BMW E90 3 Series DIY

Instead of replacing my black plastic finisher rods with the silver ones, I decided to paint them body colour. I just bought some primer and colour matched aerosol spray paint from my local car store. No laquer/clear coat required for Jet Black – must be mixed with the paint already?!?!

First, remove the finisher rods from the car. The centre one comes off quite easily if you just push it up. The side ones are a pain, I hooked a right-angled pick and just pulled from the centre to the outside – didn’t break any tabs – but took quite a lot of force!

Now you need to prep the pieces. You need to sand off the “grain” in the plastic for best results. Get a really smooth finish by using higher and higher grades of sandpaper.

Prep the area where you are going to paint. I used a cardboard box, and make a frame to hold the parts from polystyrene and a couple of screws. This way I could cover it all while the paint dried without any dust settling on the finish.

Clean the parts using either a tack-rag or a cloth with thinners/white spirit and place on your frame. It is a good idea to be wearing rubber gloves to stop any grease from your fingers contaminating the parts.

Now give the parts a few light coats of primer. I did about 4 coats in the one night, leaving approx 10 mins between coats. Leave to dry until the next night!

Ok, now we can paint! Firstly, give the primer coat a very light wet sand using at least 1200 grit wet/dry sandpaper. Then clean again! Again gloves are a good idea. Once dry and ready for painting give them a couple of very light coats and leave to dry overnight.

Repeat the light wet sand, and paint again. Leave overnight…

I repeated the wet sand/paint again – see how you go and how good your finish looks!

Finally once they were dry, they can be re-fitted onto the car! A very subtle mod on a black car, but the black plastic just annoyed me.