Plasti dip from my working with it the past two weeks or so holds up better than you'd think. While it is removable, it takes some effort.

I painted my headlights over the past two days, I had to seriously scratch it through the surface, then rub it off hard. I think it'll be fine for your doorhandles. I'm planning on doing mine as soon as I can find an indoor place to spray.

 

Plasti-dip will work for the handles. I had them on there for a couple of months but since i am so picky i ordered the fiberglass handles from Aesthetic Creation. The problem with the plasti-dipped handles is where you grab the handles it will start to peel back and the passengers not knowing that it will peel back will grab it recklessly and it will eventually peel to an ugly extent. So either make sure you get it to stay or be careful when you open the doors!

 

plastidip cant be rubbed off....as long as you put on enough coats. so dont think just rubbing ur finger or hand back and forth will mess it up, its much more durable than that. it can begin to roll up on the edges if you have a sudden stop in whats dipped and whats not...like if you mask. if the entire piece is covered, youll have to cut into it to begin to peel it off. hope this makes sense

 

personally, i wouldn't take the door handles off, since its a total pain. when i did mine, i didnt take them off and they're fine.

 

Honestly the plastidip holds up perfectly on the door handles. It actually holds up better than regular paint because it doesn't flake off, but absorbs a lot of abuse.

What works best for the joey is krylon fusion for plastic. They have many different shades, but the semi satin leaves a really good look. It honestly closest to a matte black

 

Has anyone used Plastidip on the interior pieces such as the passenger side airbag cover? If so, please post pics. Thnx!

 

I've used plasti-dip on numerous parts such as the speedo/nav ring, tach and speedo, dash pillars, e brake handle, shifter ring, cup holder ring, a/c rings. so most things are black and working good. i will post pics next time i'm at home. (in college)

 

I would have to 2nd the use of plasti on the door handles. 8 months with no problems. Make sure you get it thick enough on the inside lip of the handle to prevent peeling.

 

Im assuming you removed all of the trim pieces and then sprayed them? I dont want to do the trim pieces, just the front dash pieces in black (wish I would have ordered the Piano Black dash ). Im not even sure how to remove the dash panels. I was hoping just to spray them without having to remove them.

Does anyone have any pics of Plastidipped S-Lites? I would also be interested in doing that.

 

OMG i love this thread. thanks guys so much for all of the pointers and hints. I cant wait to do mine!

 

You will def. want to remove interior pieces out of the car if you want to paint them. I have had all my interior out at one point. Its all very simple...just one screw at a time and an occasional tug.

 

+1 definitely take it out of the car. Especially for over spray.

 

Thanks to all who replied!

I have been plasti-dipping for the better part of the night, so far I've only done the boot handle and the front and back mini wings. I had an idea to use glossy black vinyl mini stickers on the wings, since I personally think it looks a little odd all black. Does any one know if a vinyl cut sticker will stick to plastidip?? I'm going to try it out either way, ill post pics of it when im done

Plastidip Tip!
Hair dryer on a low setting w/ high heat makes plastidip dry super fast no different than letting it sit I tried both. Can quickly do several coats.

I tried to mask off the center part of the wing emblem and then exacto around to reveal the MINI center only to have the plastidip curl and wrinkle where i was cutting. Perhaps a sharper blade would work better? I wasnt too happy with results, don't recommend if you are any sort of perfectionist

 

Stickers do stick to Plasti-dip.

 

The trick is to pull the masking off before it dries...its very hard to cut, even with a sharp blade.

and yes, the the blow dryer works great if youre in a hurry.

 

Well my car's finally done. Door handles, headlight rings, emblems, side markers, and beltline. I don't think that I'm brave enough to Joey-mod the front headlights by myself, or at least with somebody that's done it before...kind of the same thoughts on the taillights and Joeying them. Does anybody have a DIY thread for the taillights by any chance? So for now I would have to say that the project is COMPLETE!

And I even got the G/F to help out on the project....she happily brought along her blow drier. Seems like any chance to use it and she's happy as a pig in s**t! hahaha

 

looks nice! great work.

Do the side mirrors and roof

 

Well with the R53 people find it easiest to wrap it in a tint. A good red one basically eliminates the chrome and I'm sure black would do a good job too. Look through some threads on here for it they have better info

 

I had Lyle from "Vinyl Styles" do my rear tail lights a couple years back, He rapped them in what he calls "Ruby Red vinyl" !

 

Just black vinyl off ebay.

 

you are lucky. my gf yelled at me when she came home and saw me in the garage blow drying car parts .......women...

 

Yeah I'm lucky, what can I say! hahaha She thinks it's fun so I can't complain about that!

As for the taillights, I like the looks of the black ones better and since my car's chili red I think that would blend in too much. I might have to look for some black vinyl though and see about that. Oh well....another project for another day I guess!

 

when you apply the vinyl, make sure that the taillights are at room temperature or the vinyl wont apply correctly.

 

Not possible. I think red tails would look great on your car. Especially since you have the white roof.

 

Well, I did the plasti-dip joey mod on my 1st gen tails a couple of weeks back and LOVE them... it was only hard because I screwed up on the second one and dropped the lens into my mixed epoxy

Which then took an extra three hours to rectify (wet sanding and polishing out the lens until it was clear again).

But if I hadn't been a klutz, it woulda been easy and painless. On mine, I just used the dremel and cutoff wheel and cut ALL the way around the glue seam... prying wasn't going to work on mine. Then masked, plasti-dipped about 4 coats, using the xacto to score the half-dry dip after each coat. Then one final score when fully dry, remove masking, epoxy the lenses back on, seal any gaps with black silicone, and reinstall. Not as easy as vinyl... but looks fantastic.