Paint protection ideas?

[randychase]

Hi, I did some searching and read a few threads. But I did not find a comprehensive one that basically answered the question... does one need to apply some film to a Seven?

 

We are building two new Caterhams and from my experiences with my Lotus... I am looking at the front of the rear fenders, the sides of the body by the doors, and the nose...and thinking they are going to be pretty crap very fast.

 

So looking at options-

 

1. Leave it alone. Films end up looking like crap and are harder to maintain and you will eventually replace them anyway. Not too much cheaper than a respray. Just drive the damn thing... chips are the patina of use.

 

2. Get guards installed. Metal bits for the front of the rear fenders. Call it good. Ignore the chips on the nose and sides.

 

3. Apply precut vinyl/3M guards to the rear fenders only.

 

4. Wrap everything. Put film all over the car.

 

5. Painters tape. The equivalent of leaving the plastic wrap on your furniture so it stays "nice".

 

Thoughts? Thanks

[MHKflyer52]

My vote and belief is the same as your first point.

1. Leave it alone. Films end up looking like crap and are harder to maintain and you will eventually replace them anyway. Not too much cheaper than a respray. Just drive the damn thing... chips are the patina of use.

 

Slomove (Gert) has made small mud / stone flaps for the front fenders of his 7 to help reduce the dirt and stuff that gets flung off the front tires and causes the chips and scratches on the rear fenders and side panels with some good success. Maybe he will read this and post a photo or two of his solution to this very common issue.

[Automoda]

Metal on the leading edge of the rear fenders is mandatory. Its not just for rock chips-- My aluminum panels on the fenders have a few pretty impressive dents after 8,000 miles and no dirt roads.

 

The area around the metal panels has clear-bra applied. It was expensive (I think they wanted like 70$ per fender-- ridiculous!) I think you could find some 3M stuff online and do it yourself. There is no way to wrap it around to the edge so it is wrapped a bit and then cuts off on the sides. It is cut so that it protects the front of the fender up to a point where the rocks arent hitting at much of an angle. It has worked very well so far. I only have a few tiny scratches in the paint.

 

As for the nose and leading edge of the front cycle fenders: Rock chips do exist. I thought ahead and came up with a paint scheme that puts a dark color on the font edges so it isnt as bad as it could be. But there are chips. In retrospect it might have been smart to put a 3 inch strip of clear-bra along the front of the fenders and a thin strip around the nose's opening, but then again it may have looked hokey. That stuff just doesnt bend that well.

 

I have one ding on the side panel and a few nicks in the aluminum, but its not too bad at all. But it is polished so it doesnt show scratches the way paint does (dents are another story).

 

8000 miles and the car shows a little trauma to the paint but it is not that bad.

[MoPho]

I have 15k miles on my car, much of that chasing an Ariel Atom (which kicks up a lot of gravel) through the canyons and my nosecone is now getting to the point where I would like to paint it, though I will probably live with it a little longer. It's chipped pretty bad but only noticeable when you are close to the car.

I will probably consider clear bra'ing the nose when it gets painted around the leading edge and the chin which is where it is the worst.

 

I have CF fenders and they didn't really show much damage from rocks (as a matter of fact you can get CF stone guards for the rear fenders). My fenders did fade really bad from the SoCal sun though and I just had them refinished, came out better than when I bought the car, so I put clear bra on the front of them. We'll see how that holds up

 

I have had to paint the front suspension a bunch of times though, it seems to get completely sandblasted. I plan to put non slip tape on the fronts of the A-arms, I have been told that is a decent solution

 

http://www.findtape.com/images/product-450x450/ISC-Non-Skid-Anti-Slip-Tape.jpg

[breezy7]

I have no experience with the product but have seen this film discussed on blatchat. http://www.premierpaintguard.co.uk/caterham_paint_protection_film.html

A search for paint protection on the UK Caterham club site might come up with a few ideas.

 

Mike

[Kitcat]

Lots of road rash after 16K miles on my Caterham, so I did 3M on new Birkin's fenders front & back + nose and abt 8" high on both sides. Cost $900 for a guy to do it, took him almost all day. We'll see in 16K miles if it was worth it.

 

Much depends on use-are you driving on street tires at legal speeds, or are you running super sticky race rubber and doing track days? The race rubber will sand blast the rear fenders. And sliding sideways off the track (wh/sadly i do from time to time) will expose the body shell, the nose will get hammered by the competitors in front of you.

 

What spec cats are you building?

Edited November 18, 2011 by Kitcat

[randychase]

What spec cats are you building?

 

S3 170 Roadster with weather stuff. Street car..luxo barge

 

CSR R400 Track car.

[Hank]

Over 2 years and thousands of miles my Megabusa looks just like the day I completed the build. I had a local shop install Solar Gard Clearshield on the nosecone, headlights, front fenders and hood. I installed carbon fiber rear fender covers and sill plates where I get in and out of the cockpit. I recently installed carbon fiber front fenders. I don't drive her to work at all, but I do go to all day car shows, autocrosses, and blats. I highly recommend the clearshield. Not one rock chip or bug splatter damage to speak of.

 

Check out the build portion of my website for pictures of the Clearshield installation: 04/09/09-04/23/09.

[Mondo]

The good thing about a black car is you can use a sharpie to fill in the rock chips;)

[Croc]

My vote goes for the 3M clear shield on the nosecone and front/rear wings. On my previous seven I had the Caterham rear win ali protectors which took a beating. For the current seven, I did not put the carbon rear protectors on the carbon rear wings....would have looked silly so I just clearshielded it.

