I was talking to the body shop thats fixing my truck(https://ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=198413) and I asked him about painting the upper and lower plastic parts for my front bumper, and he was trying to talk me out of it. Im not sure if that he was just too busy or whatever, but I want to. Is there a special primer that needs to go on the plastic so the factory paint can be shot on top? I don't want the paint to chip away from hittin small rocks, or big bugs on the highway, and i need the factory shine on the bumper match the rest of the truck too. Any pics of what yours looks like if you have dine this, or some horror stories of what not to do?
THANKS

Steve

 

I've had both my front and rear bumper plastics painted the color of my truck. The only part I didn't have painted was the lower valance on the front bumper. So far I've had no adhesion problems. I haven't had any rocks hit the upper bumper cap on the front bumper so I can't comment on that. I'm not sure what they use as an adhesion promoter for the plastic but the body shop that sprayed mine said they didn't have a problem painting the plastic but they also wouldn't guarantee the durability. Here are some recent pics of the rear bumper plastics that I had painted along with the new tailgate.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=196910

 

I don't know about an adhesion promotor, but I do know that they need to add a flex agent for non metal parts. I have to have the flex agent in my camaro bumpers so that the paint does not crack and chip when it gets hit. It does promote spiderwebbing though, which sucks. It's just better than chipping.

-Jesse

 

I saw a truck on GMFS with color matched bumper caps-member name is Downfall and I did a search and here's a post from him with a pretty good description of how to do it.

Scroll down to his post in this thread.

Painting plastic

 

I used the adhesion promoter, about 3 years ago now, and there are maybe 2 chips from rocks. Course those came up and hit my grille also, and cracked it, but oh well. It's held up pretty good so far. No problems. I have had one spot on the rear bed caps that is coming off, but I think thats where I touched it when I was painting them, but thats the only problem I've come across. Check the sig pics for more info.

 

Hey Kania2k1, did you sand down the plastic smooth or just painted over it normally and it came out smooth?

 

I did the upper cap of mine, and used both flex agents and an adhesion promoter. Everything was fine until recently when I caught a rock. Now I have a big spiderweb crack on it.

 

I also had my grill and bumper cap painted at a local body shop. He told me he used adhesion promoter and I have had no problems yet. The parts have been on for about 2 months.

 

No, I didn't sand any of it. So mine looks like it still has the texture, but feels smooth. I did wet sand the parts with 2000 and 3000 grit paper, and then buffed them, but no pre-sanding. I thought about it, but I trust my painting skills more than my pre-sanding, and I didn't want to F up the caps and stuff.

 

tdrumm can We see some more pics of your truck please?
Did you paint anything else?
Have you thought or painting the lower valance too?

WillPewter2000 How much did the paint job for the bumper cost?