Crystal Lite Rhino Guarded

[shealy]

This past week I finally had time to get to rhino lining my crystal lite roof. It seems like a few people on these forums have rhino lined their crystal lites, but there doesn't really seem to be any pictures of the before/after process out there that I could find (except for someone who posted their non-crystal lite roof). Anyways, I thought this may be a useful post for anyone who is thinking of doing this job. My roof was in dire need of some fixing. You can see in the first couple pictures below that the rust was getting pretty bad, especially around the front skylight:

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Its a bit harder to tell in this picture, but there are a few small cracks and bumps up the middle. Overall, not very straight at all....

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Anyways, the process was quite simple and only really took me a couple days of work:

-First I sanded off most of the paint (pretty close to all the way down to the metal). The spots that were bubbling from rust or cracked, I sanded all the way down to bare metal.
-In the spots where I sanded the rust way down, and now had semi-holes through my roof, I painted over with rust paint, then I went back and used bondo body filler to fill in the holes, and smoothed up the surface again with sanding.
(My passenger-side rain gutter was also pretty rotten, so I scraped out as much crud as I could and filled a lot of it in with bondo as well. There were also numerous cracks between the rain gutter and sunroofs, which I dealt with too)
-I then painted the whole thing over with the rhino guard (actually a product called "gator guard", but essentially the same thing) and left the paint to cure for a few days (the box says 72 hours to a full cure).

So for those who are interested in doing this - here's what the finished product looks like!



If you compare this shot of the sunroof with the picture at the top of this post you can see it's night and day

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Much smoother roof now! (there's a few lines that look like ripples, but its just from having a tarp over the roof for a couple days in the rain! (it started raining the day after I painted it, and it takes a few days to fully cure, so I figured I should cover it with a tarp)

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Finally, with the roof racks back on

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Overall, not all that difficult of a job, and it only probably cost me around $100 for all the materials. Considering it would be at least, what, a $300-500 job in a shop? Not bad.... If anyone else who's done this job has any more comments, feel free to add them (or any questions). Thanks!

-Steve

[nxski]

Good job, it looks great!

I've been quoted $2000 from most shops so definitely worthwhile to attempt on your own.

[vixentd]

I would suggest anyone following this to make sure to use water proof bondo, example is everglass short strand fiberglass bondo. That will stop any moisture from getting under the paint as regular bondo is like a blotter for bondo.

[pj_jazzy_janz]

shealy,

This looks amazing!! How has it held up over the years? Am very seriously thinking of doing this to our L400 before we start to see rust problems. Any wisdom that you can offer from down the road of time would be greatly appreciated!

[Big-Bird]

WHo else has done this Eurethane Bed liner process to their Delica's roof?

I would be curious about application challenges with roller or spray gun.
Have colored versions been used and do they attrach dirt? Impossible to clean?

[nxski]

WHo else has done this Eurethane Bed liner process to their Delica's roof?

I would be curious about application challenges with roller or spray gun.
Have colored versions been used and do they attrach dirt? Impossible to clean?

They're not the easiest to clean and I would advise a textured one if you're not super skilled with application. I brushed mine on and I think you can see pictures in my "Hermione's Makeover" thread of the process, or a link to the process.

[Big-Bird]

There's a Eurethane Spray company called Tyro-Bedliners here in Calgary and they recently sprayed a GMC Yukon top to bottom in black eurethane. I have the same product on my step bars and they clean up really well with a carwash brush. Gonna get an estimate from a company that does color versions without charging me to clean their gear. Some small outfits do mostly black and charge a big fee to prep and clean their gear just for another color.

Might have answered my own question.