Replacing Door Handle Plastic Coating

[warrenperkinson]

I am going through the process of replacing the door handles on my 1971 Series IIa.

I sourced second hand replacement handle/latches but the plastic coating on the handles had perished.

After looking around, I found a great product for replacing the plastic coating on the handles and I thought I'd share my findings...

The stuff is called Plasti Dip. Details can be found here:
http://plastidip.com/home_solutions/Plasti_Dip

The 22oz container has so far done 3 handles (each door has an inside and outside handle) and should do another 3 (although the difficulty will be dipping the whole handle in as the volume in the container falls).

I've found that about 4 or 5 dips per handle (30mins apart as per the instructions) gives a nice thick coating. The result is a matt rubberised finish (rather than the original plastic) - only time will tell how it holds up to the elements.

[darbsclt]

^^^ Yep ^^^

I second this... it works great...

[RoverDover]

The problem with this stuff is the same as the original coating, UV degradation. I put 2 new handles on my 90 3 years ago. I park it in the same place every day, the north (drivers) side is still like new despite the fact that this side see 10 times more use than the south (passenger) side which has rotted and cracked.

[SafeAirOne]

Can always try heat-shrink tubing too, though it'll leave a small opening at the tip of the handle. Different tubing has different shrink percentages and different finished hardness, depending on which tubing you select.

[jac04]

Can always try heat-shrink tubing too...

That's what I used on my Lightweight and it worked great!

[Partsman]

I used the Plasti-dip on both my truck handles a couple years ago, they're holding up just fine with no issues or cracking, the truck is parked with the passenger door facing east everyday, so gets hours and hours of sunlight, and is exposed to the elements all year round.

[Tsmith]

Another product that may prove to be more durable and UV resistant is Flexane. It is available in several hardnesses, linked to durometer numbers. Anything that you can make a mold for is castable. I just made the rubber bumpers for the bonnet mounted spare on the Series One, cast with the fasteners in the rubber. Not inexpensive but many of the rubber parts are costly as well. If you have a sample that can be used to make a mold it is a reasonable way to fabricate rubber parts. Flexane 80 is 80 durometer and so on...