This guide is primarily for DA owners wishing to restore their black oem moldings to a nice satin finish. I will include some tips for painting your moldings to color match your car as well, but the best results for this are acquired when painting the whole car IMO.

Tools and equipment:
Razor knife
Lots of newspaper, the sunday times is perfect (nice big sheets)
Lint free rags
small sponge
scotch brite pad, or a dish sponge with the scratchy side
dawn dish soap
small bucket
Tape - I really like this stuff, 3M performance masking tape

Paint - There are a few similar paint products available, i chose duplicolor trim paint

Cleaner - For cleaning all the surfaces to be painted i used Prep All


Additional items for color matching your moldings:
Sand paper - few sheets of a coarse grit (300-400) and some fine grit (1000-2000))
Color matched paint, use your vin as refference
3m Adhesion Promoter, this helps the paint stick
Clear coat

To be on the safe side, choose a nice dry warm day for this, and set aside the majority of the day to complete this project.

Color match moldings step 1:
carefully mask around all painted moldings to be re-painted
step 2:
Use the coarse grit sand paper and sand your painted moldings
step 3:
Sand with fine grit paper, try and achieve a nice uniform smooth surface
step 4:
remove masking tape and follow instructions for black moldings

Black moldings step 1:
Run some hot water into your bucket and add a small amount of dawn dish soap. Using your sponge and scotch brite clean all of the moldings to be painted( DO NOT USE SCOTCH BRITE PAD ON PAINTED SURFACES AROUND THE MOLDINGS, only on the moldings themselves

Step 2:
Rinse the car thoroughly and leave to dry

Step 3:
Once the car is dry, moisten your cloth or towel with the prep all solution and wipe the moldings down. When doing this leave them damp and let the prep all evaporate.

Step 4:
Begin masking around your moldings to be painted. The more patience and attention you spend on this step the better the finished product will come out. In some places i found it necessary to open the doors in order to get around the moldings properly.




Step 5:
Once you have a nice 1-2" border of tape around all the moldings begin hanging the newspaper to prevent over spray, use ALOT of paper you don't want to find out how far over spray can travel the hard way.



Step 6:
take another trip around the moldings with the cloth damp with prep all. leave to dry for 5 mins.

step 7 (*see "special steps"below for color match variation):
Shake the hell out of your paint can, shake it till both of your arms want to fall off, then hand it over to your buddy and have him do the same.

Step 8(*see "special steps"below for color match variation):
Do a small amount of practice spraying on something far away from the car and anything else you don't want paint on, once you are comfortable with laying down some even strokes of paint, paint the moldings on the car with one light coat. This light coat doesn't even have to completely cover the moldings, make all the coats nice and light. Wait 10 mins or so in between coats and remember to shake the can well b4 each coat.


Step 9(*see "special steps"below for color match variation):
Wait a good hour at least before attempting to peel away the newspaper and masking tape. When peeling the tape away go slowly and try to peel away from the freshly painted molding(the tape can and will peel the fresh paint off the molding if your not paying attention).

Step 10:
Bask in your DIY painting glory. your finished.




*** Special Steps for color matching****
Step *
Once you have your moldings masked and cleaned follow the directions to apply the 3M Adhesion Promoter.
Step *
Once the promoter is dry, apply your color matched paint following step 8.
Step *
Once the color paint is dry apply your clear coat in a similar fashion and continue to
step 9.

I know there are a couple threads like this one using different cars and slightly different techniques, this is what worked very well for me and it will make the DA owners feel special.

good luck




Modified by elmalouno at 1:04 PM 5/20/2008

 

I am going to be adding some pictures and tweaking this shortly, just wanted to get it posted in case something happened.

 

Nice write up. Good comparison pics too.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Presto800 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Nice write up. Good comparison pics too.</TD></TR></TABLE>

thanks

 

zbabe for moderator

nice write up

 

very nice... one more weekend project...

 

Nice prepping and your work came out good. Excellent job.

 

nice work z

 

Would this work to go from painted moldings and back to black?
I hate my painted moldings.

 

sorry , if you have painted moldings you can't use the bumper paint.

 

ever thought about paint matching the moldings?

 

hello hi i have a Q im looking for the vtec fender molding on the gsr 92-93 integra i know is gold but if some one had those and like too sell it pls call me or lmk asap is the one the goin in the fender and ssaid vtec i will buy for reason price thanks and merry christmas

 

i did this and it looks so much better, definitely worth the time, you just have to make sure you sand it well and when you spray it dont put to much in one spot or it will start to run and leave drip marks

 

why not just take the door and fender moldings off?

nice write up

 

A+ write up i did it and it turned out great

 

Something I'll be running into here shortly..

 

fresssh. nice yob.lol

 

nice write up now all i have to do is just wait for summer or spring to arrive