[nexus66]

Instead of replacing my black plastic finisher rods with the silver ones, I decided to paint them body colour. I just bought some primer and colour matched aerosol spray paint from my local car store. No laquer/clear coat required for Jet Black - must be mixed with the paint already?!?!

First, remove the finisher rods from the car. The centre one comes off quite easily if you just push it up. The side ones are a pain, I hooked a right-angled pick and just pulled from the centre to the outside - didn't break any tabs - but took quite a lot of force!

Now you need to prep the pieces. You need to sand off the "grain" in the plastic for best results. Get a really smooth finish by using higher and higher grades of sandpaper.

Prep the area where you are going to paint. I used a cardboard box, and make a frame to hold the parts from polystyrene and a couple of screws. This way I could cover it all while the paint dried without any dust settling on the finish.

Clean the parts using either a tack-rag or a cloth with thinners/white spirit and place on your frame. It is a good idea to be wearing rubber gloves to stop any grease from your fingers contaminating the parts.

Now give the parts a few light coats of primer. I did about 4 coats in the one night, leaving approx 10 mins between coats. Leave to dry until the next night!

Ok, now we can paint! Firstly, give the primer coat a very light wet sand using at least 1200 grit wet/dry sandpaper. Then clean again! Again gloves are a good idea. Once dry and ready for painting give them a couple of very light coats and leave to dry overnight.

Repeat the light wet sand, and paint again. Leave overnight...

I repeated the wet sand/paint again - see how you go and how good your finish looks!

Finally once they were dry, they can be re-fitted onto the car! A very subtle mod on a black car, but the black plastic just annoyed me.

Pics below...

[abc9475]

Looks better

[BoostedBMW]

It looks much cleaner now, nice job.

[daveyg]

Looks awesome now just black out the front grills.

[j|rz44]

Nice!

[Not Ur Avg 3]

looks great bro
much more alive than the 325i's lower finishing black rods
ur paint gives the color a much more glossy look
overall,

btw, ur cf splitters look nice, and fyi, CF lower finishing rods are forsale by some vendor, cant rmr who, but that too wud be a good match with ur splitters. maybe a cf grill as well to go along with ur theme?

[FrankoQ]

Nice!!!

[ironic]

wow very smart w/ the styrofoam

[Chesmu]

very nice. I bought black rods on crown autoparts and replaced my "silver" ones. Looks greats.

[nexus66]

Originally Posted by daveyg

Looks awesome now just black out the front grills.

Do you mean spray them too?? Not a bad idea... Anyone done this??

[nexus66]

And here's some pictures with the rods removed...

[Josh49]

Nicely done..

[Kiemyster]

hmm i think this would only work on a black car. any other color might be... a bit off.

[BigO1120]

I think it would look good regardless of the car's color. I'm thinking of doing this on my Montego Blue E90.

[Kiemyster]

hmm. well maybe. id have to see it. i want to see it in alpine white.

[BigO1120]

That one would definitely look HOT!!!

Good mod nexus66!!!

[ZuerstBMW]

Originally Posted by Chesmu

very nice. I bought black rods on crown autoparts and replaced my "silver" ones. Looks greats.

Thats funny, I did the opposite. We could have traded. My cars silver , so the silvers ones look better, but the black definitely look better on the black, nice job.

[Geoff]

looks good to me

[E90330iS]

Looks great!

[ska///235i]

WOW you didnt break any of the taps off....Awesome

Nice DIY

[Jason]

Added to DIY master list - http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1721

Thanks for sharing.

[lb_335i]

Looks good! Thats what I want to do to my silver rods.