Greetings,
It's been a l o n g time since I've poked my head into and around these parts! Back when I first bought my 2 Polaris machines, I used to spend a big chunk of time around here. Big changes for sure! I'm still running my '04.5 500HO Sportsman.

The plastics and brush guards/tube bumpers are getting a little rough and I'm thinking seriously about doing a paint job on the machine. My use of the machine has been primarily hunting waterfowl in the flooded rice fields and occasionally Big Game in the mountains. Her life is getting easier now as we're departing the rice fields at least for a few years and the hours I put on her will be mostly trail riding and minimal at that.

I want to do a real nice job and plan on going with ultra-flat colors like OD Green on the plastics and some of the metal parts, ultra-flat black on other sections to sort-of go along with a gnarly military theme.

The metal parts are a no brainer as far as prep and shooting the components but I was wondering how much success others may have experienced with getting good adhesion when painting the plastics? I'll be doing a thorough teardown and prep of all parts and shooting the finish with an HVLP system and whatever high quality coatings necessary to accomplish the task.

I'd love to hear some experiences or ideas from those that may have been there, done that.

 

my blaster is all painted with spray cans the frame is just regular old marker paint for marking pipes, wire ect. under ground the plastic is painted with krylon fusion that was supposed to be flat black that turned out glossy and the motor with high temp black grill paint i painted it 2 years ago an its held up great you just have to prep it good i wet sanded all the plastic with 600 grit to rough it up a lil i ride trails an gravel roads mostly an have no problems with chips or scratches

 

this was talked about(a post or 2) a long time ago but not sure it ended up for long term whether the paint actually stuck and and didn't peel off. i think prep work would be the key to make it work. maybe someone that has done it a while ago will give thier views.

 

everytime I say that to the wife she runs out the door

anyway-

I've only had bad experiences with painting plastic- I also treated the plastic with prep-sol and used a good automotive primer & enamal.

It probably would've been fine if I just used a garden hose to wash my bike- but I've always liked to use a pressure washer with a #40 fan tip to clean it up nice- the paint would flake off here & there (even if I was careful when washing) it ended up looking like total shat in no time.

just my experience- maybe you'll have better luck with the hvlp...

 

Prep is everything.There is a plastic primer made buy 5-Star race car bodies out of Twin Lakes ,Wis.They probably have a web site.Thier primer is clear when it goes on.But paint really sticks.

 

I've seen painted plastics with fair results but still flakes over time. Prep will be key. On a side note, the plastics on my buddies old sportsman was really scratched up so he used hurculiner on them and to my surprise it actually looked pretty good and held up great! Made it look close to my stealth sportsman with the exception of having the bedliner texture.

 

i've tried paint several times with not much luck so i tried line-X . the bike was painted 2 yrs ago and has been run on trails and in mud and still looks great. Wash it spray it with tire shine looks like new. can't pot pics but have pic in exotic section under [had to do it]

 

I have never seen a paint job on quad plastics that ever turned out good, in fact I just bought a quad that had original yellow plastics that were painted black. It looked horrible, but you could tell there was little prep work involved and probably the wrong paint used. It almost ruined the fenders, I spent a lot of time scrubbing with paint thinner to get it off, I got the back ones looking good, but I ended up throwing away the fronts and buying new ones. The main problem is the flexability of the fenders, I know they have flexible paint, but it usually won't flex as much as the fenders will. My vote is to not paint them unless you plan to be extremely careful with them and repaint them every couple of years.

 

I bought a set of used Scrambler plastics a few years ago that were scratched up and the paint was faded on.I painted them with some Krylon spray paint that I bought at Walmart and they actually turned out decent.The only thing that I did before I painted them was to take the stickers off of the plastic, remove the excess sticker glue with some cleaner, wash the plastics with some hot water and Dawn dish detergent, dry the plastic off and then spray several coats of Krylon spray paint on them.

The paint has held up fine over the years but I did use the same color as the factory color of the plastics.The only thing that I have to be carefull of is to not spill any gas on the plastics when I refuel the quad or it will cause the paint to bubble where the fuel hits it.

I don't leave my Sport sitting outside for any length of time.When I'm not racing it stays inside my garage and I transport all of my quads to the track in an enclosed trailer as well as wash them after each race.

Here's some pictures of the plastic after I painted it a few years ago



Here's how the plastic looked last year towards the end of my racing season compared with a set of factory yellow plastic that I sometimes use



Here's how the plastic looks in the sunlight