To paint or not to paint.

[71gmcC15]

I took my right door panel of and cleaned it realy good. I was wounding should I paint it. I don't know if I should or not. And if I can make it look better. Black is hard to paint. My goal is to leave the out side paint alone but have a realy nice interior. I only got spray cans so no doing it professionaly.

[dondb]

Hard to tell from the picture...but what i see looks pretty good to me.

[71gmcC15]

Ya the it's not to bad. I've seen worst. But that's the thing. I've seen better to

[jocko]

what condition will your interior's body color paint be in? If you're not redoing the whole thing, I'd leave the panels as they are now. If your only choice for interior application is rattle cans, I'd suggest that cleaning the interior like you did the panels and polishing it up will give you more satisfaction and better results - your panels look nice as is, I'd only paint if you're sticking them in a "fully" restored interior. While rattle cans can sometimes yield pretty good results, unless you're buying color-matched or original mixed factory colors in a rattle can, it will look more like a rattle can job than a spruce up. But also depends on what your interior color is. If black, you might get away with store bought spray paint. Keep in mind that white is very hard to match. I rattled canned a part of a white interior once, but had to go thru about 10 cans of test sprays on a sample sheet before I actually got something that looked correct. I think (personally) that interior patina looks pretty good, and if your interior paint cleans up as nice as your panels did, it would probably look pretty darn good if you treated the interior to the same treatment. One more thought - you can always go the clean and polish route first and see if you like it - if you don't then go to plan b and paint. But the same is not true of the other way around. Once you paint it - you've either improved it or destroyed it, and can't then go back and just clean and polish it up if you don't like it.

[71gmcC15]

Jocko you made some good points. I think I will leve it alone. Just clean every thing realy good. Besides top of dash. That I am going to repaint flat black. ( looks dirty and brown even when super clean) As for the rest I will just clean. I've kinda stared it all ready. Like the gauge cluster, radio, and heater contols.

[Sparky dave]

I painted mine in satin black didn’t think gloss would look good on door cards. Satin is easy to spray out of a can too you don’t need to spray it too wet

[HO455]

It is also easy to cover them with some 1/4 foam and fabric. This is my Burban's door panel.

[Sparky dave]

Ho455 you just gave me an idea to trim mine in leather using spray glue. Might not be so difficult. If I was a cheap arse which I am I might look for an old leather couch to cut up! Preferably not the family sofa ha ha

[71gmcC15]

Like the steel myself. It goes with the rest of the steel. But the cover it with fabric is not a bad idea.