Painting Plastics?

[mrfixit63740]

:wondering I need some advise on this Krylon Fusion paint. I have a 1983 YT 175 Tri-Moto that I am trying to fix up that I bought for a $100.00. It was sitting in a barn for about 10 years. I have tried sanding and painting but when i went to put my clear coat on it started to wrinkle in the places where the plastic commonly flexes. If anyone has any advise what I can do to restore the looks of this old yellow beater I would greatly appreciate it! The plastics are really in good shape for the most part but I want them to look a little closer to new if you catch my drift. I have seen some pics of a couple of yellow tri-motos on here that look really good, I wonder what they did? I CAN'T FIND THESE FENDERS NEW! PLEASE HELP!

[lookinforone]

is the clear coat the Fusion paint as well?
if it is it shouldnt wrinkle. if its not, dont use it. you could possibly use gloss yellow
and that should look pretty good.

[crd00]

You have to put a coat of primer for plastics on underneath the basecoat(before you spay the colour), then you spray on your clear coat so it wont rinkle and the paint will bend when your plastics bend. You have to use the same name clear as your paint or it wont go on right and your paint job will be runined

[mrfixit63740]

No it is 500 degree clear coat from wal-mart. I figured the higher temp stuff would work better since it might sit outside for now. I have a quad that gets first dibs on storage. I couldn't find any fusion clear and I think part of the problem might be the temp that it was out at the time. I don't have any place inside to do this work right now. The temp was prolly somewhere around 45-55 degrees with low humidity and the sun was out. The can says 50-80 degrees is optimal. Paint alone was looking great berore the clear though!

[mrfixit63740]

Primer? Even though the Fusion paint says it doesn't need one?

[crd00]

Ya it proably does say no primer but on metal you wouldnt have to but with plastics its better to use the primer for plastics, because if you dont your paint job wont turn out as good and it will rinkle as you said

[crd00]

I do it all the time with my fenders

[mrfixit63740]

Well crap, I guess i'll have to strip and sand it back down then. I never found any plastic primer. Any ideas where you can get it or who makes it?
Thanks.

[mrfixit63740]

So it works good on your plastics? What kind of primer do you use? Is it made specifically for plastic?

[crd00]

it come in a spray bomb, autocolour makes it, you should be able to buy it at any autobody shop

[crd00]

yup its just for plastics, bodyshops use it on plastic bumpers on cars, plastic door mouldings etc. I use it all the time when I paint them

[mrfixit63740]

Thanks alot! I will try to find some and see what happens. If I ever get this thing done I will put up some pics but that might be awhile the stupid weather doesn't want to cooperate, lol.

[YTM200BOY]

lol good luck man its snowing in march up here in illinios w.t.f is this all about lol.. Yeah man this summer im painting my ytm200EK hopefully it looks a bit odd with a 225dx black front fender lol i want to make mine bright yellow also. so hay if you can do me a favor when you do yours tell me what you use and tell me how it turns out k? well thanks man and good luck! -Joe

[Yamahauler]

Dont waste your time with paint. Especially for yellow fenders. The best, easiest way to do it is to take a razer blade. Hold it perpindicular (90 degrees) to the plastic and scrap back and forth with a little pressure, it should take off a fine shaving of plastic. underneath, it looks brand new, the plastic will still be scratched, but its not bad, and since its yellow plastic, you can hardly see the scratches. If you are really worried about scratches, start wet sanding, from 600 to 2000 grit, then use rubbing compound and finally some kind of glaze or car wax. But I think with just scraping with the razer blade, you will be quite surprised what that brown coating of rotted plastic was hiding.

Do no hold the razer blade at any other angle other than 90 degrees, you will gouge into the plastic and it looks like crap, I did it in a couple places on my fenders.

Here are my fenders before and after, this is razer blading, then hours of wet sanding. Turned out PERFECT!!

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c48/coryv_76/beforeafter.gif

[YTM200BOY]

yeah man looks nice i sanded and scrapped my rear fender and it looks beautiful also... but my front fender is black and i tried scrathing it and it looks really bad. Also i think i am going to throw out my gas tank cover because there are cracks on both sides. lol so yeah and my front light plastic is garbage also.

