Painting fibreglass - Anyone have experience?

Hi there folks,

My Jimny has Kap front wings and bonnet, the latter has had some of the gel coat come off and looks pretty rough now and I'm keen on sprucing it up. The rest of the truck is red in varying shades but I'd like to do the bonnet black or dark grey.

I've done a quick google and there seems to be sooooo many options with regards painting.... Baring in mind this is a mucky truck anyway I am not after perfection, just a tidy. One of the options was etch primer and cellulose? I've certainly got etch primer here if that is possible, then I could pop down to halfrauds on the weekend and pick a can of colour up...

What sayeth the experienced ones?..

Note: obviously I will sanding the top surface for a key etc...

Look for a yacht paint system. 99% of the current yachts are made from fibreglass or similar. Most yacht owners want a proper product for their sailing pride and joy.

Menno

I have as an ex Reliant Scimitar owner and it's a royal pain in preparation to get it correct.
MIssing or cracks in gel coat you need to grind or feather it out back to the fibreglass, then lay fibreglass tissue over this and finish with filler back to level. I've seen some modern techniques use carbon fibre reinforced filler as the skim rather than the tissue, but not tried this myself.
Now do that for every crack and you start to see why preparation takes a long time.
Obviously you need to key the complete vehicle once the cracks are fixed, my preference to to sand all paint off back to gel coat.
The reason?
Etch primer can be a mixed blessing. It may / may not react with old paint and filler, you take your chance with this if you leave old paint on.
I have heard of use of a barrier primer to prevent this, but again no experience myself.
Cellulose is very good (in a bad way) of showing up repairs, it tends to sink in unless you have many filler primer layers, so I would use a 1K or 2K paint system in preference.
Re Halfords - don't go to them, find a local Automotive paint supplier and go and tell them what you want to do. I my experience they are very helpful and will supply all the products you need. 

Of course this may be over the top finish wise, but I can't be sure what finish you will be happy with. I've painted my Land Rover with a roller, 1K mixed for for the job, the finish looks like an acceptable respray and ideal for a vehicle that gets scratched etc. Just keyed the surface, no etch or primer at all, direct application of 1k with foam roller. It's been on years and still looks good - on a Land Rover !

Thanks for that folks, a lot to contemplate and not enough time!!

I wonder if a quick clean up and perhaps a wrap may be easier?...

Some of the gel coat has come off so assume I'll need to seal that somehow anyway... Hmmm...

Yes, I've heard of various sealers too but not used them...

Shall have a think... A lot more important stuff to do the truck first anyway...