Painting Fender Flares

When I inherited the 06 TJ from my dad, the fender flares were a musty faded gray brown:

I'd been reading a bit about the best way to go to give them an update and came up with three options:

1. Replace them (one came with a crack/dent on it where my dad hit a tree)
2. Paint them
3. Leave them alone

Replacing them was, of course, an option until I saw that the average price for replacement fender flares runs around $200 per fender!  So, that meant either painting them, or just leaving them alone. The more I looked at them, the more it started to bug me on how faded and aged they looked, so decided I should paint them.  Now, two new questions arose:

• What do I paint them with? Just use a Rustoleum or is there some sort of special paint needed here?

• How to proceed?  Should I just mask off the vehicle and spray away, or would it be better to remove them entirely?

Painting Options

SO, when it comes to painting fender flares, there's a few options out there, and yes, Rustoleum is one of them.  Some other more popular options do seem prevalent in the Jeep community, primarily those of Krylon Fusion, Plasti-Dip, and Bedliner.  After reading a bunch on all of these, it seems like it ultimately comes down to personal preference (kind of a Coke vs. Pepsi thing). Several forums and websites talk about various criteria to weigh in on which works best, including:

Coverage
Number of coats
Dry time
Look and appearnace

When in Ace Hardware one day, I saw some Krylon Fusion on sale for only $4/can so I got two, and just decided that was going to be the route to take.  We'll see how long it lasts.

Painting Methods

Masking

This option involves taping, using things like index cards and manila folders, paper overlays and the like, so you don't have to mess around with taking off the nuts and screws, which a lot of people say is a pain in the ass and very tedious.

Removal

Removing fender flares apparently ensures that you will get less chance of dripping running paint lines, completely avoid any kind of overspray onto your vehicle, and you don't have to deal with a lot of tape, paper, and other products to mask off the jeep.  The downside here is that the nuts and bolts themselves are kind of tricky to remove. You also need to ensure you have the right tools to take these off, which could be anything from a 1/4" to a 5/16" or even a 7mm depending.  For my TJ, it seems the 5/16" works well...

My Decision

I ultimately tried to go with the former of just masking, but ran into a bit of a snag. Given that these fender flares are pretty tightly fastened to the Jeep itself, you do need to loosen the retention nuts just a bit.  Given Jeep's propensity for Torx nuts, I woulda thought these were metric sizes, so I went all the way down to my 8mm, but that was still too big.  So off to Home Cheapo I went. I ended up getting a ratcheting wrench in 7mm, 6mm, 5.5mm and 5mm just because they were part of a bundle package.

As it turns out, while the 8mm was too big, the 7mm was too small.  As it turns out, this is something I should have googled before going shopping.  Most sites say this is a 1/4", but after yet another return and checkout revolving door, I ended up with a 5/16" doing the job.

So, I loosened the nuts sufficiently to wedge folders, paper, and tape around to mask the rest of the vehicle and proceeded to paint one side.

Results

From direct experience I can tell you two things for certain:

1. Never shake Krylon Fusion paint between spraying - this stuff flies everywhere!

2. It is prone to dripping and this needs something like paint thinner or Goof-Off to remove. Easier just to glove up to protect your hands.

Here's how things looked after masking:

And here's the results of painting the driver side:

Not bad for a $4 can of paint!

Naturally, it goes without saying that you should always wash things before applying paint, which I did as well prior to embarking on this!