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I've heard of people blacking out the chrome strip on their 92-94 legacys, but I'm not sure what paint I should use to adhere to a chrome surface. Any recommendations?

You'd most likely have to sand off the chrome plating and treat with a paint flex adhesive before painting.

The chrome strip, is in fact a strip that can be removed exposing the full black plastic trim. From there you could probably take off the rest of the adhesive left on the trim piece and just leave it like that, if you llike how it looks.

On the front and rear bumpers the chrome strip can be peeled off, but on the door trims the chrome strip is actually part of it and can't be removed. I scuffed the chrome, painted it with a etching primer, and then put a few coats of semi gloss black on it. Looks great.

Mark,

LegacyT - Do you have any pictures?

I was actually thinking about having that strip painted body-color (the whole strip, not just the chrome part) when I get the car painted.

Here are 2,





Mark,

Wow, timely responses!

That looks really clean, looks like I've found my next project. Did you paint the whole vinyl strip so that the black was uniform or just mask off and paint the strip?

Damn, I've got my next weekend project now.

yes it is very sexy!

Looks good, I've always wondered about just pulling it off the bumpers.

Damnit that' looks so much better without the chrome.

/me prays to the sun gods to melt the 3 and 4 foot snowbanks in the yard so I can paint.

yeah....depending on the car, and if the door handles are chrome and such......it can look much better without the chrome strips.....

I have body color handles

I'm planning on doing mine black too when I get new paint. Ya know though, if everybody goes painting theirs black maybe I should just leave mine chrome, it'll look more custom!

Thanks for the comments, I just masked the chrome off and painted it alone. Since the actual black part of the door trims is rubber, any sort of paint isn't gonna last very long on there, Its gonna chip off and change shade very quickly. A little bit of armourall on the black rubber part makes the painted strips blend right in, Even up close you can't tell

Oh ya as you can see, I also dechromed the tail lights, door handles and rear quarter window trims, The only chrome left is on the door trims right under the windows, that little strip of chrome I felt gave the car a nice touch.

Mark,

did this on my gx wagon even more easily than painting. just got some plain black pinstripe tape the same width and went straight over the trim. has been on about 6 months now and no sign of it peeling off.
did the strips along the top door trim as well. makes the window tint look a bit darker (somehow??)

LegacyT wrote:Oh ya as you can see, I also dechromed the tail lights, door handles and rear quarter window trims

How'd you dechrome the door handles? Scuff the chrome and have a body shop paint match it to the body color?

Its a LOT of work. When I got the car painted I removed the door handles, scuffed and primed them. I painted them separetly from the car.

Mark,

or you can just find body matched handles on an early car like mine

How do you remove the handles?

Jessica

you gotta get in there from the inside. meaning you have to take off the interior door trim, peel off the plastic vapour barrier, unbolt the handle and disconnect the latch and lock pushrods.

Mark,

I've got an extra set of black ones from my 92 that I will be scuffing priming and painting to match.

It'll probably take 1/2 hr per door to swap, fronts being harder because of the locks.

Anyone who wants to paint first and swap will have an easier time at it, I'll put the chrome ones in the parts shed when I'm ready to sell

excellent.



Thats the shit. Your car looks REALLY nice.
I so wanted a white car, IMO paint the wheels black, drop it an inch, and she'll be wicked.

I pried at corners to see it the chrome strips would come off easilly, but they dont. Paint will always come off, but I never thought about black tape.

Good Idea dagsy, thanks.

Yet another reason why this forum rocks.

dagsy wrote:did this on my gx wagon even more easily than painting. just got some plain black pinstripe tape the same width and went straight over the trim. has been on about 6 months now and no sign of it peeling off.
did the strips along the top door trim as well. makes the window tint look a bit darker (somehow??)

I just did the same thing.

Pinstripe that's semi gloss, much quicker than painting and easy to do.
It's probably not going to peel and it was only 5$ for a 6m roll which is more like 12m because the strip is only 1/2" wide and the roll is 1.5" wide

I used the pin stripe stuff. Actually, I used stuff called "Trim Tape"

Seems to be OK, but there are a few gaps. I'll probably just sharpie over the gaps.

We're so ghetto. this is up to par with putting electrical tape around chrome window trim on hondas. I'm gonna try it!