Painting hardtop underside black (with bedliner spray)

[TheRealTVGuy]

TheRealTVGuy utilized Plasti Dip on his hardtop. The product claims to be insulating (not sure about temps) but his pictures look great!

Thanks! I wish the interior pics looked a little better, but that’s the best I could do with just my phone and the sun glaring in.

But it really did turn out nice. I’d do it again.

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[Rubi-Zero]

Looks good TVGuy. I like the combo of the black and headliners. It should come from the factory like this, or at least have an option to upgrade from just the base white.

 

[Rusty Teeth]

I love it, looks great. I read somewhere, that a guy painted his and kept getting very bad paint fumes smell every time it got hot.
Didn't say how long this occurred. Made me balk at all that work.. Any input???

 

[Rubi-Zero]

The fumes go away for sure, I can’t tell you how long after but it will go away. I don’t recall the fumes lasting very long. When I did mine and my brothers, the tops where going to be off for awhile anyways, so that gave it time for the paint to gas out and release all its fumes. I think now being warmer weather would be a great time so no need for the top to be on for awhile.

 

[TheRealTVGuy]

We’re in Florida and have seen some hot days since we did ours. The fumes lasted for about a week. Now it’s back to having that new car smell. Luckily that’s started to fade a little as well; it was really strong when first purchased.

 

[Rusty Teeth]

Thx guys!. Looks great, better for sound insulation.
Every layer absorbing like the hot head sound extras...
Thx didnt want bad smell for years, what brand of spray and how many coats any primer???

 

[TheRealTVGuy]

You’re welcome!

We used black PlastiDip. It’s in the same rack as the spray paints at Lowe’s and the Home Depot.

Word of advice: We applied the first coat of PlastiDip per the instructions (spray it on until it looks wet) then let it dry. It looked AMAZING. The PlastiDip smoothes itself out as it dries.

I followed the recommendation of someone else on here and tried to apply a clear coat of matte enamel after that. It RUINED it. Because of how the clear coat comes out and dries, it made the whole project look like a cheap spray paint job.

So, we applied another layer of PlastiDip over that and it seemed to cure most of the blemishes from the clear coat.

The wife and I agree. We should have just left it with one (or two if you prefer) coats of PlastiDip and it would have been perfect. I don’t recommend the clear coat. I have been told that PlastiDip makes different styles of clear coat, but that you might have to order it from their website.

Also, it will take a few days for the fumes to go away, lol.

Two weeks in it still looks great and I love it!

 

[lembowski]

With plastic dip you want to put at least 3-5 coats on. Trying to peel it off if you ever wanna redo it would be a huge chore with only 1 or 2 coats. It will tear into small shreds and not peel off in sheets.

 

[DanPop]

I did mine with Lizard skin, it is a sound deadiner and vastly reduces the sound of rain and looks like any other bedliner.

 

[travelboysteve]

All else equal, a black surface will emit more heat compared to a white one. That's thermal dynamics (read up on thermal emittance).

However, this is going to be very much muddied in practice, due to the "all else equal" condition. The surface material also factors into the equation, and without actually testing it'd be tough to say whether a bedliner-painted ceiling would in fact emit more heat. In fact, it's possible that the physical properties of bedliner make it a worse emitter of heat than the surface from the factory, and further that this difference overcomes the difference in color.

Furthermore, one must factor in the thermal conductivity of the bedliner itself. Even if we assume that the surface properties of bedliner are exactly equal to the factory white material, the heat has to first be transferred to this new layer, and it's an unknown how well that transfer happens. This is in fact exactly how the headliners manage to reduce internal heat, despite being black. Sure, foams are have incredibly low thermal conductivity due in part to their porous nature, but there are plenty of non-porous materials that exhibit similar characteristics (many fabrics, rubbers, oils, woods). It isn't entirely unreasonable to think that some bedliners may behave this way as well, though without the data I'm going to stop short of making any actual claims.

Another final factor: the bedliner will add extra volume through which the heat energy can be dispersed. This might (and probably does) raise the net thermal capacitance of the top on average. How this ultimately factors into debate is, again, an unknown.

