Painting door handles

Ok, Here I will describe how I went about painting my door handles. I didnt 
like the look of the gray plastic handles, so I decided to paint em... here 
we go

First thing i will talk about is removing the door handles, you MUST have 
the windows rolled DOWN to take them off!!

First thing to do is removing the handles.. this was a minor PITA, so I'll 
try to describe it as simply as possible. First thing to do is remove the 
interior door panel... to do this, there is a phillips screw in the handle 
on the inside (not the handle to open the door, but the lil dish type one in 
the middle of the door.. There is a second bolt inside behind the interior 
door handle that'll require a star bit, dont recall the size.. but after 
thoes 2 screws are off, the panel will pop off with thoes annoying plastic 
holder things.. some force should pop it off tho.. Once that is off, remove 
the harnesses for anything you have (power windows, power mirrors on drivers 
side, door handle bar, and power locks) if you have manual windows, you will 
prolly break the clip holding the window crank on, you can pick these up at 
any hardware store.. but try not to let it fly away on ya. Ok, now that your 
door panel is off, remove both weather strips on the top of the door on 
both sides of the window. Ttime to remove the outside door handles. There 
are 2 bolts and a metal clip holding the handle on, they are both just a 
bolt that you can ratchet off...you may have to peel back that vinylish 
cover on the inside of the door.. or yers is just peeling off ayways like 
mine kinda was =)



Getting to the bolts is the hardest part because the inside door panel 
doesnt make it easy to reach them, so I removed the bar that connects to the 
door lock so I can reach behind the panel and reach the bolts when I reach 
up...



Once you have a fun time getting the bolts off, you will if your clumsly 
like mne, drop a bolt or the metal piece holding the handles on.. well get 
them out and put them to the side.. Once you have the clip off the back of 
the door handle, you are not out of the clear yet, there are 2 bars 
connected to the back of the door handle just like the bar on the inside 
door handle, one is for the lock, one is for the handle, these are fairly 
easy to unclip from the handle, just pop of the plastic piece off the bar, 
and slide out the bar. leave them in there and now you can remove the 
handle itself.. just work it out, pull out the bottom and slide it down and 
out.. here's the back of the handle when removed..



Before you sand it down, remove the lock clip and the lock itself (you dont 
want to paint that =) now, sanding down the handles.. all I did was use 600 
grit sandpaper, and it created a nice smooth surface to work with... here's 
the sanded handle



Now when you paint it, I used Dupli-color Universal Black (I have a black 
car) For the love of god, use as light of coat as possible of paint... 
multiple light layers creates a excellent look, it takes longer, but its 
well worth it.. i used about 10 extremely fine coats, and let each dry in 
between, once you have a flat black painted handle, I went to the can of 
clear coat and repeated the painting steps... so it creates a durable smooth 
top coat and adds the shine just like a door panel... when using either 
paint or clearcoat, if you see ANY problem such as dots where paint isnt 
sticking, or its not coming out smooth, stop, let it COMPLETELY dry, and 
sand back down and repeat... this happened to my passenger side handle 
after i was done, just put it on and next day re-did it, and it came out 
great. let them dry for as long as you can let them, so you dont get any 
prints on em. once they are dry, you are ready to replace the lock, and then 
go back through the steps of replacing the handle.. GOOD LUCK =) here's the 
finished product..