Thread: Forget Paint, Wrap Your Side sills in Vinyl Instead!

Alright, so I posted a thread about this a while ago That thread is here.

The side sills or whatever you want to call the really see a lot of battle damage.

After removing and painting them when I got my 00GTP sedan, 7 years later they were looking pretty ratty. Faded, chalky looking, despite using good quality paint and clearcoat.

This time around, I decided to wrap the in black vinyl. I got some that looks a lot like a thick paintjob, not quite orange peel but not super smooth (it will help hide the inevitable scratches, I'm hoping.).

Some folks in my original thread thought the vinyl might make it hard to fit the side sills back in, but one piece of vinyl is not much thicker than a fresh coat of paint.

Anyhow here's what I wound up with- be sure to get plenty of vinyl when you order so that you don't wind up feeling like a nimrod like I did when I ran short of vinyl.



I began by removing my side sill thingies- my car is a sedan, the coupe is probably a little different.

I sanded them down and applied a bit of glazing/ spot putty to get them ready for primer.






Then I masked them off and shot some primer on 'em.






I also removed the weatherstripping from these pieces along the way, rear one shown with tabs bent to remove weatherstripping.



Here's the first one done, it went really smoothly and I'm please with the outcome.



Here they are on the car, they look great in person and once cleaned/ waxed will hopefully last longer than the paint job I gave them.



I'm a DIY kind of guy but wasn't sure how to wrap something in vinyl so I checked out YouTube.

This is the best vid I found that explains how to work with this stuff- just get a hair dryer and an Exacto Blade and go to town, it will come out looking great

Click me but mute my terrible music for the sake of your sanity

Hope you like the writeup

"thingies" ? Try B pillar trim? So many of us use the washer/dryer photography pedestal....lol

Originally Posted by cheatah faheatah

"thingies" ? Try B pillar trim? So many of us use the washer/dryer photography pedestal....lol

Thingies is a technical term, perhaps they didn't teach you that at Wyotech

B pillar trim is probably correct but I do prefer thingies (that's what she said).

Of course I use my washer and dryer as a photo studio, most of my workbench is taken up with projects for my other Pontiacs, so I do what I can

Originally Posted by wstefan20

Hey cheatah! I know this is an old thread, but I came across this and figured I'd ask how they're holding up a year later! Nice job btw!

Not my thread, Bro. It belongs to "MyHero"...lol. Try sending him a PM ?

Watching. Mine look like crap and need some love.

Can you remove these pieces without removing all the rubber in the door? I seem to recall that you can't.