Bring faded plastic fenders back to black

(UPDATE 04/22/2016 - It looked really good for about a year and then not quite as black after that. We're on year two now and you can tell it's faded to a dark gray. But it's still not the pale gray that it was in these photos.)

We bought an old 97 jeep cherokee sport from a friend this week and are fixing it up for College Man. It doesn't need a whole lot done. We changed the spark plugs, put in a new valve cover gasket, cleaned it up, and are about to put a couple of new tires on it. The spark plugs were really all that was needed to get the sputter out. We wanted to put on a new fuel filter but it is inside the tank of this particular model. Since the spark plugs cleared up the sputter, we'll wait a bit longer and replace the filter and fuel pump all at once.

A cool thing I learned from a bleepinjeep.com youtube video was how to get the sun-bleached fenders and other faded plastics back to black... take a heat gun to them.


This is how it turned out on ours. Took about an hour and a half for all fender flares and bumpers.

And BONUS! Check out how bleepinjeep did some cool DIY bushwhacker fenders for cheap in this video. We're gonna do it!




As for heat guns...


I borrowed my dad's but some time before I start pulling up the ugly old linoleum in my laundry room, I'll get my own. This Wagner had the best reviews and was about middle of the price range, $22 bucks on Amazon (the range for heat gun prices was $15 to $30).

No matter where I wind up buying what I'm looking for, I usually check Amazon reviews first. Those people are brutally honest. (Plus, I learned something about fixing the xbox 360 Red Ring of Death in J. Hagen's review... awesome.)


2 heat settings, weighs under 2 lbs. Over 450 amazon reviewers liked it. Sounds good to me.


Comments

  1. Hi Cheryl, What a neat idea for "bringing back the black" and will definitely be passing it along! Searching for countertop ideas on Pinterest brought me to your blog. They look amazing, great job!
    Vickie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Vickie! We still like them and they're still looking as good as the day we finished them. Good luck on your search and your re-do!

      Delete
  2. Titanium Fat Bike - TITIAN ART
    Tito and titanium max trimmer Tito are in collaboration with T-Empire to bring you the ultimate titanium mens rings high-performance performance bike black titanium rings for your new T-Empire. Made by 2013 ford focus titanium hatchback T-Empire to commemorate citizen super titanium armor

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts