UnleashedFord

long story short someone broke my passenger mirror and now i have a test dummy, i wanna paint the top half white, anyone know where do i start?

ATOM

alright, you need to pop off the glass, be extremely careful, the glass is quite thin and easily broken, ask me how i know, lol

push down on the bottom glass and look behind the mirror and you will see 4 little fingers holding the glass onto the motor, take a wide flat screwdriver and pop it off carefully, just slip the tip in between and twist

if your mirrors are heated, unhook the harness from the glass

now there are 4 torx screws and the the whole front of the mirror caps comes off

you are ready to start prepping.

UnleashedFord

someone broke my old mirror off and it has no mirror the new one was 200 so ima use the old one as a test dummy i know all the mechanical work just not how to paint it and like do i gotta sand it or?

ATOM

well first i would get some some tape and mark off the lower half were you don't want painted and start sanding with some 80 grit to knock down the texture, then up to some 200, 320, couple coats of adhesion promoter and them some filler primer and some more sanding, sand and wetsand til glass, if you have blemishes redo it, them 3 or 4 coats of color, couple layers of clear, let it sit for 24hrs at least, wetsand with 1600 and 2000, then some scratch remover on a DA, and it should be $$$

UnleashedFord

okay thats sounds perfect but what do i gotta go buy and u might know the prices? lol

ATOM

well you will need some sandpaper, get automotive stuff, i use the 3m stuff, it's black, you will need filler primer, adhesion promoter, the color of your truck, clear coat. probably spend 40 bucks or so. you don't have to cut and polish them, i am just **** about paint having to be perfect.

jbhill

dont waste your time with 80 on plastic it just chews it up hard core. 320 it till its sanded really good. adhesion promoter then high build primer. sand out with 180 then primer again. sand with 320 then 600 then paint.

ATOM

600 sand then paint? that's a pretty slick surface for paint to stick to.

UnleashedFord

will it be clean like that........ but why would i primer then sand? wouldn't that take off all the primer?

ATOM

the filler primer builds up the low spots to make the surface flush, if you didn't sand the primer, your topcoat (color) would look horrible , you only sand down the primer enough to make it smooth, gives your topcoat a good surface to adhere to.