To respray or not to respray: minty half doors

primetime4

primetime4

TJ Enthusiast
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After searching for decent set of half doors in the closest matching color to my steel blue TJ for a few years, I finally managed to buy a beautiful set in gunmetal blue. These doors are in fantastic shape with no rust and good interior panels. You can see the clear coat still shines. My original plan was to run them as is but the OCD in me won’t let me rule out getting them resprayed to better match. My question is would this be a shame to do that to these doors? How close would the color match be if there is no blending on my tub that I want to keep original. Would I be sacrificing this beautiful shine or would it be pretty close to factory fresh? Thanks.

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I would think a decent paint shop should be able to get the color right, but the doors will still stand out because the rest of the tubs paint is scratched and probably a bit oxidized. You could do a cut and polish on the tubs paint to restore it which should make the difference with the freshly painted doors less noticable.
 
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If your paint is the factory color, then you can get the code from your VIN stickers and plates all over the vehicle. Then you can order the spray can of the factory color, and the clear coat. You can wash the door, and wet sand them with 6000 grade, rinse and dry them, then, tape them, and use a good primer. I liked the Rustoleum Auto Primer better than I liked the Bulldog Adhesion Promoter. Then, spray the basecoat, and wet sand again. Spray another thin basecoat, let it dry, and then the clearcoat. They should look much better, and match a lot closer than they do now. Total cost will be about $60-80 dollars. If you aren't happy, you can always pay the $500-$1000 dollars to let a professional body shop do them later. (Note: Your original paint is going to be really faded, so it will take a good professional paint job to get a close, near perfect match.)
 
Thanks for the replies. Will probably get them painted if they can get them a closer match. I don’t think Jeep ever made half doors in steel blue so might be the only route. The paint on the tub is dirty but also still in pretty good shape. The other option is to wrap them black but not a fan of wraps in general.
 
primetime4 said:
Thanks for the replies. Will probably get them painted if they can get them a closer match. I don’t think Jeep ever made half doors in steel blue so might be the only route. The paint on the tub is dirty but also still in pretty good shape. The other option is to wrap them black but not a fan of wraps in general.
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You can get a match by taking it to an automotive paint supply store. They use a camera and place the lens on the current paint color. Then they take it to the computer and give you a rating of how close it will be versus the original Chrysler paint code. Anything under a certain value is very good. I went with the computer as this was not an entire re-paint. Mine turned out awesome. I’ve got a lengthy and detailed materials and procedure write-up in Excel. If you want it DM me since I’m on vacation and I don’t get other notifications. In the pic below the corner armor was painted by me. If I got half doors I’d paint them. It is quite a bit of work.

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primetime4 said:
Thanks for the replies. Will probably get them painted if they can get them a closer match. I don’t think Jeep ever made half doors in steel blue so might be the only route. The paint on the tub is dirty but also still in pretty good shape. The other option is to wrap them black but not a fan of wraps in general.
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Yeah, if you are truly OCD, like me, a wrap would never satisfy you. They peel and cut, and wouldn't match the gloss or color even close. I've seen some nice wraps, but not on my Wrangler. One good off-road trip and a wrap would be trashed. Flying rocks and tree branches are not good for a wrap.
 
primetime4 said:
After searching for decent set of half doors in the closest matching color to my steel blue TJ for a few years, I finally managed to buy a beautiful set in gunmetal blue. These doors are in fantastic shape with no rust and good interior panels. You can see the clear coat still shines. My original plan was to run them as is but the OCD in me won’t let me rule out getting them resprayed to better match. My question is would this be a shame to do that to these doors? How close would the color match be if there is no blending on my tub that I want to keep original. Would I be sacrificing this beautiful shine or would it be pretty close to factory fresh? Thanks.

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They look rad as is.
 
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Ha - I have to say most of those examples convinced me to paint to match. Some contrast especially with black doors doesn’t look too bad either. Mine are close but noticeably off which makes it look like I’m trying too hard.
 
My half doors, I believe came with the jeep, because they are keyed to the Jeep and the color matches. The full doors do not match, and are not keyed to the Jeep. I don't really care, but it would be nice to know how the Jeep was equipped when it came out of the factory....

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Not recently you weren't lol SMAWS been gone a few years now. Too bad, smaw gunners we're always tough as nails from just carrying that damn thing everywhere.

I'll PM you the rest. I'm still in so I keep my professional life intentionally vague on the Internet.
 
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Bigmac said:
Not recently you weren't lol SMAWS been gone a few years now. Too bad, smaw gunners we're always tough as nails from just carrying that damn thing everywhere.

I'll PM you the rest. I'm still in so I keep my professional life intentionally vague on the Internet.
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10-4. Yeah it's been awhile 😉
 
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JMT said:
You can get a match by taking it to an automotive paint supply store. They use a camera and place the lens on the current paint color. Then they take it to the computer and give you a rating of how close it will be versus the original Chrysler paint code. Anything under a certain value is very good. I went with the computer as this was not an entire re-paint. Mine turned out awesome. I’ve got a lengthy and detailed materials and procedure write-up in Excel. If you want it DM me since I’m on vacation and I don’t get other notifications. In the pic below the corner armor was painted by me. If I got half doors I’d paint them. It is quite a bit of work.

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Too pretty, Jeremy. You need to flop that bad boy. I will spot you.

🙂
 
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