Trim Molding Restoration

[fazool]

I used to use a product called Bumper Black. Its no longer sold. I tried another product which was like a wax - it added shine but did nothing about the grayness.

I bought a $12 heat gun from Harbor Freight tools and did a light "sweep" with it. It gave terrific results. I'm going to wait until warmer weather and do it again. When its real cold out (like now) you really have a harder time contolling the heat increase. If the whole bumper was 50 degrees warmer it would be easier to do a more even job, instead of blasting each target spot up another 50deg.

For my 10+ yr old S60, I figure once or twice with a heat gun every ten years is worth it.

[schmidm90]

Cold weather is setting in here in NE so I will give it a try when the warmer weather rolls around come spring time!

[TonyMastodon]

http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread ... -Up-Inside*
duplicolor , best stuff ever.

[Ben850]

I also used the heat gun method on my '93 850.No topical solution was going to work, and I was'nt about to try to paint moldings. The bumper moldings were almost totally grey, but you can see in the signature photo they came back nicely. The door moldings only need a thorough cleansing, as they are more of a rubber compound.
Edit: I see there is another thread on the faded grey bumper moldings that explains this procedure. Sorry for the redundancy.

[fazool]

You can't sand these. They are textured pebble-grain plastic.

[JRL]

If you want to leave them rough, you just use prepsol and scuff them prior to painting them
If you want smooth moldings, it takes a bit longer, you sand, prime, sand, prime, sand, prime, etc. until smooth.
I've done both

My 99 XC is at the body shop installing a new fender and fixing a medium sized dent under the driver's door molding.
The molding was also dented so I'm installing a new one.
Naturally it will not match as all the plastic trim on the car has faded to very light grey!
I plan to do the rest of the car (front and rear bumpers, rocker panels, mudflaps and maybe the roof rails) in the Spring, but for now, we're painting the remaining 5 side moldings with bumper paint so that they all match.

I will post pictures when I get it back, Monday or Tuesday
I anticipate it to be perfect, dark and matching as now they're faded and the bumpers are horrible


You can see in this picture how bad they are now...