- Location
- Reno, Nevada
Posted a new article on my website http://www.ericsxj.com/ so I thought I'd share it here.
Appliance Epoxy Paint Job
As many of you have discovered, having a white XJ is nothing special - they are all over the place. Jeep must have made two white ones for every other XJ that left the factory. But despite that, I have come to appreciate white vehicles. My truck is white. And compared to dark colored vehicles, not only do they stay cooler in the summer, but they stay so much cleaner. Yes yes I know its "cool" to have a muddy jeep, but I'm talking about vehicles in general, not just jeeps.
Our 2nd XJ is a white 1997 model that we picked up in 2010 and was in horrible condition. This was primarily a daily driver that my son could drive back and forth from school, so buying cheap was good. The exterior was bad but typical of a vehicle that was 18 years old. The factory paint was a dull white color, very noticeable parked next to my nice white truck. Not only that, the previous owner hacked the front fenders for no reason (running stock sized tires), had no flares, and there were small dents and damaged paint all over the body. So after addressing the interior and some mechanical repairs (which I won't go into here) it was time to make the exterior nice again. At this distance the body doesn't look bad but I assure you it was beat up and neglected.
If you've seen my other write-up where I painted Project Rubicon with desert tan (khaki) spray paint, you know that rattlecan paint jobs are cheap, easy, and can look good. Obviously with this project I wanted to have a glossy, bright finish, but I didn't want to use regular white spray paint. Instead I decided to use Rustoleum's "Appliance Epoxy" which can be purchased at Walmart, Home Depot etc, or online. They also have black for those of you who want to go that route instead.
To see if this paint would work well, I tested it on the grill and headlight bezel on the vehicle for about six months. I also painted a black plastic endcap and left it on the sunny side of the house for the same time frame. The test was successful. The paint dries very hard, can be applied thick, and held up great with no chipping, peeling, or fading.
The not so fun part of the project is the prep work which consisted of sanding (scuffing) the entire jeep with 150 - 220 grit sandpaper and filling most of the dents. I replaced both front fenders, so at least with those pieces prep work was minimal.
I also wanted to add hood pins because the hood release cable was VERY tight and I would rather remedy this issue now than deal with a broken cable in the future. So I made that modification at this time also.
Then I pulled the jeep out of the garage to wash all the dust off.
The grill and one of the headlight bezels were cracked so I bought replacement pieces that also needed to be painted. A friend also gave me his stock flares that were factory black paint. It was easier to paint all of these pieces separately off the jeep.
Here is a comparison shot of a newly painted flare on the old fender. You can see how much brighter the new paint is compared to the factory paint that was on this jeep.
Appliance Epoxy Paint Job
As many of you have discovered, having a white XJ is nothing special - they are all over the place. Jeep must have made two white ones for every other XJ that left the factory. But despite that, I have come to appreciate white vehicles. My truck is white. And compared to dark colored vehicles, not only do they stay cooler in the summer, but they stay so much cleaner. Yes yes I know its "cool" to have a muddy jeep, but I'm talking about vehicles in general, not just jeeps.
Our 2nd XJ is a white 1997 model that we picked up in 2010 and was in horrible condition. This was primarily a daily driver that my son could drive back and forth from school, so buying cheap was good. The exterior was bad but typical of a vehicle that was 18 years old. The factory paint was a dull white color, very noticeable parked next to my nice white truck. Not only that, the previous owner hacked the front fenders for no reason (running stock sized tires), had no flares, and there were small dents and damaged paint all over the body. So after addressing the interior and some mechanical repairs (which I won't go into here) it was time to make the exterior nice again. At this distance the body doesn't look bad but I assure you it was beat up and neglected.
If you've seen my other write-up where I painted Project Rubicon with desert tan (khaki) spray paint, you know that rattlecan paint jobs are cheap, easy, and can look good. Obviously with this project I wanted to have a glossy, bright finish, but I didn't want to use regular white spray paint. Instead I decided to use Rustoleum's "Appliance Epoxy" which can be purchased at Walmart, Home Depot etc, or online. They also have black for those of you who want to go that route instead.
To see if this paint would work well, I tested it on the grill and headlight bezel on the vehicle for about six months. I also painted a black plastic endcap and left it on the sunny side of the house for the same time frame. The test was successful. The paint dries very hard, can be applied thick, and held up great with no chipping, peeling, or fading.
The not so fun part of the project is the prep work which consisted of sanding (scuffing) the entire jeep with 150 - 220 grit sandpaper and filling most of the dents. I replaced both front fenders, so at least with those pieces prep work was minimal.
I also wanted to add hood pins because the hood release cable was VERY tight and I would rather remedy this issue now than deal with a broken cable in the future. So I made that modification at this time also.
Then I pulled the jeep out of the garage to wash all the dust off.
The grill and one of the headlight bezels were cracked so I bought replacement pieces that also needed to be painted. A friend also gave me his stock flares that were factory black paint. It was easier to paint all of these pieces separately off the jeep.
Here is a comparison shot of a newly painted flare on the old fender. You can see how much brighter the new paint is compared to the factory paint that was on this jeep.
my wife had one made for her Cherokee... No white Cherokee is complete without one! 