Painting

[indy_500]

I would like to get a thread going on painting sled torque arms, trailing arms, a-arms, radius rods, etc. I've painted a ton of different things since I've started working on trucks and sleds and truly consider myself a complete amateur. After going through watersmeet multiple times this weekend, my front suspension is just trashed. Chips everywhere in my trailing arms, radius rods, and the springs on my shocks. Year after year, I degrease, then I take a wire-wheel on an angle grinder to my torque arms in my rear suspension, sand them down by hand, and take paint thinner to them. Then, 1 coat of rustoleum primer, 2 coats of rustoleum paint, and 2 coats of rustoleum clearcoat. They chip and wear off, but I guess I'm not too dissapointed since nobody can see them that easily. First off, I need everything red. It's a 50/50 split I'd like something durable and that looks good. Is there anything I can buy/do myself instead of paying a few hundred dollars to get everything powdercoated? I've heard good things about POR-15 paint? Thanks

 

[indy_500]

The more and more I keep researching, it looks like powdercoat is my only option. Any other opinions? Any recommendations on powdercoating shops? I'm looking to have my radius rods, trailing arms, both torque arms, and the braces on my running boards all powdercoated red.

 

[ezra]

pimp that ride drop it all at the chrome shop

 

[frosty]

Anodizing, that's the way to go!

 

[Hoosier]

I had all the metal parts on my rear skid sandblasted and powder coated for $150. Looks better than new.

 

[Deleted member 10829]

I'm curious how the front suspension gets trashed from going through Watersmeet? I'm guessing it has more to do with trailering the sled. Do you have a salt shield or enclosed trailer? If you just have an open trailer with no shield, the road grime is the issue. My first trailer out of college was just a plain old 2 place with no salt shield etc. and the road sand and salt made my front end look like it had been sand blasted!

 

[ezra]

I want to know why most of the oem dont offer painted tunnels in the mountian sleds any more? like cat when they had painted tunnels on base moddels then Raw on the Snow pro ?what every on knowes snow sticks to raw alloy way more than paint.what are we talking for dry paint 20oz so cant be a weight thing. cost cant be that bad like stated above at one time paint was on the base models.

 

[indy_500]

I'm curious how the front suspension gets trashed from going through Watersmeet? I'm guessing it has more to do with trailering the sled. Do you have a salt shield or enclosed trailer? If you just have an open trailer with no shield, the road grime is the issue. My first trailer out of college was just a plain old 2 place with no salt shield etc. and the road sand and salt made my front end look like it had been sand blasted!

We have an enclosed 2-place, never trailered a sled on an open trailer before. My shocks had a little rust starting, and so did my trailing arms, but after one weekend there is chips EVERYWHERE in the paint. 3-4 miles in and around watersmeet was full of gravel, i cringed everytime i could hear it hitting me or my sled. I have a few chips in my decals too, luckily no chips in the paint on my hood. Looks like I will have an expensive powdercoating bill.... I'd really like to get my tunnel braces powdercoated red, I have a black tunnel, black and silver seat, and silver braces, i think the red would really look nice, not sure where to get and how to install the rivets that are "flush" with the braces. Anybody know which ones I'm talking about and what their called? Thanks

Hoosier, did you get them done in a different color than black?

 

[whitedust]

We have an enclosed 2-place, never trailered a sled on an open trailer before. My shocks had a little rust starting, and so did my trailing arms, but after one weekend there is chips EVERYWHERE in the paint. 3-4 miles in and around watersmeet was full of gravel, i cringed everytime i could hear it hitting me or my sled. I have a few chips in my decals too, luckily no chips in the paint on my hood. Looks like I will have an expensive powdercoating bill.... I'd really like to get my tunnel braces powdercoated red, I have a black tunnel, black and silver seat, and silver braces, i think the red would really look nice, not sure where to get and how to install the rivets that are "flush" with the braces. Anybody know which ones I'm talking about and what their called? Thanks

Hoosier, did you get them done in a different color than black?

Yep got to be careful with the old sand blast on the grades had it happen to me once on 8 trying to pass a guy in dreamland never knew I was there & runing about 60 down the middle of the trail for miles with me on his butt. Finally moved right just a nubben & bye bye in a nanosecond but took forever for him to move over. Checked the A arms on right side & had a nick & pit or 2 so moral of that story is WAIT much further back out of the dust. I want to powder coat my rear suspension but don't know where either?

 

[Deleted member 10829]

That would drive me nuts to hear rocks hitting my sled! If you are willing to pull your parts and mail them, PM rp7x, he had his suspension parts all powdercoated and the guy did a great job at a reasonable price! I believe he was in Forest Lake, MN and the brother of the owner of SLP or Speedwerx?

