painting inner wheel arch

[euphonic]

I was thinking of painting the inner sills on an mx5, with smooth hammerite or similar.I believe it comes in various colours including silver the colour i want.

 

The car is in excellent condition and has had full dinitrol treatment.The inner wheel arches, the folded in area above the wheels have become a bit stone chipped and scratched, i have de rusted and painted, by brush ,small areas in the past, however being metallic it never looks perfect and due to the prep required and a lack of skill!! i do not want to respray them, the wife says they look fine when done but i am a bit more critical , although to be honest it is not serious enough for a body shop.

 

Is using hammerite a good idea,if not silver, then black? or would i have to rub the hole area down to bare metal before doing it and risk scratching the cars immaculate paint work on the wings? if this is the case is there anything else i could use, over the old paint?

 

Thanks for any advice,Doug

[Peter C]

Hi.

 

I detailed my Merc W123's inner arches with a colour matched Crown paint. My car is an ivory colour so matching the colour was not a problem. However, I enjoy using the Merc in all weather conditions, which means that my ivory coloured arches soon turn dirty black. I don't know how easy inner arches can be cleaned on an MX-5, but on my Merc it takes time to wash all the muck off.

 

My advice is, if you enjoy cleaning your car then go for it but if you rather be driving it, paint them black and be done with.

 

BTW, you'd be amazed how much dirt collects in the arches even when you take the car out on a dry day!

[euphonic]

Hi peter and thanks for Your reply, i probably did not make it clear enough but the area concerned is not the arch behind the wheel it is simply the lip area that folds in over the wheel, which i suppose you could say was really part of the wing itself . In other words not the wheel arch part that you would need to remove the wheel to reach ,( hope this makes sense!) which is done in black already. Doug

[Peter C]

Ah, got ya.

 

In that case you should only use colour matched aerosols. Under arch colouring can be brush painted but the visible arch lip should really be properly prepared and finished.

 

HTH

[euphonic]

Thanks again, mate, for the moment i will use the small pot of paint and artists brush i have used in the past as they are only small areas and very close to the Wheel , so they are difficult to see anyway.the wife again can't see why i am banging on about it, but she does wear glasses.

 

I seem to remember once thinking of painting my garage door with hammerite and someone said it had to go over bare metal, or special undercoat. As it was already painted i did not bother.

 

Being so old i remember painting the area i'm talking about with the old type underseal! thats probably the reason i was looking for an alternative to metallic matching.

[euphonic]

My wheel arch painting, ended in a right cock up, when i applied the lacquer it looked worse than ever , so i let a pro do them, they are now perfect, like the rest of the car, no more painting for me, except small stone chips. Even the paint mixed by a local paint firm, a couple of months ago, but not before used, was not a perfect match, i know metallic silver is hard to match but this was not as good as the original mazda touch up stuff, with a brush in the top. Doug

[euphonic]

Don't use Hammerite!

If it's clean under there, use Stonechip, which is £5 for 2 litres (about 15 quid cheaper than Hammerite) and offers a 'bouncy' plasticky, 'hammered' surface which doesn't chip when even glanced by the tiniest bit of grit (like Hammerite). You can then paint over it, and it looks really nice.

Thanks for that, i will bear it in mind for the future but if you read my last post, you will see i gave up and let a pro. do a proper job in the original colour,cheers, Doug