hello all, i'm looking to have my 87 4Runner repainted soon. all white or likely dark navy blue (my two favorite colors). also considering dark grey so that the engine bay and door jams original color (silver) sorta match the new color.

my question is...why are some freshly painted 4Runners missing the new paint on the cabs? is it purely a choice or is there more to it? meaning, does the fiberglass have a tendency to easily start to chip, fade, peel, etc or would it hold the paint just as well as the rest of the body?

also considering having the bumpers linex covered or maybe the entire truck.

any insight on this would be helpful and appreciated.

here's a pic of what the rig looks like today. previous owner had the hood, roof and rear door vinyl covered which i'm slowly removing. total pain in the butt! also removed the mud flaps and removed the 35" tsl swamps it came with in favor for 33" at's:

I would venture the extra cost !!

It is not going to rust so why bother to paint it.

Although Hot Pink is a nice color that is my next color

Just figured it would look nicer. Then again some of these rigs are built only to be beaten to hell. So, beat up, pink, blue...to each their own I guess.

Thanks for the reply.

I had mine painted. Not to make it pretty but to protect the Fiberglas where the fiber was already starting to show. Again, not to make it pretty so I'm happy with the $300-job.

When you say "cab" I am assuming your referring to the removable top, because as far as I know that's the only thing that's fiberglass which you mentioned above.

I have seen them painted before, I don't think there's any reason not to paint it, some people might just prefer to "breakup" their color scheme by making the top black or white or whatever.

We spray painted my buddies two weeks ago, came out OK, not great, but decent considering we did zero prep work.

yep, removable top. so you guys didnt use any primer or anything either? what kind of spray paint did you use?

We did not primer it, we wiped it down with some type of cleaner first. However, it already had a poorly done and slightly faded black spray paint job on it before, so I guess you could say it was primered before haha. We just used Rustoleum or whatever the $3 can of spray paint that OSH sells. Not sure how it will hold up as we only did it about 2 weeks ago, if it were my top, I would have sanded it in the beginning and put a clear coat over it when I was done, but that's just me. Painting is 90% prep, 10% shooting, and how it looks in the end is based on how much work your willing to put into it.

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...er-top-221434/

Check out that previous thread, it should offer some good information.

Personally, unless you were willing to do the jambs as well, I would stick with the original color to give it a more finished appearance. As for the top, if you' don't care about the original look, you can always have it painted to match or have it painted black again. IMO, the original texture and matte-like finish that these came with from the factory just makes the truck look better. In fact, I want to get my top painted eventually so I really need to start exploring professional options. For now, I just treat it once a month with 303 Aerospace Protectant to deepen the existing finish and help protect against further UV damage.