Celica Forums General Discussion Exterior sanding dash...

i want to start sanding down my dash to make it smooth and custom paint it all. what grit of sandpaper should i sand it down with, and how many cans of paint should i expect on buying?

do you mean the entire dash or just the center part (with the stereo and a/c)? either way you'd probably wanna get a pretty fine grit. you just wanna scratch it enough for the paint to stick. not really sure... but when i did my center console i used 600 then 1000 grit.

coming from experience let me give you a word of advice. Don't. The texture goes down A LOT deeper than it looked. I tried this and it took me overa day to get the texture off the kick pannel. And it looked like shit cause i had to use such a low grit. HOWEVER, if you insist on making it smooth, the route to go is to get some fiberglass resin and coat all the pieces in that and then sand that down. This also takes FOREVER and smells like hell, but it's a far better route then sanding the texture off the pieces. Just so you know I did this with my friend who is a painter so we knew what we were doing, we just didn't expect for the texture to go that deep since it looks shallow.

Something to consider, a smooth dash will give a lot of glare problems when it's painted and clear coated.

that would look nice

Yeah, be careful w/ painted dashes, if you don't use a Matte finish on it you will risk having lots of glare off of clearcoat finishes. that's why i'd go with dying your dash, it's a lot safer.

i plan on painting it black so if i left the texture on there would it be noticeable? with a matte paint instead of glossy would i still put on clear coat afterwards? and how many coats of paint would be best?

oh and btw, the entire dash, i already have my center console painted blue.

how many cans would should i expect on buying of duplicolor matte black paint?

I'm working on doing mine black too. I've been working on this project for a WHILE so you can believe where I'm coming from. I've been through three brands of paint bondo, fiberglass, sanding, wetsanding the whole shit, I've finally found the best way to do it.

Paint: SEM

WITHOUT A DOUBT. All you need to do is clean the surface and paint it, not primer no sanding it's fucking beautiful. The paint combines chemically to the surface making it fill a nice color with less paint and no chipping. When using this paint, as with any paint job use several light coats of paint. There's no specific number. For paint use, I'll put it this way, the whole center piece that comes out of the dash is one of the hardest pieces to paint evenly becuase of the cup holder and cargo armrest and that took about 3/4 of the can. So that should be a nice benchmark. SEM also has a clear coat but the black looks really nice without it so I don't plan on using it. It's a project but with SEM it comes out really nice. Just make sure you clean the piece really well before you start painting it.

You don't have to sand it or anything because it bonds chemically, unless of course you end up getting a run because you added to much paint to fast. Another perk is the drying time, a coat of SEM dries completely in about 15-25 minutes. But give it overnight to cure before you reinstall everything.

sounds good. where can i buy sem paint. and did you do the matte finish with it?

no I'm just puttin the paint on, but am thinking of spraying SEM clear coat even though it's really not necessary. I bought SEM from an auto paint store that a local body shop uses.

gonna do your whole interior black? that would be sweet! keep us updated on how it goes

another option is trying to find an 03 in a salvage yard and getting the interior

i am 1 of like 6 celica's in town. and none of them are the newer models so that is out of question. i am hoping to start it here soon and have it done by the end of the month. what do you think is the best way to do it? sections or all at once?

do it in big sections the door pannels will prolly take you all day. Theres a lot of stuff to disassemble and reassemble doing it all at once isn't really realistic unless you want to be awake for 48 hours

cool, here's the best i could do at a chop of what i want it to look like if i stay with the blue i have my center console. although i think i am chaning that to a different shade of blue

hey that looks good.

use 100 grit initially to take the texture out.
go back over with 150, then 220. you could probably stop here but you can even go 300 before painting. this is currently what im doing to my door panels...its a LOT of work. it'd help a lot if you used air tools

the only thing why i wouldnt want to sand is what about the airbag box? those intents go in pretty deep. wouldnt that make it harder to have it sanded evenly?

and yes, i have the air tools, i would never do this by hand, haha.

^^ take the top off. remove the glovebox to get to the airbag