I had a few scratches on the "waterfall" console, so I decided it was time to repaint the whole thing to match the exterior of the car.

The painting process:

1. Carefully remove the interior pieces to be painted & take them apart. Place any small objects (screws, gearts, etc.) into a plastic bag and put aside for later.

2. Sand down all of the paint off of the plastic parts using 350, 400, & 600 grit paper.

3. Clean the part very well and make sure ALL of the sanding residue is gone.

4. Lay down three coats of plastic adhesion promoter waiting about 5 minutes between coats.

5. Within 10 minutes of completing step 4, paint three coats of primer lightly sanding between coats.

6. Mask off areas that will not be receiving the first color of paint using blue painters tape (less sticky than masking tape).

7. Paint three light coats the primary color (in my case Toyota Super White) waiting about 30 minutes to an hour between coats.

8. Let dry OVERNIGHT and remove the masking tape. Then, mask over the area just painted to prepare for the secondary color.

9. Carefully clean the area that was covered with masking tape.

10. Paint three light coats of the secondary color waiting about 30 minutes to an hour between coats.

11. Let dry overnight again and then remove the masking tape.

12. Make any touchups now, before the clearcoat. Make sure to clean the painted piece very well!

13. Apply clear coat. The more coats you use the wetter the finished product will look. I used three.

14. Let dry overnight and reinstall. Stand back and enjoy!

Make sure you do all of your painting in a clean place! Dust is a wet paint job's worst enemy! Also, make sure to apply all of the paint in light coats using a sweeping mostion to prevent the paint from running.

Now what everyone's been waiting for, the pictures (Sorry about the bad quality...crappy digicam)


Center console


Shift ****


Gauge cluster


Full center console


Door trim


Questions and comments are more than welcome. I'd love to hear what everyone thinks!

 

Doesn't look too bad, but I think I'd have to see it in person to really make a call. I'm not a fan of interior painted parts, so I'd have to be really picky on the quality.

And from what you said, I thought you were painting the whole dash... from the "waterfall" part.

 

It looks great in person. If i didn't know better, I'd think it was supposed to be that way.

From what I've heard around, the center console design is refered to as a "waterfall"

 

looks good......i wanna do like a light gold paint on those same parts

 

looks really nice! If i were to do it, I would've left the circles in the door dark grey, but other than that, it looks awesome! Have you ever thought of painting the switch board surround next to the steering wheel?

 

I thought about it ... but I think it would look out of place

 

i like it! all but the door.. something just doesnt seem right there. but good job!

 

did you clear it? I would have done aleast 3-4 coats of clear coat.....

 

^^^

 

good work looks goood, just not too sure about the door pulls

 

looks good from what I can see, crappy pics though.

 

Im kinda 50/50 on it. good job however. looks like you took alot of deatail / time.

 

I think it looks really good except for the door handles

 

I like it! How did you get the gauge needles blue like that? I wanna do mine red...possible?

 

Yea you just need to take apart the gauge cluster, pop off the needles, remove the old orange paint with acetone, and paint on the new paint.

I used a transparent acrylic blue paint

 

Updated with better pictures

 

looks beast, there is tC in my area with the same thing. only seen it once, but it was nice.
i may want to do same thing with mine..but im not goin for show anymore, so may not

 

Looks good I dont like the doors done but everything else looks good..

I actually did interior pieces in silver on my tc which looks really good as well. Im please with it mostly because it looks like its factory

 

once I get some extra money I want to do leather seats with white leather in the door panel/back seat area.

 

the console looks good, the colors have a nice contrast
but i probably would not have done the doors