Broke windshield. Oops. How to refinish trim pieces?

[82DMC12]

Hey guys,

Well I'm working on a project that is snowballing but not quite out of control yet. Almost.

I swapped rear headliners with another car I'm working on this weekend (long story), so while I had my headliner out I figured I would take my T-panel off and cinch down my roof box like mentioned here: http://www.deloreanreborn.com/index.php?blogid=1&archive=2006-10

Of course once I had the T-panel off I started thinking about how I get a little water on the front of my headliner when driving in the rain. So I thought I'd take the stainless bracket under the windshield header off. THEN, I figured I might as well repaint the black header... so I better do the side strips too. As I was removing the side strips, I didn't realize my windshield was actually half-way separated from the urethane on the lower corner. The windshield must have twisted a bit and it cracked on the driver side. Turns out the urethane had dried up and stopped holding in both bottom corners and halfway up the sides.

I'm not too upset because at 65K miles my window was getting pitted and scratched. I wanted a new glass anyway at some point.

I ground off all the old adhesive and paint from all three windshield trim pieces. I don't know much about painting metal so can someone tell me how to prep them and repaint them? I'm thinking a black semi-gloss would be nice.

12338

[DrJeff]

I didn't take them down to bare metal, but I did abuse them to get the outer door seal adhesive off. I repainted with blank satin Rustoleum with built in primer. Very pleased with the result.

[82DMC12]

I'm guessing the light grain my grinder left will not show through the rustoleum?

[DrJeff]

I left some pretty deep paint gouges on the door seal edge of the trim, but the black rustoleum filled the in good. Of course these were not going to be surfaces as visible or obvious as the front facing edge of the windows trim. BTW, I also replaced all the screws with stainless.

[DMC5180]

I'm guessing the light grain my grinder left will not show through the rustoleum?

The best rattle can paint is SEM 39143 TRIM BLACK. (No primer required) You can get it at most Automotive Paint supply stores. I did mine earlier this spring. They turned out great. I used Paint stripper to remove the old paint which literally feel off. If I were you I'd try to sand or blend the grinding marks. Any heavy marks could show through. If some are too deep, a skim coat and sand with body filler would fix that.

I applied several coats and let the pieces sit 24 hours before installing. The hardened paint seems quite durable so far holding up to bug guts.

[outatym2001]

People.
This has already been mentioned before.
Windscreen trim strips
http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?3222-Windscreen-trim-strips

Exterior windshield trim
http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?3127-Exterior-windshield-trim

And I mention get them powder coated with an exterior powder coat rather than spray paint. It will last many years (decades) longer.

[Mark D]

More important than how you refinish the trim pieces are how you plan to replace the windshield. Keep in mind that it is a structural part of the body that will affect your door alignment. With no windshield everything sags downward in the front and the doors pitch upward at the rear. When installing the windshield you need to support the upper windshield frame and get everything aligned properly before gluing in the new glass. You may need to enlist the help of a DMC vendor who has performed this procedure before.