I noticed last night whilst working on my P38 just how badly faded a couple of my door handles and the grill are.

Everybody seems to paint the grill black but on the late cars it was quite a light grey colour. Does anybody know what a decent colour match would be?

Halfords do a grey bumper paint but the reviews say it dries brown so that's been ruled out straight away!

Thanks,

David.

The reviews are right, I tried grey bumper paint and it did indeed dry brown and looked disgusting. I've done mine with bumper black along with the strips below the headlights and the bumpers too. In fact, I did the side rubbing strips and sill covers while they were off when the car went in to be resprayed about 4 years ago.

This was it just after it was done, about to set off for yet another trip to the south of France

I painted mine LR Java Black and they look great..

so long as you're a dab hand with the spray cans and wetsand

H

Mine's colour coded

I noticed at the top of my grill where it hadn't faded you could see the original colour.

After some digging around, it turns out that the colour on the top of the grill is a good match with Land Rover Stornaway Grey. I ordered some up and the cap on the can is almost identical.

I've rubbed it all down and have so far applied 3 coats of primer.

Once it's had 24hrs to cure I'm going to start building up the layers of paint. I'm hoping 3 coats will give it a nice finish as that seems to be roughly what I can get for all 3 parts from a can. Once another 24hrs have passed I'll start building up the clear coat on it too.

Hopefully we'll get a decent result!

David.

I'm sure you'll end up with a great result..

Throwing the cans into some scalding hot water before painting can help the paint be more cooperative.

H

Anything has to be an improvement on what was there before!

Thanks for the advice. I was keeping them at room temperature but will give this a try.

David.

Aye i'd agree there I saw a lovely green P38 today which was nice apart from the grill!!

The paint thins out when hot and lessens the possibility of orange peel and splatter ;)

I let the primer dry for 24hrs and then gave it a quick rub down before painting it today.

The grill on the other Vogue SE hasn't faded and is a good reference for a colour match. Looking at my sample, Land Rover Stornaway Grey paint was a near as dammit match! Here's the sample from the lid of the can and the grill in natural light.

Unfortunately, when painted, it doesn't look anything like the same colour!

I'll get it fitted once it's finished and see what it looks like but at the moment I'm not convinced!

David.

Ahhh!!!!!

David..

I had that trouble, I used a MC blue from Ebay which was a completely different colour from the body of the car! second time around i used black for mine "java" IIRC less to go wrong with black!

Reason being the little stickers that denote the colour on rattle cans is Seldom correct..

Ashington autospares in Northumberland are a superb source for paint both custom and factory..

Covid social distancing might prohibit, unless you can order over the phone..

Dunno..

It looks alright to be..

Defo better than before!

Java.

Well, after 3 coats of grey primer, 3 coats of Land Rover Stornaway Grey paint and 3 coats of clear lacquer my grill and head lights trims are finally finished.

It's not the colour I wanted but I'm quite pleased with the results if I say so myself :-) I'm going to change the lettering on the bonnet and will spray it to match the front end and it should look quite good I reckon!

The rest of the car is covered in pollen from the trees so it is yellow. I'll let the lacquer harden for 2 weeks like it says on the tin and will give the whole car a good going over I reckon.