So I have been wanting to texture coat my 2000 EVC for about 6 months now and finally got around to it so I figured I would do a quick write up in case anyone else wanted to try to tackle this as well. I didn't want to pay big money to have someone else do it so I figured I could do it myself fairly easily after a bit of research for under $200
MATERIALS:
(1) I used Custom Coat BLACK 4 Liter Urethane Spray-On Truck Bed Liner Kit (includes a spray gun). This apparently is the same as the raptor coating that is also on Amazon but its just a little cheaper, the whole kit ran $120 with free shipping and can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Custom-BLACK-Liter-Urethane-Spray-/dp/B00FFIIHHU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1443459015&sr=8-1&keywords=custom+coat This 4 liter kit is plenty, I only used 3 bottles and did 2 coats so I have 1 extra bottle I can used for touch ups or a different project if needed.
(2) A few 3M maroon Scotch-Brite pads to scuff all the paint up real good (did about 3 passes), I also used a hand held orbital sander and 120 grit sand paper on some areas of the bumper that appeared to have a bad overspray.
(3) I also used an adhesion promoter just to have a better bond even though i sanded/scuffed everything really well, runs about $18. It was most helpful on the wheel arches as I didn't want to scuff the areas I was going to tape off and I didn't want to tape first and then scuff the tape so if any areas didn't get scuffed as good then there should still be good adhesion I hope. I got 2 cans but 1 ended up being enough to cover everything (both bumpers and all the rockers, wheel arches, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/U-Pol-Products-0799-Universal-Adhesion/dp/B00397POFC/ref=pd_bxgy_263_img_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0D83DKHJ4EH6XAVVC3XM (4) Acetone to wipe all areas down before the coating is applied and also to clean the gun out after using it.
(5) I used blue painters tape and plastic to cover everything real good including the ground. *As a learning note some kind of automotive tape would have been nice for making the arches on the wheel wells but since this is what I had it worked fine i just had to use lots of little pieces to make the arches, it still turned out great and pulled off nice and clean with sharp edges everywhere with no issues.
(6) Air compressor with gun pressure set to about 60 psi (this seemed to work great and the gun was actually much better than I thought it would be) if you can't set your pressure with your compressor you will have to buy an in-line regulator. I used an 8 gallon electric compressor that kept up fine, I think I could have even gotten away with my 6 gallon pancake but I wouldn't go much lower than that.
PREP:
*Remove front and rear bumpers: (Sorry for the crappy cell phone night pics)
for those that don't know, to get the 2 grill pieces off, there is a screw under each turn signal, the light is spring loaded so just pull it straight forwards (no tools required) and then you can angle it to the side a bit to get to the screws.
*Use hex tool to get bumper off, pretty straight forward even a 2 & 3 yr old can do it
*Tow hitch blocking 2 screws on rear bumper:
*Removing Tow hitch:
*Took me awhile to figure out there were 2 screws hidden under the molding on the top of rear bumper, just pull the weatherstipping off and they can be reached, I had to use pliers to unscrew them due to little clearance, they must use a special tool.
*I wanted to do by the footwells without removing the door molding:
*Solution, compress it out of the way with tape (I can always get the residue off later):
*The aftermath after being taped/tarped and sprayed
*I sprayed everything with the doors closed first then opened the doors and just used a piece of cardboard to help block overspray (there was actually very little, I overtarped the outside all the way to the roof lol.
**Finished Product:
