Debating whether or not i should smoke my 97 sunfire gt lights to match the black strip along the back (where the pontiac light is) or is it possible to paint that black part to match car color? If anyone has pics post em. Thanks

I tinted the tails of my car with VHT niteshades and i think it looks awesome. I will try to get a picture of it and post it up. I wanted really dark tails and i just went ahead and tinted the trunk bezel also.

agreed.. tinting the the bezel really dark and then the lights a bit looks the best imo .. you can paint it though

Painting the rear IMHO gives the car a more contemporary and finished look. The below was done with paintscratch.com rattle cans. r:

Mikey do you happen to have a link to a how to? If not how'd you paint it? Looks great by the way.

DeJay, here's a short walk-through of how I did my rear:

- Remove the rear panel. It is attached via I think about 5-6 bolts that you can access through the rear of the lid.

- Remove the lock cylinder.

- Decide whether of not you want the Pontiac logo to remain on the panel. If you do, you can either just paint over it (which I think looks tacky) or get fancy and leave the red tinted letters unpainted. To do the latter, after the prep but before the primer you have to work quality masking tape down over the letters and then carefully cut away the everything but the tape on the letters themselves with a small sharp utility knife.

- If you want a logo-less look like I did, as part of the prep wet sand the letters with 600 grit paper until the surface feels flush (the letters are very slightly raised, it doesn't take much sanding to remove them). Then, after the prep is done (and this is CRITICAL) but before primer paint over the area where the letters were with 3 coats of flat black spray paint. This insures there will be no light bleed-through from the license plate bulb where the letters were when you are done (a lot of people skip this step and end up with a terrible "ghost Pontiac" effect showing through their otherwise great paint job).

Prep: wet sand the entire black part of the rear with 600 grt paper (but not the clear backuplight covers). After things are dry, use quality masking tape to mask off the license plate area, the backup lights (including their black borders) and the interior edges of the lid.

Priming: put down 2-3 coats of primer. Wet sand with 600 grit paper between each. I think I used a first coat of some sort of plastic adhesion improver, but thatr probably was overkill.

Color coat: if you have OEM paint, I recommend going to Paintscratch.com and ordering 2 cans of matching paint (1 may be sufficient, but I recommend having backup. There's nothing worse than running out of special-ordered paint during the middle of a project). What Paintscratch sells is Sherwin Williams, the same stuff GM uses. Carefully spray 2-3 coats. Shake the can liberally before and during the entire process, this is key to getting metal flake distributed properly (spraying briefly across the panel horizontally at the end of each coat helps too). Gently wet sand with 800 or 100 grit paper between each coat.

Top Coat: If you are keeping the Pontiac logo (in "fancy" form described previously) peel the masking tape off the letters after the color coat before starting the clear coat. Now, this is the somewhat the tricky part - using any quality auto clear coat, get about 3-4 wet coats on. I recommend test spraying on some scrap smooth surface to get the feel of the material (how wet it can be before running). Let each coat fully dry and wet sand the first two wth 1000 grit. If you get any runs, don't freak - just wait for them to dry and carefully sand them out with 600, then 800 then 1000 paper. Once the last clear coat is fully dry, wet sand with 1200 grit paper until it is nice and smooth. It will look somewhat dull, don't worry.

Final step: use a power buffer and any quality buffing compound to bring out the shine.

Carefully re-assemble. Then enjoy, especially when other Sunfire owners pass you on the road and wonder why their car didn't come with that neat rear color "option."

Thanks for the how to Mikey. Gonna order the paint and when I get it ill post my before and afters.

I think the painted to match bezels look so much better. It gives the rear end a very clean, subtle look.

Here's my '02 Sunfire GT with the trunk bezel painted to match:

Nice job as long as you don't need backup lights!!!!

mikeythemars wrote:Nice job as long as you don't need backup lights!!!!

even tho both cars pictured have them lol

mikeythemars wrote:Nice job as long as you don't need backup lights!!!!

If this directed towards me? If so, the Sunfire shown is a '00-'02 which clearly has the reverse lights in the rear bumper so I am totally confused by your comment. It makes no sense.

Sunfires don't have back up lights in the bumper do they? haha! Wow your old GT looked good, the filler panel looks way better than the one on my car. I'm jealous of the shaved trunk too, still can't find a body shop that will fill mine!

Chris B. wrote:Sunfires don't have back up lights in the bumper do they? haha! Wow your old GT looked good, the filler panel looks way better than the one on my car. I'm jealous of the shaved trunk too, still can't find a body shop that will fill mine!

ARE YOU F*%($NG blind?
95-99 Had them on both sides next to the license plate in the filler panel
00-02 Had them in the bumper, those are the big clear lights in the bumper....
03-05 Both sides of the license plate

Xplicit wrote:

Chris B. wrote:Sunfires don't have back up lights in the bumper do they? haha! Wow your old GT looked good, the filler panel looks way better than the one on my car. I'm jealous of the shaved trunk too, still can't find a body shop that will fill mine!

ARE YOU F*%($NG blind?
95-99 Had them on both sides next to the license plate in the filler panel
00-02 Had them in the bumper, those are the big clear lights in the bumper....
03-05 Both sides of the license plate

wow dude you were not able to detect my sarcasm? Thank you for the lesson on sunfire reverse lights, I would never have known otherwise. Even though I have owned 3 j bodies in the last 8 years, 2 of them sunfires, and have been a j car fan for about 20 years. I have torn my current sunfire down to a shell and put it all back together twice just because I enjoy working on it. Thanks again for the lesson, its a challenge being blind but also not being smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time. jesus