Painting Grey Shifter "spine" Body Color...

16874 Views 107 Replies 35 Participants Last post by JediMindGamez, Jul 4, 2006

Stan

Discussion Starter · Sep 28, 2004 (Edited)

I'm painting the grey plastic shifter cover / console to match my Saffron Yellow Elise. Or you can call it the console. For 25 bux I had the local auto paint place mix me up a spray can of Lotus B-106 yellow. Decent match, and I cleared it with a less glossy final coat to help cut down on maintenance. Here is one of the two console parts against the car body on a rainy day. It's the piece that holds the black cup-like storage thing between the seats. Sorta looks like a tooth!

BTW I can see some minor adjustments that can be done to the shifter to cut down on play along with that side-to-side wobble thing "they all do".

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zvezdah1

· #2 · Sep 28, 2004

Stan,
Did you sand the tunnel first for a smoother surface as factory piece has some texture to it.

Looks great.

I don't understand, does you paint shop have the ability to make spray paint in cans or do they order it for you?

Chris

Stan

Discussion Starter · #3 · Sep 28, 2004 (Edited)

>>>Did you sand the tunnel first for a smoother surface as factory piece has some texture to it. <<<

Just a solvent wipe, then some adhesion promoter spray which looks clear, then some light coats of Saffron, then a clear. All hand held cheap spray can stuff. Most paints don't stick well to plastic so the paint place suggested the adhesion promoter, or Krylon Fusion. You could sand the piece smoother and then apply many layers of paint and then block sand that to get a mirror finish. Sounds like too much work for me, and it would be harder to keep clean and nice looking in-use.

>>>Looks great. I don't understand, does you paint shop have the ability to make spray paint in cans or do they order it for you? <<

Yeah. Many places do this. Very easy, and the cans have nice spray patterns. The paint is mixed at the place, and about an hour or so later it's ready for ya. So...they custom mix the paint for you to the paint code you give them. Then they load it into a conventional rattle-can type spray paint container such as Krylon or whatever use, and with which most of us are familiar.

Saffron Yellow in a Spray Can:

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Lotus F1

· #4 · Sep 28, 2004

Damn Stan! You are the mod King of EliseTalk. Nice Work! Your making my list of things to do very long

I hope to make it to the picnic as I want to see all the changes in person.

Vantage

· #5 · Sep 28, 2004

Hi Stan,
That looks great. Can you post a close up picture of the two pieces, so we can see how smooth the surface looks without any sanding? Might save us some work. Thanks.

Stan

Discussion Starter · #6 · Sep 28, 2004

I'll have to take some more PICs for a closeup...but basically it has the same surface finish as stock. An automotive body level of paint smoothness would require more work than I'd prefer to put into something that'd going to get kicked with shoes and touched a lot. That way things like finger prints don't show and I won't feel like I need to wax the console all the time.

Genjuro

· #7 · Sep 28, 2004

Stan,

You need to document all these cool things that you have done to your car so that I can easily copy them without searching the archives!

MUhahahahahahMuhahahahaMuahahahahhaa ha ha.. . ok not so funny anymore...

zvezdah1

· #8 · Sep 28, 2004

Stan,
any chance of posting the phone number of the paint shop that provided the spray paint. I've a feeling here in town my paint shop will be clueless.
Chris

Stan

Discussion Starter · #9 · Sep 28, 2004

>>any chance of posting the phone number of the paint shop that provided the spray paint. I've a feeling here in town my paint shop will be clueless. <<<

Sure...they are Levine Automotive on Federal Road in Danbury, CT (203)-731-3030

I don't think they do much mail order as it's a local chain here in CT. And you may be able to get spray cans cheaper by searching the net. These guys are good though and reputable and the woman who helped me was a real paint wizard. She had no trouble at all with the brand new paint code on such a rare new car.

If you run into any mail order issues just let me know and I'll get you what you need and then forward it to you.

atyclb

· #10 · Sep 28, 2004

zvezdah1 said:
Stan,
any chance of posting the phone number of the paint shop that provided the spray paint. I've a feeling here in town my paint shop will be clueless.
Chris

why would you say that?

it's not rocket science--the paint is mixed by computer these days anyway I assume

zvezdah1

· #11 · Sep 28, 2004

aty,
Nope, no concerns with the mixing, but getting the paint in spray form will be the problem I think.

Thanks Stan, I'll give the local shop a call tomorrow and see what they can do
Chris

atyclb

· #12 · Sep 28, 2004

zvezdah1 said:
aty,
Nope, no concerns with the mixing, but getting the paint in spray form will be the problem I think
Chris

oh, I see.

I thought that was kind of a routine thing I guess

ChrisH

· #13 · Sep 28, 2004

I think this could be a business opportunity.

1) Sell cans of spray paint (or touchup) that match the Lotus paints.

2) Sell actual painted large samples for those of us who are unsure about what color of car to order. For example, a 6 to 12 inch square, slightly rounded (nothing on the Elise is flat) well painted sample piece would give me a much better idea of what the paint really looks like in different lighting conditions. The samples in the brochure are just too small and plastic looking, and don't give me a real good idea of what it would really look like on the car. I would be interested in large samples of Ardent Red, Bordeaux Red, Magnetic Blue and Laser Blue. It would be pretty easy to get a large panel painted, and then cut it up into a bunch of samples. (Frankly, I think Lotus should be doing this, but all we got were those little chips on the brochure.)

ivan1

· #14 · Sep 28, 2004

Stan - I sure hope you make it to the BBQ on Sunday - would love to see your car - will keep the grill hot and the beer cold for you...

Stan

Discussion Starter · #15 · Sep 29, 2004

>>>Stan - I sure hope you make it to the BBQ on Sunday - would love to see your car - will keep the grill hot and the beer cold for you...<<<

Thanks. Sheesh I'm around the corner from your place too. But I'm racing that day. If the event goes quickly, traffic coming back is moving and so forth, I'd love to attend.

JeffersonRaley

· #16 · Sep 29, 2004

You can also have the paint shop mix up a small pint batch in a can. Then buy a Preval (sp?) sprayer from your local hardware store (or this site http://shop.store.yahoo.com/autobodymagic/prevpainspra.html).

JeremyR

· #17 · Sep 29, 2004

Custom Paint Cans....

I had this company (http://www.towerpaint.com/) make a custom spray can of vivid yellow paint for my miata last year. All I had to was provide them with the paint code. Came out pretty accurately. For those of us with clueless local paint stores, I can recommend this mail order option. No affilation....

Jeremy

Stan

Discussion Starter · #18 · Sep 29, 2004

3

I let the console dry for a couple days. I was able to reswage the upper cable ball joint so that appears secure. By using some threaded inserts still in the floor under the shifter (from the old design) I was able to make the shifter/e-brake assembly much more steady left to right. With some of the extra paint I painted my autocross air pressure gage Saffron Yellow. Here are some console PICs..

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Lotus F1

· #19 · Sep 29, 2004

Damn Stan it looks awesome! Your really doing some nice things to your car. Just about everything that I would like to do. I love it!
That Elise looks awesome on the door sill!

zvezdah1

· #20 · Sep 29, 2004

Stan, your tunnel turned out great.
I know you mentioned you didn't want to spend a lot of prep time before painting. What do you think the results would be if some time was spent sanding the texture off and making it perfectly smooth. Wondering how difficult this would be to do and still keep it uniform.

The other thing, how many coats did you put on?
Chris

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