Trim painting

[chrisc]

I dont know if this is the case with all betas, but both of mine are suffering from the black paint on the trim surrounds for the windows and windscreen coming off. Does anyone know a paint thats suitable for this surface and if there are any particular tricks to it?

[Hamish]

I dont know if this is the case with all betas, but both of mine are suffering from the black paint on the trim surrounds for the windows and windscreen coming off. Does anyone know a paint thats suitable for this surface and if there are any particular tricks to it?

Chris, I'm fairly sure the VX cars were the only ones with the chromework painted black (I'm prepared to be told I'm wrong :lol: ) and my coupe also suffers with the paint peeling off, not surprising after 20 years :!: I've not found an exact match yet :oops: but I haven't looked too hard. I'd imagine :idea: any good quality metal paint in matt finish would do provided the brightwork is 'etched' first to take the paint as it seems to me Lancia just dipped/sprayed standard items without any other prep. work. No surprise there then..... :P

[chrisc]

Hmm. So far the only ones ive seen with painted chromework are vx ones too. I think I will probably take all the old paint off, have a look at how it appears then and decide.

[Graeme Wellington]

My '82 HPE (Australian market model) has trim painted black. I've just touched it up by brush with a semi-gloss black enamel. Lasts about 12 months and looks OK if you are not chasing concours. If you are after concours look I suggest remove the trim and have it powder coated black.

My '80 HPE has shiny (stainless/chrome) trim.

Graeme Wellington

[Bali]

Hello!
On my '84 2.0 IE Coupe it was black too. It was, because I've burred it (with a grinding machine) and I didn't paint it. I don't know Chris what color is your car, but I think it worths to have a try how does it look like without painting.
I really like it on mine - my Beta's color is metallic silver with a little turquise. If you think that burring (polishing) is too drastic, then you can try chemicals, but which I tried wasn't enough strong...
I think this metal is stainless, isn't it?

Bali

[chrisc]

Yeah, stainless has my bet. Im going to go and see tomorrow if i can find some paint to suit, after the car has had a small (hopefully they wont find anything more!) bit of welding to the inner arches at a previous repair, and see if I can get any more ground clearance on the exhaust system. Speed bumps here are murder.

Ill try and just use some chemical method to (carefully!) remove the old paint and have a vote on it with a friend or two before deciding whether to paint it again.

[lanciavolumex]

Chris,

My '82 HPE VX also has black trim and a lot of the coupe's of this era here in South Africa did too.

Th trim is definitely stainless steel, and I'm thinking about black anodising mine if possible.

Kindest regards,
Guy.

[emilio]

Hello,
if I understood all subtleties well between S3 (S2 FL) and S4(S2 FL2), one of the differences is precisely that the turns of windows and windscreen of S4 are black.

Bets regards,
Emilio Lumia

[Sir Lancialot]

Hello Chrisc,
If you want the stainless trim to look like original,you will have to first, scrape all the old paint off using a sharp scraper with no burrs on and flat down with 320 wet'n'dry, degrease all the trim with a mild degreaser(available from any paint factors), mask off all the windows and the rest of the car then spray 2 light coats of etch primer, preferably with a spray gun or you can get one pack etch primer in a spray can which will do the job ok. After a couple of hours, you can then spray 2 coats of celullose SATIN black, leaving about 10 minutes between coats. It will take you 5 times longer to prep it all than to spray it, but the end result is worth it!
It's also handy if you can get your hands on a spray booth!.. :lol:

[chrisc]

Yikes. I think that I will save finishing my cars until ive entered the real world (just finished BEng Software Engineering at Aberysytwyth). I think ill also be buying some form of beater car to try out spraying on etc. before stepping onto my betas.

[Sir Lancialot]

Hi Chrisc,
A shame you arn't local to me, I would hapily do it for you!