Project 300ZX [4] - Low hanging fruit

As is usually the case with a project that involves several tasks with a varying degree of difficulty, required skills, and cost, you generally want to start with easy, high-impact items first. These are called "low hanging fruit". So this post -and probably several others after it- will be about this type of work.

Between the windshield and the bonnet/hood, there's this plastic piece called the "windshield cowl". It's actually two pieces and they were in bad shape (you can see where the two pieces meet on the lower part of the second picture).

The windshield wiper arms were also fading so some work was needed. I searched for the parts online and they are available for around $130 each. If they could be repaired I'd be saving a significant amount so I started thinking about my options. The most obvious one is to spray paint the stuff. But I wasn't sure about the finish; those things tend to leave a glossy aspect and since the plastic in the cowl pieces is a little bit burnt and felt grainy, I wasn't sure if the paint would stick.

Then I came across a product called Plasti Dip. Actually I found it in videos about people applying it to their wheels. It's essentially rubber in a spray can.

One of the nice things about it is that if you don't like the result, you can literally peel the product off with ease. There are even people that "plastidip" their whole car. You've probably seen these dull-looking black cars, with a sort of matte finish... well now I know many of them were plastidipped. There's even a guy that dedicates to sell specialized products and makes instructional videos on how to use it.

I thought it would be perfect for this job, and for $6 and a trip to HomeDepot, hell, it was worth a try. I could apply it to both the plastic cowl pieces and the windshield wipers, arms and all.

Ok so back to the cowl pieces. In addition to the appearance, the passenger side piece was cracked in two so it needed to be repaired as well. They are secured in place by some plastic fasteners (the left piece uses 4 round fasteners and 4 square ones, and the right piece uses 2 and 2). A couple were missing here and there, and others were kind of bent. One of the round fasteners can be seen in the first picture, on the bottom-center. Just up and to the right, between two sections of that silver metal grill, you can barely see a rectangular hole where one of the square fasteners was apparently missing.

I removed the cowl pieces along with the windshield wipers and cleaned them as much as I could. I also glued the pieces that were split in two. First I applied Loctite (well, "la gotita" which is an Argentine version of Loctite) to join the pieces together but given the small contact surface, I covered both sides of the fracture line using this adhesive for which I don't know the generic name but it pretty much solidifies, not as much as these two-part epoxy stuff, but enough. It's called "StrongStik".

Next is a picture of the pieces glued together, from the back (click for full-size view):

On the front-facing side, the fracture line ran across a recessed section that fortunately allowed me to apply the adhesive and shape it so that it would would not be seen after coating (see the wide white line in the next pictures).

Neat and tidy.

Now for some more images of how the pieces looked before plastidipping.

When applying the Plasti Dip, you'll want to do it in a well-ventilated space. Outdoor is ok if it's not windy I guess. I did it in the garage. I hanged the pieces from the ceiling using wire, and then applied some 4 coats, waiting about 30 minutes between coats for it to cure a little (that's the minimum time you should wait).

Some pictures of the windshield wipers with painter's tape over the deflectors and other sections I didn't want coated:

Right after applying the product, it leaves a wet look, which is what you want: an even, wet appearance. It quickly dries and turns opaque afterwards.

Let's look at how the pieces started to look like as I worked my way coat after coat:

This one is a thing of beauty (click for full-size). It still looks grainy on the parts that are damaged/sunburnt, but the improvement over how it looked previously is amazing:

This next picture came out pretty out of focus (damned phone cameras), but still you can see how the union where the piece was fractured can only be seen near the upper portion, just to the left of the wire:

So there you have it: a $6 job that saved me $260 (my mama will be so proud... I'll share this post with her).

PENDING: some pictures of the pieces installed in the car. It's late at night now; have to wait. Check back soon!