I'm going to be painting the door handles to match my body color (dark silver). I plan on sanding off all the chrome and masking carefully before the body shop primes and paints them. Any tips?

Also, is there an easy way to separate the plastic chrome part from the black part inside with the mechanism?

Thanks much!

 

If you are removing the handles you should be able to tape off that black plastic trigger w/o any issues.

If they are to be painted while on the car. I would tape off the area surrounding the handle before sanding them down just in case - to protect the paint surfaces in that area.

And if you are using masking tape, dont use the junk sold at stores. Auto Body Paint shops sell high grade masking tape for this purpose ( actually there are three grades ) it is a bit thicker and does not curl up on the edges during the application of multiple coats of paint or primer. And it will cover and hold better during any sanding process.

 

Gray: Thanks for that. I've already taped them off using regular painters tape. But if the body shop want to do something different that's fine.

I ended up taking a bit of a different approach. I bought a second set of handles. Yea, a bit pricey but what the heck. 65 bucks apiece or so. Then, this evening, I started the sanding process. Whew, it sure seemed like it waas going to take forever. The chrome is hard and I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to remove it all by sanding. I was taking it slow and noticed that as I just broke through to the plastic underneath, the chrome started to peel up. I grabbed the end and voila!....a large strip of chrome peeled right off leaving a smooth and clean plastic underneath. I then ditched the sanding process and with the help of a small surgical blade, a dental pick, and a small pair of needle nose pliers, I proceeded to peel the rest of the chrome off. Worked like a charm. It helped to have a microscope for the fine detailing here and there, but for the most part it was pretty easy. I did cut my finger once on the sharp edge of the peeled chrome but that was it. I then gave them a light sanding with 800 grit, masked them, put some surgical gloves on and wiped them down with 99 percent pure isopropyl alcohol and bagged them. Tomorrow I drop them off at the body shop. Unless the plastic under the chrome is some weird material that doesn't take paint very well, it should work great. Here are a couple pix taken during the process.

 

I like the matte white. But thats just me.

 

Well, it's not really that good looking in person. There's defects in the material as it's not designed to be used as is. It would need to be painted. And, it would likely stain. I'm looking forward to seeing them painted and on the car. I was in the BMW dealership yesterday picking them up (combined Mini and BMW dealership), and noticed that all the BMW's in there had door handles painted in the body color. I think it just looks slicker that way. No reason for the door handles to stick out.

 

Nice work Martin.

Door handles painted body color is not new to anyone who lived through the 80's All things do come back again, usually on a 20-30 year cycle.

BTW: You can always do the same thing to your old door handles and sell them in the Marketplace

 

Thanks! I'm really looking forward to getting my Mini back next week. What's kinda neat is that the guys at the shop, the head manager, the advisor guy, the head of the shop itself (and likely those working in the shop) seem to be very excited about making the changes I've asked them about. They said they had never ever seen a JCW convertible before (one guy even worked at the local Mini dealership) and they were especially taken with mine in it's dark silver with the black JCW 18" rims and carbon fiber accents. It's nice to know they're bustin' their asses to make it look good.

One more change I decided to make is to have the grills for the side marker lights painted to match the body color as well. I bought an extra set of stock black plastic grills, thinking that was the easiest way to black them out when it occured to me that body color might look the best. So, they aggreed to paint them as well. I can hardly wait.

 

all i know is you better post pics cuz this sounds sweet.

 

Well, it's not quite done yet, but I have some low res pix taken by the head of the body shop of my car in process:

I'm liking the body color handles and side marker grills. And the black headlight trim looks great as well. I should get the car on Monday if all goes well. Note the lack of front Mini emblem.

 

OK, I finally got a half way decent photo of my Mini. I'll post it in a normal size and also a large size so you can see the handles better. I also bought some standard black side marker grills and had them painted body color as well.

 

Here's the big version:

 

Handles look great, and as do the Hankooks.