Plasti-Dipped Hinges and Bug/Rock Strip on hood

dbungard

New member
First time I've ever Plasti-Dipped anything but after some YouTube learning thought I'd give it a shot.

We live on a dirt/gravel road and I've always hated how exposed and eaten up the door hinges get. I had the Bestop plastic protectors on my JKU but they don't fit the JLU so just went my own route with Plasti-Dip. Did the leading barrel end of all 4 door hinges, the windshield hinge, and made a bug/rock strip on the leading edge of the hood.

Pretty straight forward really:

Step 1: Clean -- easy with a new rig. Just prepped with alcohol
Step 2: Mask. Plastic drop cloths and some automotive masking tape to seal everything up. Take time to get everywhere in behind the hinges to prevent overspray, and tape from inside the door.
Step 3: Apply even coats. I did 3, a half hour apart.
Step 4: Demask -- carefully to get a clean edge while the last coat is still a little tacky. I prepped the edges by gently running a sharp knife along the edge of the tape. Important to get a clean break. Demask slowly and follow the edges.
Step 5: Clean up any overspray. A lexan knife, some rubbing alcohol, and I found a folded patch from a JK soft top material quite handy to clean any unwanted overspray off from in between the latch and door and some of those hard to mask off places.
Step 6: Let it cure. Mines sitting in the garage overnight.

Pics below. IMG_1140.jpgIMG_1142.jpgIMG_1141.jpgIMG_1145.jpgIMG_1147.jpgIMG_1144.jpgIMG_1150.jpgIMG_1143.jpgIMG_1152.jpg
 

wayoflife

Administrator
Staff member
Can't say I'd ever want to do something like this to my JL but it looks like what you did came out well. Nice write-up!
 

dbungard

New member
Can't say I'd ever want to do something like this to my JL but it looks like what you did came out well. Nice write-up!

Thanks. The beauty of the Plastic-Dip spray is it just peels off. if you mess up, or don't like it, can just peel it off and start over or not do it at all. That low risk was the reason I was willing to try it. I had an employee just do it to his ZR2 Colorado and it came out well so after he showed that to me thought it would be a good solution for now.
 

NFRs2000NYC

Member
On both of my JKs I had the front grill plastidipped, and even after years, it peeled off very nicely. The issue people have with removal is not pudding enough coats on getting it thick enough. Its a great product for what it is, and it really does save your paint, if that's what you're going after. I was surprised that after peeling off my last JK grill, after 20000 miles of long highway and offroad miles, the grill was still flawless. It will definitely save the hinges from getting beat. It does come in colors and white so if you are trying to make it less visible, you could have sprayed it white instead of black and gotten the same protection.
 

WranJLerYYC

New member
Curious to see how it stands up on the hinges. I was thinking about taking ours in to get the hinges and front grill bed lined. We plastidipped our grill on the JKU too but it doesn’t stand up like a bed lining would.
 

NFRs2000NYC

Member
Something like the grill should have 10-12 coats on it to really do a good job of protecting it, and be easily peelable years later.
 

aug0211

New member
This looks great! I’m excited to play with PlastiDip sometime. Right now, I’m thinking I’ll do my badges for a low profile look, but that’s all that’s on my radar.

For my hinges, I went ahead and ordered some of these:

https://www.r3offroad.com/offroad

I’m not affiliated with this company and have nothing to gain from the post. I have not yet received the product to install it and report on results. Just trying to share info on a similar option in case any are interested.

If the option I bought doesn’t work out well, I’ll be coming back to this PD option and will follow your guide! Thanks for sharing!


Sent from my iPhone using JL Wrangler Jeep Forum mobile app
 

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