Repainting Side Skirts

The Subaru Legacy GT's come with a body kit from the factory. After 12 years my cars kit was looking shabby. The once black side skirts were now a faded gray color. A simple solution was found in the form of a Krylon can of gloss black paint.

I had the car up on jack stands while working on another mod, and this opened a perfect opertunity for removing the ugly faded gray skirts. The frist step I took was removing six 10mm bolts from the underside of the car. Next I removed a pin hold the back of the skirt in place that was located in the rear arch. There was a pin holding the front in place as well but I broke that one off. (I later bought a pair of replacements at a local hardware store).

After all the bolts and pins had been removed I pried at the ends until they gave out popping off my car and exposing many many years worth of dirt and grime that had built up and never been cleaned out. Once both sides had been removed I brought them into the house to sand them down. After sanding I washed them with a damp rag to remove all the dust and dirt.

I waited about 5 minutes for them to dry before spraying a nice thick layer of paint. After they dried for about 15m I added two more coats of Krylon. Adding more layers of paint would make the overall finish better and allow it to last longer. Once the skirts had dried for about 30 minutes I attached them to the car. The overall finish is much better than how they started. I would like to paint them to match the car, like on the Limited edition versions of the GT. But that is a different project alltogether.