Painting Headlight Surrounds ?

[cjskotni]

Guys,

I have a clean set of headlight surrounds for my 73 Charger. They have the usual bleaching out from the sun and need a good cleaning/painting.

Once these are clean, what is the best paint to use on these? They are supposed to be an argent silver color and are made of the stiff rubber material similar to bumper fillers.

Any ideas? Best ways to prep/paint these?

Thanks!!

[daytona71]

I scrubbed mine with lacquer thinner and fine steel wool. Got the faded rust stains out, cleaned up ok. Masked off the rest of the grille and sprayed Mopar Argent Silver. Looks pretty good

[odzking]

Now if you are referring to the rubber (like) pieces that go directly around the headlights, they match the filler pieces for color and they are not argent, they are gray.
If they are worn the paint will stick to them better than new. Ask me how I know (LOL).
Clean very well then use a paint adhesion promoter. SEM makes the color and it is in their flexible paints (Color Coat) and it is "Warm Gray". I forget the # but If you need the number I have a can down stairs in the shop.

[cjskotni]

Odz, I used the SEM adhesion promoter and the Duplicolor equivalent to argent grey. They came out very nice. Yeah they probably should have been less silvery and more grey like you said, but I already had the argent grey paint and now the surrounds match my bumper fillers! :-)

Now all I need is a set of the SE red grille accent bars, and I will be set. The grilles I got were from a non-SE car, but I got them at a great price!

[Deleted]

I just scuffed and painted mine. Been holding up for 3 or 4 years now.