On my last F150 i went thrpough the work of removing my door panels and everything to remove all my handles, and since the prep wprk takes awhile i was driving around with no door handles on certain doors for a straight week. Heres how i did it the easy way.

*Prep work, about 10 minutes. Spray time for primer, base, and clear, about 2 hours.

Materials needed:
Spray Max 2K primer in a spray can-20$
Spray max 2k Clear in a spray can-20$
Reduced auto body paint in a can.. any paint shop can make it for about 20-25$
Grey scour pad or 600 grit sand paper
Stainless Steel Handle covers from Ebay (dont do chrome,. covers cost me 60$ shipped)

-Scuff down the handles until the shines off with the sandpaper or scuff pad. It will look like brushed stainless when it is ready

The one on the left is prepped, the one on the right is obviously still shiny

This next part i didnt take pics for because its self explanatory.
-Wipe down handles with reducer, alcohol, prep, whatever.
-spray two even coats of primer, lets it flash dry (meaning wait til it has no shine on it.. people will argue about wait time but u can spray base on wet sealer if you want)
-spray two coats of base.. or more.. wait abpout 30 mins
-Spray your clear coat. I waited about 20 minutes in between coats, and did 3 wet coats. no runs.


Wallah! nice and wet.. out of a SPRAY CAN. Spray max is the ish my friends.

Allow at least 10 hours to cure.. i usually let them dry over night.
at this point u can sand imperfections out of the clear if u have any, this clear can be cut and buffed no problem.

Heres the finished product.




Pros: Cheap, quick, easy, and very good looking mod for your truck

Cons: The handle cover has a tiny gap in between the cover itself and the body.. literally a few millimeters. Also, the area behind the pull handle is obviously still plastic.

My verdict: Totally worth it. This mod costs right around 120$ and looks great. For the price that a body shop will charge, it wont look much better than this. So why bother? I will never remove handles again!

Hopefully some of yall give this a try.

 

Looks great, my next mod!!!

 

Thanks alot bro!

 

I did this a few years back. Still holding up great.

 

On clean stainless, a paint job should hold up great! Glad to hear yours still look good!

 

Looks great! I did the same thing to cheap chrome Ebay scull cap style mirror covers.

Once installed on my mirrors they look OEM.

Got a couple pics in my garage.

 

Looks good.

 

Good to hear, because i was thinking about that for my next mod!

 

Thanks bro!

 

No prob. One's whos done rattle can painting and such knows how time consuming it is to sand and buff the clear to match the oem paint, imo the most time consuming part of painting

 

I didn't do any cutting and buffing on these pieces. The spray max tip puts out less orange peel than the factory finish, as u can see by the pics! Thats why i swear by the stuff

 

Very nice work.

 

Thanks alot stealth! More pics coming!

 

Since they are already getting painted would the plastic covers work just as well?

 

You could paint plastic covers, sure. However plastic can be very temperamental at times. Make sure u use a good adhesion promoter!