I had been looking into the dash kits to get some more blue in my electric blue Nitro but none of them really looked how I wanted them to, then I found this thread:
http://www.nitroforumz.com/showthread.php?t=4315&highlight=paint
Looked like a good idea to me!
I went to AutoZone and found a blue dash/vinyl paint, figured I’d give it a try.
Didn't want to go experimenting with my Nitro, so I painted my old 83' 4runner's dash, it was beat up anyway =P
The colors turned out to be dead on, and seemed to be very durable. It can be scratched but I couldn't do it without some sort of tool (a screwdriver or a knife). NOTE: It scratches very easy with a screwdriver, and the original color just shines through if that happens.... easy to touch up the paint though.
So here we go, I unscrewed the top tray, and then popped off the main silver dash part.
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We started painting the top tray
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The key to this is very light coats and cleaning the top a lot. Just mist the thing, and walk away for 15-20 min. We put 11 coats on this part alone. After each coat hold the can upside down and spray until paint stops coming out, then wipe off the tip. This keeps extra paint from splattering out on the panels.
Moving on to the main Dash panel
![]()
We could see what we were doing a bit better because this piece was originally silver, so we only did 6 coats on that bit
Now this all looked great after it dried, so I moved onto the next bit. It required some masking
![]()
I got the tape into the crack the best i could. I used a razor blade and a small screwdriver to get it tight in there. Also the small tray area, I masked so you could still clearly see the line between silver and black, I didn't want to get a small wave in the masking that exposed some silver. Make sure everything you don't want blue is masked over.
turned out better than I could have hoped!
![]()
Now just pop it all back into place, and this is the final product.
![]()
It looks awesome in real life. Everybody I show thinks it must have come that way
http://www.nitroforumz.com/showthread.php?t=4315&highlight=paint
Looked like a good idea to me!
I went to AutoZone and found a blue dash/vinyl paint, figured I’d give it a try.
Didn't want to go experimenting with my Nitro, so I painted my old 83' 4runner's dash, it was beat up anyway =P
The colors turned out to be dead on, and seemed to be very durable. It can be scratched but I couldn't do it without some sort of tool (a screwdriver or a knife). NOTE: It scratches very easy with a screwdriver, and the original color just shines through if that happens.... easy to touch up the paint though.
So here we go, I unscrewed the top tray, and then popped off the main silver dash part.
We started painting the top tray
The key to this is very light coats and cleaning the top a lot. Just mist the thing, and walk away for 15-20 min. We put 11 coats on this part alone. After each coat hold the can upside down and spray until paint stops coming out, then wipe off the tip. This keeps extra paint from splattering out on the panels.
Moving on to the main Dash panel
We could see what we were doing a bit better because this piece was originally silver, so we only did 6 coats on that bit
Now this all looked great after it dried, so I moved onto the next bit. It required some masking
I got the tape into the crack the best i could. I used a razor blade and a small screwdriver to get it tight in there. Also the small tray area, I masked so you could still clearly see the line between silver and black, I didn't want to get a small wave in the masking that exposed some silver. Make sure everything you don't want blue is masked over.
turned out better than I could have hoped!
Now just pop it all back into place, and this is the final product.
It looks awesome in real life. Everybody I show thinks it must have come that way
