I had Red Tops in both my Sunfires and loved them, so when the time comes for a new battery for the Vibe, it will be getting a Red Top as well. The only problem is I know the red won't look too good in my engine bay, so I was wondering if anyone has successfully painted a Red Top/Yellow Top battery (just the top colored part)? I was thinking since the top seems to be some type of plastic that Krylon Fusion should work pretty well. Opinions? Comments? Concerns?
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, it would be painted black.
should work fine i would imagine. is that a top post terminal battery? if so you'd proby @!#$ up the paint eventually from the corrosion of the terminals but other than that it should be fine i would guess.
I was thinking I remembered sndsgood having one a while back with the top painted/airbrushed with flames to match his paint scheme.
Yeah, I had thought of sndsgood's, but I'm 99.9% sure his was painted the same time the rest of the car was.
I did some searching on Google and consequently a little reading on some different car forums. It seems quite a few people have actually painted their Optimas. Most people said they used an adhesion promoter followed by a high heat paint, which is pretty much what I was thinking of doing.
As far as the posts, they are indeed on the top of the battery. The positive terminal has a red plastic cover over it which would hide any paint coming off around the terminal. The negative terminal does not, but I am hoping since I don't really disconnect and re-connect the battery too often, the paint would be okay and if nothing else, I could just touch it up if need be.
I'm hopefully a long ways off yet from needing a battery, so we'll see what I actually end up doing. I am just planning ahead since I know the red would look way too cheesy in my black/silver/chrome engine bay.
i would bet you don't even need a high heat paint. i painted my idi cover of my ecotec body color with no adhesion promoter or anything. just prep, primer, paint, clear, enjoy. still holding up great goin on 2 years now. and that's directly on top of the engine. the battery's almost 2 feet away lol.
yeah its fine, i see it at show all the time.
I wonder how the warranty would be with a painted battery?
You know most places find any little thing they can to deny a warranty.
"Oil Leak ? What oil Leak ? Oh, Thats Just The Sweat From All The HorsePower!!"
blucavvy wrote:i would bet you don't even need a high heat paint. i painted my idi cover of my ecotec body color with no adhesion promoter or anything. just prep, primer, paint, clear, enjoy. still holding up great goin on 2 years now. and that's directly on top of the engine. the battery's almost 2 feet away lol.
This coming weekend I am going to be painting the manifold heat shield using DupliColor low gloss black engine paint, so I would probably just go ahead and use that same paint on the battery so it would match. Also, adhesion promoter would definitely be needed on the battery since it's plastic.
Spencer wrote:yeah its fine, i see it at show all the time.
Good to know! Thanks
!
DSMskyline wrote:I wonder how the warranty would be with a painted battery?
You know most places find any little thing they can to deny a warranty.
Good point, but I really doubt they'd give me trouble over painting it since it's not like the battery would have to be opened up or anything. I guess I'd cross that bridge if/when I come to it.
did mine and had an aluminum cover over it... that red stood out like a sore thumb in my engine bay. i wish they made an optima black top LOL
If it takes forever.... I will die trying. Underdog Racing
a little off topic but does anybody elses red top make a slight hissing sound when charging? My old one did and I stopped using it cause that wasn't normal to me and I forgot to check in on that.
Someone should make optima battery covers!
Copter wrote:a little off topic but does anybody elses red top make a slight hissing sound when charging? My old one did and I stopped using it cause that wasn't normal to me and I forgot to check in on that.
lol got bored and decided to answer my own question.
Always use a voltage regulated battery charger with limits set to the above ratings. Overcharging can cause the safety valves to open and battery gasses to escape, resulting in premature failure. These gasses are flammable! You cannot replace water in sealed batteries that have been overcharged. Any battery that becomes very hot or makes a hissing sound while recharging should be disconnected immediately.
Funny thing is mine would start to hiss after only minutes, so I guess my seals went bad some how. Oh well ditched it back when I noticed it. Eventually I might actually get around to getting rid of it.
02 redbadged wrote:Someone should make optima battery covers!
Optima does actually make covers, but of course they only make them for one size of their batteries and it's not the size the Vibe uses
.
Nice. To bad those colors suck. Yes, I'll take a yellow cover for my yellow top. Wtf?
Yeah, the colors do suck, but the cover would be a lot easier to paint than the battery itself and it's pretty cheap too. I just can't believe they only made them for one size of their batteries
.
J TO ENVY wrote:I had Red Tops in both my Sunfires and loved them, so when the time comes for a new battery for the Vibe, it will be getting a Red Top as well. The only problem is I know the red won't look too good in my engine bay, so I was wondering if anyone has successfully painted a Red Top/Yellow Top battery (just the top colored part)? I was thinking since the top seems to be some type of plastic that Krylon Fusion should work pretty well. Opinions? Comments? Concerns?
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, it would be painted black.
Just in the event you didn't already know, just clean it super well (do not use wax/grease remover on plastic, it can pull more oil to the surface. Use warm soapy water), then go to your autobody paint store get some 3M grey scuff pads and some scuff paste. Specifically ask for both. Then take the scuff paste and scuff all of the shine off of all of the plastic, Primer, wet sand the primer with 400-800 grit wet paper, paint and clear ! ^_^ should be good!
That way you can make sure adhesion is optimal, and the clear if you can get some evercoat cut -in clear, over other types if you can. It's a bit nicer.
Hopefully it'll stay that way for a good long time, fi you do it right the first time.
Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
-Saint Augustine
Copter wrote:a little off topic but does anybody elses red top make a slight hissing sound when charging? My old one did and I stopped using it cause that wasn't normal to me and I forgot to check in on that.
My yellow top did this... it was shorted internally and was purging sulphur-like smelling gases. Pretty gross. I thought it was my cat on the way out, but it was the battery. Just looking at it, you could see it was bulging on one side. Not good. It was about 7 years old at that point... had a good life.
J TO ENVY wrote:Krylon Fusion should work pretty well.
Yes, it should work great for the job. Wonderful paint for most any type of plastic, including PVC, etc. Also works great on glass. I used it to pain over my dot matrix before tinting.
blucavvy wrote:is that a top post terminal battery? if so you'd proby @!#$ up the paint eventually from the corrosion of the terminals
Get the felt washers and oil them, you will not have any corrosion problems from your battery post
J TO ENVY wrote: 02 redbadged wrote:Someone should make optima battery covers!
Optima does actually make covers, but of course they only make them for one size of their batteries and it's not the size the Vibe uses .
RK Motorsports makes a nice Carbon Fiber cover.
Vincent Woodward wrote:RK Motorsports makes a nice Carbon Fiber cover.
Yes,
RK Sport does make a nice carbon fiber battery cover for a J-Body. I have an '09 Pontiac Vibe GT though, so that cover will do me no good, plus I am not a fan of carbon fiber anyway.
