Science experiment!
So we’re all well aware of the dreaded faded black plastics & rubber seen on 1980’s cars. The common solution is lashings and lashings of back to black dressing every time you clean the car, but the weather soon washes it off and you’re left at the staring position again..
Well I’ve been giving this matter some thought recently and wondered if there was a different way to solve this problem… a little more permanently. You’re thinking paint..? Well close…
Here are two rear spoilers for my R11 Turbo, and you can see they are already two different shades of black. The top one is the one I’m going to put on my car, but I wanted to have a play with some products on the surplus one, to see if I could improve it:
First step, was to give a small portion of the spoiler a deep clean with a grey scotchbrite pad, and some degreaser/panel wipe. That gave a dramatic improvement, after one pass!

This was where I started the science experiment for real! I did a bit of research, and found that you can dye cured Polyurethane with a solvent dye.. so thanks to eBay, I got a bottle of this Solvent Wood Dye:

I know it’s not wood I’m dying here, but it was the Solvent Dye I needed. Next I painted on a layer with a foam brush, and spread it evenly over the section I was testing on:

Next it was a few minutes under the garage fan heater:

Before a final inspection to see what the results were like:

I repeated the dying process 3 times in total and the final comparison is this:

I think this could be a REAL Winner for my final choice spoiler..! Will give it a few tests over coming days to check that the dye doesn’t run off in the rain etc… but if that works, then I’m onto a winner for a brand new OE looking spoiler, without the greasy covered in back-to-black look!!
Thanks for having a gander!!