[Richard]

I figure I have dragged the old Subie about 100K miles behind our coaches. The front bumper was showing the effects, plus the usual dings and impacts a 14 year old car will have. 

I have been thinking for couple of years about how to spiff that up a bit without going into the prep work needed to make new paint look decent. New glossy paint over beat up surfaces will look worse than doing nothing. So I got this idea of using bed liner tinted the original color of the bumper. That redneck instinct kicked in and this week I painted the bumpers and rocker panels with tinted bed liner. 

I did some experiments first using the Shuchtz gun that is normally used, but that gave a heavy texture. Plus the recommendations of the stuff I used, Dominator, had you spraying from 2 ft away. That gave a grainy feel to the finish, perhaps good for keeping your firewood from sliding around, but I was afraid you could never get the bugs off that finish. 

I finally settled on using an HVLP gun with a 2.0 mm nozzle normally used to spray heavy primer. I cut the glop about 20% just to get it to flow and wet out a little better. Holding the gun about 8 inches from the surface and spraying a good wet coat gave me a moderate texture and sheen.

           

[folivier]

Nice job. Did you remove the bumper or just tape it out?
My Lexus has the dreaded Blizzard Pearl paint job that is beginning to flake off. Some of the Lexus guys have painted their entire car using Raptor liner in various colors. I'll probably do that in the near future. The biggest question is how smooth can I get the texture. Your spray job looks pretty smooth and is probably what I'll be looking for.

[Richard]

I taped the bumpers and rockers. Covered the entire car with masking film. I can bring you some to Spearfish. Washed the areas to be painted with industrial degreaser, then scuffed by hand with 220 grit paper, wiped down three times with laquer thinner. I was really really really afraid of getting fish eyes from any leftover wax on the car.

The key to the smooth surface was using the primer gun, reducing the bedliner about 20%, and holding the gun close enough and slow enough to get a nice wet coat.

If you used the guns that come with the bedliner, it will be WAY to rough in my opinion.

The obvious reasons for doing this are the tremendous reduction in prep time over just respraying the bumper/rockers or the whole car in your case, second it's tougher than paint, and third it's about 1/3 the price of color/clear coating.

[360]

What a great idea. Looks fantastic.

[Fulltiming]

Great job Richard. Makes perfect sense in light of the abuse that the front of toads get.

[Georgeb]

Great work

[Winegrower]

The liner looks like a genuine factory Subaru job.  Cutting the material was a smart idea.  And talking about rock ding resistance, you've got it now.  And all this can be done outdoors without fear of inhaling those nasty volatiles long as you stay upwind.

[HoosierDaddy]

Lookin’ good!

[Latitude 28]

Looking good Richard! What make is your HVLP gun?

[Richard]

Of course I used the local outdoor paint booth, but I always wear a respirator with organic cartridges.

The HVLP gun I used for this was a el cheapo used for primer.

I do have a very nice one that I use for clear and color, but the nozzle on that one is 1.0 mm, too small to handle the gloppy bed liner.