat of clear. Our paint booth was not the cleanest and some dirt stuck to the clear. I again had to sand using 1200 grit with light pressure and then buff it out. I re-assembled the nose using rtv to re bond the rubber molding around the grill and installed it. It looks great, except that it looks darker that the rest of the car. but I am stopping while I am ahead. As I said before I have never done anything like this before and I am not an expert nor even close. what you do, you do on your own accord. I just wanted to share what I did.
