alright - I'm gonna paint some more chrome on my MCS - remaining parts of the the grill surrounds on the front bumper and then gonna do the door handles. Was gonna do everything in matte black but have been playing with idea of doing door handles in red (and everything else in black).

anyone familiar with a brand of spray paint (and color) that closely resembles the Chili Red?

 

for about 30 bucks a can, you can have some paint shop mis you the actual chili red, then put it in a spray can for you.

Beecher

 

ACE Hardware
BANNER RED

Downtubes & Switch Rings


Rear Diffuser


NOT EXACT ...but real close
! & nothing that I have painted is right next to / touching something OEM CR.

 

You can buy factory MINI colors (perfect match) spray paint from MyMini. I it is $18/can.
Here is a link: http://www.minspeed.net/ESP.htm

COR BLMY - You should paint your ashtray lids too. The down tubes look great!

 

xlnt! thanks for the link - and I agree - CorBlmy - nice job on the paint work!

 

say you use the minspeed to paint some exterior trim pieces, would you leave it as is or add a clearcoat over it?

 

We have chili red vinyl in stock that you can wrap 'em in!

 

if you were willing to come to my house and wrap them then I'd be down for it Lyle - however, I've heard that removing the door handles is the mother of all PITA's, so I don't even want to venture down that road!!!

 

on my prev bmw i painted the chrome kidney grills with matte black hi temp spray paint. no prep on the grills (xcept cleaning with alcohol) and no clear coat - thousands of miles, multiple car washes and many days of soCal sun and the grills looked great. I haven't clear coated anything yet on the MCS - however, may go back and redo the gas cap with clear coat and clear coat the door handles after i paint them, just because these items get "handled" alot.

 

satin black holds up well on the door handles, but I like the colormatched

 

yeah- think I'm gonna go with the color matched for the door handles. if it turns out well, i might sand off the black on the gas cap and do that in red also.

 

It's actually not a big deal. You should be able to swap a handle in 20 minutes. The key, I found, is to have the proper long-handled torx wrench.

 

odd. mine take allen

 

but doesn't it involve removing the door panels etc? is there a DIY somewhere that explains the process of removal? i just remember watching some tuner show with Fireballed making one of their Mini's and one of their guys bitchin about how frickin PITA removing the door handles were

 

that's an R56 where you have to remove the window cassette. I got this far and said no f'ing way!:



The R53....remove four torx bolts after sliding the armrest off (use a popsicle stick to release it). Pull the rubber boot off the door edge to get to one bolt, the other is up inside the door (you can see it through the window). Hardest part is releasing the cable, rather, threading it back in place when remounting.

 

I just used their jetblack paint, exact match.
I am waiting for the clear coat to dry, should be tomorrow.
You should generally let a clear coat sit for 3 days to fully dry the warmer temp the better.
Then hit it with a compound to get the final shine.
Use a medium compound though

 

Can anyone update how you can get exact match chili red paint. The link above in this thread is broken.

 

This site will make spray cans/touch-up pens, etc for any factory color: http://www.paintscratch.com/