Painting Rear Quarter Panel Louvres

Wow, two DeLorean 'projects' in less than a week.

Ever since I got my DeLorean, my Quarter Panel Louvres, or 'fake vents', needed to be touched up.  While the rest of the car is in fairly good condition, especially for a thirty year old car, these louvres were faded.  A few decades of direct sunlight took all the 'bright' black out. Perhaps, everything else got updated and the louvres were never touched up.

As black as Spinal Tap's Smell the Glove

So, for the past two and half years I put this off.  Actually, more like six and half months.  For Christmas, I got a can of SEM Trim Black (39143).  Who gives someone a can of paint for a gift?  Well, I kinda asked a friend to pick a can up for me and he decided just to gift it for me for the holidays.  So, the can has been sitting in the garage since December.  Weather and laziness kept me from painting the louvres...mostly laziness.  Today was the day I finally get around to it.

Masking the louvres

Argh!  I forgot to take before pictures.  Well, you can kinda see that my vents are a little faded in tht photo, like Pantone Gray 11...not black.  First thing to do is to mask the area, I had already cleaned it.  Normally, one would extract a piece before painting.  But, this piece is near impossible to remove without breaking the mounts.  That would leave me 'stuck' with gluing or double sticking the louvre back on.  Also, you know how I am with turning five minute jobs into two hour jobs...I am not going to take off the rear quarter panels just to paint some fake vents. 

This could get messy

Once I got the area taped off, I blocked off a bigger area to avoid over spray.  Junk mail actually came in handy for once.  Time to get the the can of spray ready...shake, rattle, and roll...like The Honky Tonk Man.

Not as messy as I thought

Spraying is pretty straight forward...and back, and from the sides, making sure I get everything.  I sprayed two coats as recommended in the instructions.  Yeah, I actually read the instructions.  It goes on pretty and drys fast, waiting about five minutes between coats.

Unmasked

I waited about thirty minutes before I removed the tape.  Oh, how exciting.  Finally, I have nice black louvres.  I just need to wait 48 hours for the paint to cure and we are good to go.  It took me longer to type this post than it did to tape up and paint the fake vents.