This is the reply I sent Clive....I should have copied the digest but
forgot. It sounds like your dash has the same problem that my dash had.
It's like an enamel paint that has gotten old, cracking, peeling, and
crazing. The original color is showing thorough in a few places.
It took a ton of wet sanding to get the black off. It was worth it.
Don't forget to use a flexible sanding block to keep things flat...
==========================================================
Technically, there isn't a color match # for the dash. Somebody may have
something out there on the net.
If you had a good 1"x1" section you could go to PPG and have a color match
made.
I actually went to the Autoparts store and found the closest match visually.
Of course I am a little more sensitive visually about colors since I have to
approve color specifications for manufactured parts (every month I take a
Macbeth color test to make sure my eyes are still sensitive to color).
I can get the number for you. Its a good match...but not exact.
The most difficult thing was the "slightly warm" look. Most "pre-canned"
silvers are cold and if they lean toward the warm side it is too bronze
looking. The small section on my dash looked slightly warm.
If you do pull the dash and paint it I would recommend the following.
1) Clean the entire dash with Alcohol or paint prep to remove dirt and
grease
2) Lightly sand the dash with 400 grit
3) Wipe again
4) Paint a light coat of a gray primer filler, wait
5) Paint another coat of primer
6) Lightly wet sand using a flexible rubber backing block (3M makes one
available at the autoparts store) and 400 grit sand paper
7) Continue to do this until all blemishes are out of the primer coat
8) Add the first color coat
9) Wet sand with 600 grit
10) add one more color coat and wet sand one more time
11) Final color coat
Good luck, as I mentioned, I think the dash was black in the US.
Steve Silverstein
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Sep 05 2000 - 10:56:09 CDT