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What is the best way to paint the underside of hood and trunk lid?





It will depend on the color and paint you choose to use.... I know for my Mustang I used a spray bomb to do the underside of the hood and trunk. With all the frame and strengthening structures in some hoods and trunks, it was the easiest way to get color coverage in to all the nooks and crannies.

Now... you can go about it one of two ways... with them on the car and with them taken off. If you are doing the spraying with them on the car... then it pays to cover up as much of the rest of the car to avoid the overspray landing all over.

Ideally, you will take both of them off the car... and that will make the painting task a lot easier. With them placed on a work bench, or between two work horses or even placed on a bunch of plastic milk carriers ( you know those plastic things that milk comes in to the stores and that we use to steal to put our record albums in ). With the hood or trunk lying horizontally... you can easily spray bomb it or even do a combination of rolling and foam paint brushing of them. You would hit the harder to hit nooks with the foam brush and then follow up with the roller to level things out and get the more flat areas.

But I found the spray bomb gave me the easiest application, best coverage and a pretty smooth ( and shiny finish ).

In my case, I was using Brightside Red to paint the cars body. And fortunately the Rustoleum/Tremclad red spray paint is the very same color. The same story probably works out for the blacks and some of the other colors.

JUST BE SURE to thorougly scrub the hood down with mineral spirits, followed up by a thorough rinse down with a bit of soap and water to removed all the engine compartment splatterings that have found themselves attached to the underside of the hood. The trunks normally don't need as extensive a cleaning prior to painting.

I did not have to sand the underside of the trunk or hood. The above referenced cleaning was sufficient surface preparation to get things ready for painting.

And before you ask... YES... both Brightside or the Rustoleum/Tremclad work well in the engine compartment and are not affected by the heat in the engine compartment


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I was thinking of removing the hood and trunk lid, buying a cheap hvlp sprayer for these areas and spraying Brightside undiluted.





I can't speak to the spraying of the Brightside... but I would think that you will probably have to thin it using the 'brushing thinner' that Interlux sells for the Brightside paints. Out of the can, the Brightside might be too thick to properly atomize through most cheap sprayers.

But as I mentioned... depending on the color you are choosing, you might be able to use aerosol spray bomb paint instead of using an HVAC.

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Is this what you would do? How may sprayed coat would be sufficient for these areas?





Using the spray bombs... I ended up using 4 spray bombs for the underside of the hood and 2 spray bombs for the underside of the trunk.

For the hood... I would take one bomb... and spray it all over.. trying to get as much coverage as possible. Then walk away from it for 24 hours before emptying the next spray bomb on it. Then take another 24 hour break before laying a third bomb on to it. Then... yup.. another 24 hours to hit the final coat on it. This will ensure that you don't get any orange peel forming on the paint.

With the trunk lid... you follow the above pattern of allowing 24 hours drying time between coats. And although you only have 2 spray bombs for the trunk lid, only dump half a can on to it per session. This way it will take 4 days to complete four coats ( using just the two spray bombs ) on the innner trunk lid.

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