Restoring Heavily Faded Plastic

[Fishstickz]

Howdy yall! Its my first time popping in here from the 3rd gen section, looking forward to spending even more money on my truck for detailing products (my wallet isn’t looking forward to that though)

The main reason I’m here is I have two new door panels to put in my truck. Long story short, I’m in the midst of a power window/lock conversion and needed new interior door panels. I got them both relatively cheap, but heres the issue



They’re both dirty I know

Just to be clear, the drivers door panel was exposed to the salvage yard climate for about 1 month, while the passenger door panel was exposed for years. In a perfect world I would just go find a better condition door panel, but these are so rare and hard to find i feel lucky just to find these two matching panels

So my question is, do y’all think anything will be able to restore that plastic back to the good lookin’ gray?


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[MADDOG]

I'd look at Duplicolor's interior plastic products.

You might have to treat and spray both panels to get them looking better and have them match. Duplicolor has what you need to do that.

 

[avantiguy]

There are several manufactures of spray dyes. Duplicolor as stated SEM, VHT and some others. Google will help you see who has the color you may want. I've used duplicolor and SEM, both work well but as a word of advice, follow the directions exactly and use thin coats.

These are the panels I took from s-brindle brown to a combo of gloss and satin black with SEM colors. If you don't like the results, you can wipe off the paint and redo them.

 

[Dad_Jokes]

I second duplicolor for the older hard plastic door panels. Really any good plastic specific formulation will work as mentioned above, I've just personally used duplicolor with great results. Just clean them very well and use and adhesion promoter and they will last for years.

If it were me I'd head to homedepot grab a few cans of the plastic specific color of choice, a can of promoter, some painters tape and go to town. For prep I'd do a spray degreaser, then a soap and water wipe down.

 

[chrisbh17]

I used SEM coat to paint the fender flares on my old truck. So it was an exterior application, which is usually tougher.

They came out fantastic and lasted for years (still were going good when someone totalled the truck!)

Its more expensive and not as easy to get as Duplicolor but if you want it to last forever, I would go SEM coat. IIRC it was 2 or 3 steps: promoter, paint (and maybe a primer in there, cant remember for sure)

 

[Fishstickz]

Thanks guys. I got some duplicolor vinyl and fabric coating from autozone today. I got two cans, one a lighter gray and one a darker gray. I think the dark gray will work well with the darker plastic but in hindsight the light gray may be a shade lighter than it needs to be. I’ll have to check

Does this stuff go on similar to paint? I’m wondering if i can do any shading with it. I kinda doubt it but might as well ask


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[Fishstickz]

I hit both sides with some soap and water, but before that I hit the passenger side panel with some degreaser. Not 100% clean, but at least good enough to tell me what really needs the work

The dark gray area on the passenger door is a bit more dull than the drivers side, but overall the color matches well enough that I won’t bother with that part. I think a little more cleaning and some protectant will make it look identical to the drivers side

Light gray on the other hand is gonna need it


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[gofishn]

There are several manufactures of spray dyes. Duplicolor as stated SEM, VHT and some others. Google will help you see who has the color you may want. I've used duplicolor and SEM, both work well but as a word of advice, follow the directions exactly and use thin coats.

These are the panels I took from s-brindle brown to a combo of gloss and satin black with SEM colors. If you don't like the results, you can wipe off the paint and redo them.

View attachment 211064

Listen to this one.
Even though he is a Avanti Guy,he does know his stuff.

Regardless of what his Wife says

 

[Fishstickz]

The duplicolor stuff did pretty dang good. It turned out to be a shade lighter than the original color which i kind of expected based on the color of the cap (the picture makes it look worse than it is tho). I’ll have to decide whether the difference bothers me enough to fix it or if i can deal with it for now. May try to find a better matching color





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