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[VXL V6]

Facelift of course. 

Has anyone ever refurbished these successfully? Appreciate the best way to do it would be to remove it (not 100% what that involves) and sand it down and do the full job but wondered if anyone had done any different?

I think MDTM repainted one in situ way back.

[amba]

I repainted mine in situ last year and it has held up really well.

Gave the entire roof and sunroof/metal a thorough  wash and clean,then dried. Next went over the entire metal surface with fine grade wet,n,dry very well soaked.Progressively smoothed the surface so all that was left was either well coated original paint or bare aluminium.

Carefully masked the inner and outer edges so just the black metal was visible,,PITA to do as took ages with all the corners but the neater you mask it the better the result.

Then with a thin painters brush applied several coats of Smooth Black Hammerite,leaving couple of hours between coats.This was done outside but was mid summer so dried pretty quickly,although sure a warm garage would be better ,or certainly as good.

Once final coat was dried I applied 3 further coats of clear laquer again with a thin paint brush.

The finished result was great and has not shown any problems of paint peeling since then .

Cost was less than £20 ,although cleaning hammerite from a thin paint brush was not simple so I ended up throwing away after each coat but at £0=85p each from our local shop it was cheaper than brush cleaner.

[VXL V6]

Sounds like a good result. 

I wonder if the trim / surround would remove without removing the whole sunroof? I suspect if it prizes out it would either bend / crease or I'd damage the sunroof or car roof. I might have a go on the car I'm breaking.   

[annihilator]

stripped down a mk2 astra gte sunroof when trying to fix a leak and it was fairly easy to separate the glass from the frame once removed from the car.

[05omegav6]

Open the sunroof fully, mask the opening/surrounding roof,close roof, prep metal frame, mask glass and paint...

[Nick W]

Open the sunroof fully, mask the opening/surrounding roof,close roof, prep metal frame, mask glass and paint...

That should do it.
A can each of primer and satin black from Poundland will do the job.
 So that's about £3 in materials.


I ought to do mine.

[SIR Philbutt]

I repainted mine in situ last year and it has held up really well.

Gave the entire roof and sunroof/metal a thorough  wash and clean,then dried. Next went over the entire metal surface with fine grade wet,n,dry very well soaked.Progressively smoothed the surface so all that was left was either well coated original paint or bare aluminium.

Carefully masked the inner and outer edges so just the black metal was visible,,PITA to do as took ages with all the corners but the neater you mask it the better the result.

Then with a thin painters brush applied several coats of Smooth Black Hammerite,leaving couple of hours between coats.This was done outside but was mid summer so dried pretty quickly,although sure a warm garage would be better ,or certainly as good.

Once final coat was dried I applied 3 further coats of clear laquer again with a thin paint brush.

The finished result was great and has not shown any problems of paint peeling since then .

Cost was less than £20 ,although cleaning hammerite from a thin paint brush was not simple so I ended up throwing away after each coat but at £0=85p each from our local shop it was cheaper than brush cleaner.

That's approx what i did but have since thought it would have been easier with the sunroof tilted for better access

[VXL V6]

Some food for thought there. 

I think it's a job i'll tackle when we have our one day of sunshine (well, just a day when it doesn't rain) in the summertime!

[TheBoy]

I'm tempted just to get one from a PFL, presumably identical?

[Broomies Mate]

I've never done one, but if I were to tackle the job tomorrow, I'd use a wide (say 2") masking tape, applied around the sunroof, then use a scalpel to cut both sides of the metal, using it as an 'edge'.  Would probably take all of 15 minutes, be clean and very easy.

[Diamond Black Geezer]

The 'glass' can be removed very fairly easily, if you want to.

Though plenty say how the FL ones seem to go bad, mine, a PFL, suffered badly from this corrosion and peeling.  This had a blue tint; the replacement, off another PFL was a bronze tint, no idea if this suggests my 'original' was in fact a FL one, maybe?

Have to say the wide tape plus a new scalpel blade sounds a good solution to me. The vinyl wrap guys use the weight of the blade to cut through, so a very gentle hand and should be fine.