After a lot of research and discussion, my brother and I decided to try out a new paint job on his old Explorer. I had read where some guys had used 3M spray on rubberized, paintable undercoating as a primer to make the paint stick to the plastics. He finally decided to go with a desert tan top coat, so I pulled and prepped the small front cover, over the oil tank, to do a test run on.

I cleaned the panel with starter fluid and a clean rag to remove any oil residue, then applied the spray undercoating and let it dry for a few hours. I then used a clean rag to remove any over spray and applied a good coat of desert tan spray paint. It turned out really nice, the rubberized undercoating dries into a textured, yet smooth pliable surface, that the paint sticks to good. After letting the panel dry all day, I was able to bend and flex the panel with out any cracking or flaking.

Here is a pic of the panel; I'll post pic of the final paint job in a few weeks. We have a complete set of front end parts on the way and don't want to get grease all over a new paint job, so painting the rest of the atv is on hold until after the front end is rebuilt.

 

Tell me how the finished product does! May redo my son's pontoon console that we did in Krylon Plastic paint. It's been holding up fairly well,but have started noticing some small hairline crazing. OPT

 

DEFINITELY let us know how it turns out and how scrape and abrasion resistant it turns out to be. And how you did the entire process too! This might be the po-man's way to change the color of our plastics, that actually works. I tried the fusion plastic paint and it didn't stick well enough for me even on sanded(80 grit) plastics, and the touch-up looks like somebody sharted on it in color....

 

Ok, we got bored and decided to knock out the repainting of the plastics now. He's happy with it and it looks good; looks like it's been on patrol on the front lines. We'll get back with you on how well it holds up to the trails.

 

That looks really good. Thanks for sharing the pics with us.