Hello folks

Has anyone touched up their side steps and made it look respectable ?

Mine are looking a bit scabby so need a touch up for now. I'm happy to remove them in spring and get them fully blasted and painted but for now want to improve the visuals.

I'll get the brass brush on the drill and clean up the areas, use some acid etch primer and then paint, has anyone done this before and did it look ok ? The problem from my own experiance (saying more about me than anything!) is that touch up repairs can often end up looking worse than the probel area to start with !

Anyone been here before ?

Thanks

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Click image to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

It’s tempting to use a wire brush for speed and convenience but it can end up introducing rust into freshly exposed metal. Maybe your acid etch will be enough to give you a clean surface to prime and hold off the rust until the spring?

I tried to remove mine which looked similar, but despite soaking with Plus Gas many times I simply could not get them off with all bolts out, despite bashing away with a large rubber mallet, so I rubbed them down where the paint had blistered, masked off the trim, and brush painted them with black smooth Hammerite. Not ideal, but they look OK and at least have some protection for now. I guess they’ve corroded themselves to the brackets?

The only proper way is to do as you say, there is a very good 2-pack paint called “TANK” on eBay, which is a super-tough truck bed epoxy paint. The original JLR paint is woeful, or at least the prep must have been, with blistering in areas with no paint damage apparent.

It’s a Summer job if you DIY, I sprayed some similar large alloy speaker trims, and got an amazing silky-smooth finish in rattle-can Satin Black, with crazy amounts of prep and wet sanding between many coats, but it has to be a labour of love, tbh.

Best of luck! “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” -where’s the fun in that?

Much appreciated, my assumption was corriosion due to a mix of paint errosion on the top edge and maybe stone ships from the edge and beneath. I'll look out the Tank stuff you mentioned.