 

I also put clear helicopter tape over the lower front A arms to protect them. If it can protect helicopter blades from wind abrasion it will protect my A arms.

 

I did not put the clearshield on the sides.....how could I chip that area....well.. one large dusty spin at New Jersey Motorsport Park proved that you can.

 

Of course you can always put 10 coats of clear coat on the wings like Alaskossie!

[blubarisax]

I got a kit from Premier Paint Guard in the UK and it fit great.

 

http://www.premierpaintguard.co.uk/caterham_paint_protection_film.html

[Kitcat]

Karl-Your attached paint guard kit shows what I ended up covering on my Birkin S3 with my hand built (and much more expensive) system.

[yellowss7]

After 4 trackdays this year following Kitcat and Croc, both of whom use everybit of the track, and throw up copious amounts of dust, grit and stones,:smash: plus about 10 or more other days, I just spent about 2 hours changing out the slicks for the street tires and cleaning off all the accumulated rubber and crap that covered the nose, bonnet, sides, front clams and rear wings. Now in full discloser, my 10 inch wide slicks probably were a big contributing factor to alot of the stuff on the rear wings, but the nose cone and clams had a fair share of other peoples rubber marks on them too.

 

The nose and front edges of the clams took a fair peppering, resulting in quite a few chips. I am positive the clear gaurd would have prevented almost all of them as the rear wings and the carbon stone guards, which I had the 3m stuff applied to, were in really good shape comparatively.

 

Tom

[Croc]

After 4 trackdays this year following Kitcat and Croc, both of whom use everybit of the track, and throw up copious amounts of dust, grit and stones, plus about 10 or more other days,....

 

 

:nopity:

 

I always wondered when I would get to use this smiley! :jester:

[Bonjo2]

You can get the thick clear vinyl by the sheet on ebay or rvinyl, new truck bedliners with uv protection ($8 per spray can black, white, or tan) nearly any color by the kit for ($139 or enough for your entire car), plasticote spray paint which is cheap ($9 per spray can) and peels off if you don't like it, folks use it all the time to black out their logos and chrome grills/trim. If only speaking leading edge of nose, a-arms and rear wings you could do it all for under $50 with any of the above options. Though, another $25-30 probably worth doing the rears in 16-18g alu or .020 polycarbonate sheet/film (about $10 from lowes).

[Jackal]

This solution may seem a bit odd, but there is a spray rubber you can purchase called PlastiDip. I have used this on both interior and grills of my Subaru. After around 60K kms, it was still in perfect condition on the grill.

 

I have recently used PlastiDip on the windshield trim and the center console of my build here. On the old Subaru forum many members are trying it on entire cars (here), with great success.

 

The advantage to the PlastiDip is that it never gets hard, so it flex's really well when hit. I have been debating doing my rear fenders in it myself. The big drawback however, is that it is a dust magnet.

Edited May 2, 2012 by Jackal

[jimrankin]

I have the entire car covered in the 3M film with rear fenders fronts covered with carbom fiber panels. The film is OK for normal small (SMALL as in tiny) street dust/pebbles but is isn't enough to keep something like rocks from an off by someone in front of you at speed from doing damage. The exposed outer edge of my rear fenders look worse than "chiped" because the film forms ragged "bubbles" when it's realy hit and you can't really trim them close without worry about scratching the paint. I discovered too late that wrapping the outer leading edge with painters or vinyl tape is better/cheaper/easier track day prevention.

Film also has the problem of not being hard enough to polish out scuffs. I had to drive through a storm of small/medium fiberglass and plasitic parts from a two car major collision in front of me with no room to stop and I think the film may have stopped some scratches but I still have noticable dull "slide marks" over the hood I have tried everything to get rid of and some big "plastic bubbles" around the nose from the impacts that I don't think would have been chips.

My advice, save the film money, tape it up when you race it and just deal with the small chips from public road grit unless you live where you run on gravel.

[MHKflyer52]

My advice, save the film money, tape it up when you race it and just deal with the small chips from public road grit unless you live where you run on gravel.

 

I have to agree with Jim on this but I have even gone one step cheaper and that was to paint all the colored parts with spray paint that I can buy in any good parts store and even have a couple of spare cans for touch ups in the garage and trailer.

Face it the paint is the cheapest thing on any of our cars especially if you track it and drive it the way they are to be driven for enjoyment...

 

I know I am a cheap skate but I still have fun. :driving:

[KiwiBirkin]

I have no other protection on my car other than very thin Stainless steel rear guard protectors which are a bit tougher than Ali ones, I change these to new ones every 2 years as they look a little batterd by then.

 

I have plenty of stone chips on the nose cone and front and rear guards still but this is after 30000km's of hard driving the car on the road and these are NZ roads which have all sorts of crap on them. I look at every stone chip as part of the cars story and persona and they will get all fixed up with a new paint job every 3 years which is much cheaper than getting any Clear Bra film of 3M wrap done in NZ, its how the car is, I love it's rugged looks as it ages and so do others.

Edited May 4, 2012 by KiwiBirkin

[jimrankin]

Cheap Skates have more fun because they don't have to pinch the old butt cheeks tight in the seat every time they see a pebble bounce down the road. I am gathering quite a collection of small dings and scratches so now I don't have to worry about keeping it "pristine" so track days and freeways are less worrisome. I didn't even fret over it too much when I came off track missing my right side headlight and front plate. They are somewhere in the woods around the Laguna Seca track (or maybe in orbit, they really flew) and I made new stronger brackets only because I'm becoming a cheap skate and don't want to have to buy any more headlights. LOL.