 

[rp7x]

fine job

race coatings forest lk minn

 

[borderstaff]

Another guy who does good powdercoating at a fair price is Rob at Rob's Powdercoating in Oakdale: http://www.robscustompowdercoating.com/Gallery.php

If anyone remembers my M8 rebuild from last fall he did all the orange powdercoating. In the link above my suspension parts are halway down on the left...they look awesome in person. He did everything for about $300 if I remember right. Keep in mind that that included degreasing everything, sandblasting all the parts, putting on a powdercoating primer for durability and them powdercoating everything in orange and baking it.

I would go this route again. It cost a few more bucks than painting but my a-arms have mowed down a cord of lumber out west and don't have any paint missing yet.

 

[eagle1]

Indy- If you do go the powder coat route, there is a guy on KK right before Haen's meat market that has a shop. Would at least save ya $$ money on shipping. My buddy had his a-arms and spindles done by him.

 

[lofsfire]

Indy ~ I know you are a DIY'er so maybe someone can tell you if this is any good. The Craftsman Powder Coat System I remember when it first came out it was like $150. Now you can find it on Amazon for $26, and its not available on Sears, maybe they are discounted or something.

http://www.sears.com/craftsman-powder-coat-system/p-00917288000P Read the reviews

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=Craftsman+Powder+Coat+System&_sacat=See-All-Categories

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff_d3yJIv0I

Here is another one too

http://www.eastwood.com/original-hotcoat-powdercoating-gun-1.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=fvwp&v=T01zIKxP0Ms

 

[indy_500]

Indy ~ I know you are a DIY'er so maybe someone can tell you if this is any good. The Craftsman Powder Coat System I remember when it first came out it was like $150. Now you can find it on Amazon for $26, and its not available on Sears, maybe they are discounted or something.

http://www.sears.com/craftsman-powder-coat-system/p-00917288000P Read the reviews

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=Craftsman+Powder+Coat+System&_sacat=See-All-Categories

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff_d3yJIv0I

Here is another one too

http://www.eastwood.com/original-hotcoat-powdercoating-gun-1.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=fvwp&v=T01zIKxP0Ms

Have you or anyone else tried such a product? I would like to get into it, but its the oven that I'm not so sure about. I dont have one big enough for trailing arms, my buddy does have an old oven thats been sitting in his basement. We thought about picking up a powdercoating kit a year ago and using that oven, but if I can find some reasonable prices, I think I wouldn't mind getting them done professionally.

 

[lofsfire]

Sorry not me, I just remember seeing the gun when Sears first came out with it, and thought it would be cool. Not sure if you would find and oven big enough, but maybe and old grill someone is throwing out. just remember you want a hot temperature not direct flame.

 

[ezra]

Have you or anyone else tried such a product? I would like to get into it, but its the oven that I'm not so sure about. I dont have one big enough for trailing arms, my buddy does have an old oven thats been sitting in his basement. We thought about picking up a powdercoating kit a year ago and using that oven, but if I can find some reasonable prices, I think I wouldn't mind getting them done professionally.

just get a job for a week or so at a pizza shack or date a girl who works at pizza hut done deal.

 

[dschultz]

Powder is the way to go and Iv seen a lot of guys over on hcs that had good luck with the DIY kits. The problem with those are finding a good heat source for your large parts but the small ones you can just use a toaster oven. Another route I had luck with is using regular one step car paint at least on the suspension but you still get wear and even the powder I had done on my rad arms got chipped up this year. IMO rustolium is junk paint unless it's a quick project and also the key to a good finish on that kind of stuff is sandblasting.

 

[Hoosier]

We have an enclosed 2-place, never trailered a sled on an open trailer before. My shocks had a little rust starting, and so did my trailing arms, but after one weekend there is chips EVERYWHERE in the paint. 3-4 miles in and around watersmeet was full of gravel, i cringed everytime i could hear it hitting me or my sled. I have a few chips in my decals too, luckily no chips in the paint on my hood. Looks like I will have an expensive powdercoating bill.... I'd really like to get my tunnel braces powdercoated red, I have a black tunnel, black and silver seat, and silver braces, i think the red would really look nice, not sure where to get and how to install the rivets that are "flush" with the braces. Anybody know which ones I'm talking about and what their called? Thanks

Hoosier, did you get them done in a different color than black?

I just went with black since I was doing the rear skid parts only and they aren't all that visible. I thought about going with blue to match the sled but just stuck with black. They can do any color you can think of. Common colors are all the same price. There's a group with a lot of pictures on their website called half baked or something like that. Google them if you want some ideas. I might pull the a-arms off this summer and get them done also, just because I'm so happy with how they turned out. It was quite a bit of work to disassemble and reassemble, but probably a good idea to get done anyway, just to do go through the whole thing. You can get the rails done if you want also, but I chose not to because I didn't want to deal with the replacing the rivets on them.