Plan on painting interior trim peices SILVER
 

I plan on painting the interior tri peices silver either this weekend or the next but i have afew questions about that...

How do i remove the armrest cover on the doors and how do i remove the plastic cover above the door handle inside the door?

Also most importantly, How can i remove the Vent blades from the interior side air vents so i dont get any silver paint on them?

Thanks in advance!

If you are talking about the plastic pieces that is right next the actually door handle then you would have to look under it,there should be a small area where you can pry something(small flathead) to pop it right off.

worse comes to worse, steady hand, lots of masking tape, and lots of time my brother :)

dang!

With doing the top replacment and painting you are going to be a busy guy this weekend!! :cheers:

Tell me about it, Ill be fustrated, angry, hot, sweaty, stinky, silver. Ill probably say ****************, god damn it, son of a ******************** but hopefully i dont say "DOH!"

Nice! ok ill do that, Do i have to pull the lever down then pry off the plastic peice?

Any idea how to remove the blade from the interior side vents?

I know how to remove the blades from the side vents, but you don't really want to do it.

I removed my driver's side because the vent slats were all out of track and floppy.

Best thing would be to remove the vent units and mask off the vents carefully and paint them, but leave them fully assembled if at all possible. If you open it up and remove them, it will make painting easier but they'll go every which way and then you will have a big hassle getting them back in right and going left right and up and down like they do now.

Ok explain to me how you took them appart, I will have to do this in order to sand it properly to get that smooth look.

great idea. i think you were inspired by the post going around last week about painting different pieces...i know i was, i just don't know where to start and what colour...good winter project....i'm going to start painting different parts this winter for sure.

Yeha i was timid at first when it came to painting these interior peices but now that i got my feet wet, i wanna dive off the deep end now.

CJ, I only took off the driver's side, so I can help you with that for sure with this old thread that I posted a while back:

http://986forum.com/forums/boxster-general-discussions/6907-diy-ac-vent-fix.html

Hope this helps you!

Take your time. Be sure to get ALL of the factory Porsche paint off the parts before you try painting. Use a good primer, and start with light coats. It's going to take a long time if you want a good finish.

be sure to get some denatured alcohol and clean the parts after you have prepped them. then, clean them again.

Use clean rubber gloves to prevent hand oil. Then clean them again.

The extra effort will ensure a great lasting finish. Good :cheers: luck

about the blades, i think ur better off leaving them in there and masking them off.
this is y i think so: if you take them out and paint the trim piece, its easy part done, but it will be hard putting them back in there without scratching the newly painted piece

Well i wont be able to paint my interior peices this weekend, Instead i will be waiting in front of Best Buy in Pasadena to get a Nintendo Wii. I was totally cheated out my spot in line for a ps3... Lets just say people made a list of friends that came before us and didnt show up until the store opened and were given a ps3 unlike the rest of us that waited inline assuming it was First Come First Serve like they told us.

I just finished my console / ashtray / ashtray surround painting project. I'll try to snap some pictures tomorrow. I stripped the factory "soft touch" paint and the underlayer of dimple-texture using 220 grit and then 400 grit wet sandpaper. Cleaned with soap and water then alcohol. I built up several layers of primer with standard rattle-can high-build primer, and sanded it smooth with 1000 grit paper.

Painting was done using a rattlecan of Arctic Silver mixed by Paintscratch.com. I used four light coats of paint, and then sanded lightly with 1000 grit to even the finish. About six light coats of clear followed by two heavy coats of clear, then let it dry for 24-48 hours depending on my buddy's free time (he did a LOT of the work since he had so much previous experience painting model helicopters).

I then sanded the clear coat with very fine paper. Not sure of the grit, but it was just coarse enough to knock off some of the top-layer orange-peel - maybe 1500-2000?. Final sanding was done with even finer paper (the stuff feels like a sheet of printer paper, it's so smooth). Finally I used compound and a microfibre towel to remove any fine sanding scratches.

We then applied clearbra to the areas of the console near the seatbelt receptacles as well as the ashtray surround since it sees a lot of finger traffic.

Overall it turned out excellent - probably not to the standard of Eric the plug guy's product, but for someone who can't afford his prices (which given the labor involved are WELL worth it), it looks phenomenal. Pics to come shortly.

yea do post the pics, id like to see this

Here are a few.

WOW that came out really nice, If i were to see it inperson i would assume its factory. Now all thats left are the door peices and the rest of the dash.

Wow is right. I never dreamed that it could look that nice. When I hear about people painting interior trim I dont picture that.

Thanks for the positive comments, guys. A friend who has a lot of experience painting models helped me out with this project. You just have to take your time and have good attention to detail. We both agree the pieces turned out great - very high gloss.

The only other pieces I may paint are the "wings" that house the convertible top / defroster / etc buttons. Also thinking of covering the armrest lids with leather, but that'll probably have to wait.

i did my vents, airbag strips, guage pod, door-pull trim, etc. it was a HUGE pain in the a$$, but it looks awesome. this is the only pic i have here at work.

Pretty nice Insite, you should paint the defroster vent trim now, just lift up on the alarm dome and the defroster vents are held in by clips just like the center console trim peices.

i thought about it, but i didn't want it to reflect in the windshield.

yea dude wow is the word.
im gonna be doing mine soon, so ill be posting pics as that goes along.
im not gonna be doing silver, ill be doing the aluminum color
and wow that red one had wayyy too much red going on in thre, maybe even to the point of being distracted? just a little tacky for me. BTW, how did u paint the airbag strips?

I pretty sure, dj, Ocean Jade Boxster owners are forbidden by law to identify other Boxsters as "tacky." ;)

hehhe, maybe a good point, but i think that in that particular case there is just too much red going on, reminds me of the time my friend painted every single piece in the cabin that he could in his integra blue.
not trying to start anything tho

yeah, it's a lot of red. i left out the center console and arm rests. with the red racing harnesses, the whole package looks pretty slick in person. home now, so here's a better pic.

and just one more.....

From 1997-2002, the interior "aluminum" look stuff was actually Arctic Silver.

Cant believe you didnt touch the center console insite, thats the first thing everyone does, lol. If only my car were a color, lol, thered be no point in painting everything black.

yeah, i thought the center would make it TOO red. plus, i figured it would get scratched up pretty quick.

With a properly applied clear coat the finish is pretty resistant to scratching.

It's even more resistant to scratching if you cover the high-traffic areas in stoneguard ;)

i think that it would look much better if you painted the center console red, gauge rings red, and that cluster surround was back to black.

i did a quick 5 minute photoshop of it to see what it would look like
http://i16.tinypic.com/2vwh05s.jpg

Damn Check this old thread out guys lol. Look at some of the novice questions we would ask back then when we were stilll green to the porsche and its boxster vehicles. :D

DJ, you've certainly come along way with your photoshop skills since 2006 lol. That center console looks like a Honda DOHC vtec valve cover :cheers:

Where do you guys buy the Stoneguard to cover your interior pieces. I have a factory Arctic Silver center console but I still wouldnt mind protecting it from scratches even though it's not paint.

As for the Paintscratch paint that you guys buy, how much paint is needed according to your experiences. I would like to maybe paint my radio trim pieces and the rollbars. Do you also buy clearcoat from paintscratch or does any clearcoat work?

Thanks guys