Hi all, Has anyone had any luck bringing back a rear side panel that has gone a bit chalky? Mine are OK except right by the window where the sun has baked the upper surfaces. The graining is gone. I am probably going to convert my entire interior over to black, so if I can just get the graining right and re-dye the panel, that would git 'er done. Any ideas welcomed ...
Once the sun has deteriorated the plastic to the point of being chalky, the grain is pretty much lost. My one Maverick has a red interior, and the rear panels were extremely chalky. I knew my chances of finding a good set of replacement panels in red were quite slim, so I restored them as best as I could. I had to remove all the old chalky plastic in order to have a good base to spray plastic dye over. When all the ' dead ' plastic is removed, you end up with panels that are smooth. I could have sprayed my panels with Wrinkle Paint, but I chose not to. As the name implies Wrinkle Paint dries to a wrinkled finsh, but my concern was that it would not properly match the original grain. So now my rear panels are smooth, and to tell you the truth they look pretty darn good.
I carefully sanded the chalky plastic off with a DA sander and 320 grit sandpaper. I had to hand sand some of it off were the DA would not reach. I stayed away from using a wire brush because it can leave deep scratches in the plastic that will show through after they are dyed. The trick is to not sand the plastic down too far or it will become thin and easy to crack. You can probably hand sand the entire panel down, but it will take a lot of time to do it that way.
Hers' a pic of the red interior. It's the only one I have that shows some of the rear panel, but you can kind of see how it looks with a smooth finish.
That looks really good - I like that red. It matches the smooth surface of the newer doors (the door interior without grain).
Jean, I really had doubts when reading your first reply, but they look great in the pictures. Nice job.
