Heater and A/C panels

[OCCoupe]

So I decided to experiment with texture coatings to see if I could get close to the original texture of the heater and a/c panels. From what I’ve seen, texture varies a bit between cars, so this may not match what you have; but I feel that it looks pretty good and is a good solution for beautifying the chipped panels.

I media blasted the panels and made sure they were nice and clean using brake cleaner. It’s still a bit cold here so I used a heat gun to warm up the cans of texture coating, paint and also the panels. Most paint products recommend applying in a 70 or so degree environment with project and paint also around the same temperature.

It is important to do some test runs to establish a technique. I tried 7 different products using different methods to see which one yielded the best results. This was done on a big drip pan from Napa auto. I taped several sections so that it would be easy to identify the results.
I ended up using SEM Heavy Texture Chip Guard and SEM Trim Black paint.

Here are the results. I’m quite happy with the end result.

 

[Thomas76]

Nice work! SEM has great restoration products.

 

[dave v. in nc]

I agree that's a nice job...especially hard to do the "concave" areas since the forced air wants to blow-back. Excellent.

 

[OCCoupe]

Icons and vent installed. Vent was disassembled, cleaned and the scratches sanded off.

 

[HB Chris]

The maestro!

 

[coupedegrace]

View attachment 161098

Looks fantastic! Is this pic a cautionary tale about what happens when you use brake cleaner in a non-well-ventilated space? Because if so, call me convinced.

 

[HB Chris]

Just normal OCD for Mike, everything will be perfect.

 

[deQuincey]

It looks very nice Mike
very well done !

 

[Dlc]

I recently did a similar exercise - see before & after pictures.

I used standard primer and several layers of VHT Wrinkle Plus. I had closed the cutouts with filler before applying the paint.

 

[OCCoupe]

@Dlc nice work! You can’t even see the filled holes.

 

[Markos]

A number of factory face plates have smooth texture and flat paint. It differs from the e3 to the e9 also. After experimenting I ultimately landed on a base of Rustoleum hammered with a top coat of satin black.

Depending on lighting and in this case reflection, satin can look a little too glossy. This is my gaudy gage panel.

The heater controls, and especially the steering column have far more texture. I’ll probably go with @OCCoupe ’s approach for the heater and something more textured (more like a splatter) on the column.

@OCCoupe - your results are excellent!