[mrfixit63740]

What about the rotted ones? My front fender is brown and flaky. I would love to try this! I just don't get much time so I thought painting would be faster if it worked, but what the hell its already failed once so I guess hours of labor are inevitable.

[Yamahauler]

This takes 20 minutes to do!! Mine was the exact same as yours, brown and flaky, that later comes off in a dust and its actually kind of fun to do. Makes a huge differance. On that animation you can see a layer of paint someone put on, the brown crusty stuff, and then where i started razer blading.

Go try it now! Its awesome.

[crd00]

I dont like the idea of scrapping the fender with a razor blade, theres a very high risk of ruining it, if you scape it on too much of an angle you could dig into it, and you'd have to do hours of wet sanding like you said, so if your fenders are in good shape theres not a lot of work to paint them and clear coat them and the final product is a lot better looking

[Yamahauler]

If you do one of each, in a year, see which one looks better. There is not a "very high risk" of ruining it. If you dig in a few times, its not a big deal, you can hardly tell. You will learn not to do it.
You dont have to do hours of sanding, you could leave it just after you scrape it and it doesnt even look bad.

[mrfixit63740]

:wondering Here are some shots I took of a test run on the front fender. First I dry sanded the part on the right with 320 grit, then wet with 800 grit, and finally wet with 1000 grit. I did this in about 10 minutes. Is it going to be best to put a clear coat on the plastic if I go this direction or some sort of auto or motorcycle wax? I have no idea. Hmmmmmm...

P.S. look at the big scratch/gouge on it, what the hell do I do to fix that? I don't think it could be filled unless its painted. Its pretty deep but not all the way through.

[mrfixit63740]

well crap! You can't even see it in the pic, lol
But its there.:crazy:

[mrfixit63740]

:rolleyes: OMG, ok it is visible in the third pic but kind of far away looking, but ya get the point! lol

[N5HNY]

Does this work on Honda Red plastics ? I think it would.

[Air-cooled-R]

My Wal-Mart sell plastic clear coat with the automotive paint. I guess for like plastic bumpers and stuff like that on newer cars

[mrfixit63740]

My Wal-Mart sell plastic clear coat with the automotive paint. I guess for like plastic bumpers and stuff like that on newer cars

But I wonder if it is flexible enough to resist cracking and peeling with all the movement and vibration on an atv?

[crd00]

The only way I can see to fix that gouge is to melt some plastic down into it, then put some fiberglass filler on it and sand it down. I did that before with my 200m fender so it will work

[mrfixit63740]

Can you even get yellow plastic close to the tri-moto color?

[crd00]

do you have any old yellow fenders lying around? If you do cut a strip of plastic off of that and then melt that down into the crack.

[85hondaatc125m]

You have to put a coat of primer for plastics on underneath the clear or on top of your base coat so it wont rinkle and the paint will bend when your plastics bend. You have to use the same name clear as your paint or it wont go on right and your paint job will be runined
I know this post is old and all, but soon I am going to be painting my plastic so I have a few questions, what do you mean by primer over your base coat, by base coat do you mean the original OEM paint that is on the plasic? SO do I lay down primer on my sanded platsic, and then paint it, and then clear coat it? Thanks, I just dont want to do anything wrong.

[*Kev-Bo*]

i just refinished my plastic and all i did was used a 220 wet dry sand paper at first then used a 1200 grit then finished with some cutting polish turns out GREAT no paint needed but LOTS of sanding

[crd00]

You have to put primer for plastics on before you spray your colour so the paint wont rinkle or flake off when the plastic bends.Then when you spray your base coat(the colour your sprayed) you spray on the clear coat. Its a very simple process and it pays off in the end. If you have any more questions just pm me

[conig]

i don;t repaint the plastics on my 4 wheeler I did almost exactly as you only I sanded up to 2000grit and finally fine steal wool. then clean the plastics again in simple green. and finally use mop and glow on them. get the rag good and wet and let it dry between coats. the stuff is absolutely amazing works wonders and doesn't flex or flake off.

[atcsteve]

Go to an auto paint store,and have them add flex to your paint,its the best way to go!!