In the end, how any of this changes the amount of heat we're likely to feel sitting in our cars is not so black or white. See what I did there?

I did, and I liked it

I say, turn the AC up another notch,..... or drive faster,....or stick your fool head out the window,....
Kinda like Climate Change,...1.5 degrees hotter in another 100 years,....yeah and your point is..........
personalize it,....make it your own.
That's what I'm doing,.....

Love all the ideas on forums like this.
Some I do, some not so much.


Peace and Hair Grease

 

[Dynomite1371]

I did mine with Lizard skin, it is a sound deadiner and vastly reduces the sound of rain and looks like any other bedliner.

pics???

 

[Jeep Generation]

So back when I first got my Rubicon in 07, I hated the inside being white. So I wanted to share this here, because I am sure there are a few that hate the inside white. I cant believe Jeep still send them out like this. To me it was distracting while driving, looking out the back windows with the top on. Plus, it just looked bad to me. So I pulled the top and hung it from the ceiling in the garage. I decided that I was going to paint it black but didn't want it to flake off so after looking around for a solution I went with Dupli color truck bed liner in a can.

I picked it up at advance auto for $8 a can. You will need at least 6 to finish it but I think I ended up picking up 1-2 cans more to do a few touch up spots. You can roll it on as well , but I chose this way instead. To start off I sanded with 250 grit and knocked the shine down to give the dupli color truck bed liner something to grab. This took a little bit of time, my arms got tired but I wanted it to turn out so I kept at it. Once I finished, I cleaned up the dust ,then masked it all off . This takes some time as well. Once I got to this step, I wiped it down with some alcohol to remove any grease or dirt. Make sure to wear a mask to keep from breathing the vapors, next is to spray it down with the truck bed liner. I loved the results and with it being truck bed liner it held up very nice on the inside of the top for years without problems. This bed liner is very fine grit so I thought it looked very good for the inside of the top.

This is how it turned out.

Dang, wrong section, Mods feel free to move this

Great job. Looks great.

 

[M_Pluto]

I did mine with Lizard skin, it is a sound deadiner and vastly reduces the sound of rain and looks like any other bedliner.

I’ve been curious about this ever since I learned about Lizard Skin.... Did you just to the inside of your hardtop? Or did you do the tub as well? It seems stupid expensive compared to other liners, but if the thermal/sound deadening is as good as I am hearing from people, I’m thinking it would be worth the extra change for an early mod.....

 

[JLJoyRide]

You’re welcome!

We used black PlastiDip. It’s in the same rack as the spray paints at Lowe’s and the Home Depot.

Word of advice: We applied the first coat of PlastiDip per the instructions (spray it on until it looks wet) then let it dry. It looked AMAZING. The PlastiDip smoothes itself out as it dries.

I followed the recommendation of someone else on here and tried to apply a clear coat of matte enamel after that. It RUINED it. Because of how the clear coat comes out and dries, it made the whole project look like a cheap spray paint job.

So, we applied another layer of PlastiDip over that and it seemed to cure most of the blemishes from the clear coat.

The wife and I agree. We should have just left it with one (or two if you prefer) coats of PlastiDip and it would have been perfect. I don’t recommend the clear coat. I have been told that PlastiDip makes different styles of clear coat, but that you might have to order it from their website.

Also, it will take a few days for the fumes to go away, lol.

Two weeks in it still looks great and I love it!

Hey Chris, it looks great. I’m torn between Plasti Dip and bedliner spray. Will be using the hothead headliners like you did. How is the Plasti Dip holding up?

 

[TheRealTVGuy]

Hey Chris, it looks great. I’m torn between Plasti Dip and bedliner spray. Will be using the hothead headliners like you did. How is the Plasti Dip holding up?

Almost a year later and it still looks awesome!

After a while the PlastiDip “cures” a little more and doesn’t seem as soft. I still baby it though to make sure it doesn’t scratch, but even if does, you can touch it up.

I’d definitely do it again!

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