Before shots. Look at the residual paint and generally gnarliness of the skin on the teardrop.
I ended up re-using the wheel well trim. Now that I knew I was going to paint it, I wasn't worried about the residual paint.
This was my first shot at installing trim. I learned how to use my pop rivet gun; my hands were quite tired by the end, but it looks awesome!
I ended up using the trim's thicker side along the bottom; this allowed me to cover a lot of the imperfections in the skin. This is especially true and visible in the image below. I had some really yucky trim there at the back of the teardrop. This allowed me to be able to mask this.
The other side's trim. Once I figured things out, it was a breeze to install this trim. I also went ahead and filled any earlier screw holes (the knucklehead before me just drilled right through the skin to install the license plate and brake lights) with pop rivets.
The following images are all 'pre-paint.' I wasn't able to re-take all of these photos afterward, but tomorrow I will post some before and after shots.
When I decided that rather than sand it all down and polish, I would paint it, I started noticing just how 'bad' the finish was. I'm so glad I decided to paint it.
Here are a few images of the painting process. One coat:
Two coats.
Three coats.
Some places, like the roof, actually got four coats.
Finished and all the yucky tape pulled off. It's not perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than it was when the day started.
I am thrilled with how it looks. There are a couple of areas that might need to be sanded down and re-painted, but all in all I'm pleased. Next, I am thinking a cool racing stripe in orange, and painting the rims to match! More on that and some more before/after shots tomorrow!
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