Painting over Zolatone

[epperp]

I've seen many threads of people wanting to strip latex to expose Zolatone, but I'm wondering about going the other direction. We have a 59 Tradewind that has zolatone, but it is dirty/grimy and hasn't yielded to our cleaning efforts, plus we are rearranging the interior so there are unevenly faded areas showing. We have the entire interior removed, so there will be seam edges showing when we reinstall the interior. Zolatone sounds very complicated to apply and expensive. It looks OK to me, but I'm not a big enough fan of it yet to put a lot of time and money to preserve it.

At the risk of sounding blasphemous to the vintage community, what are other options for painting the inside?

Any particular paints to use? Special primers?
Thanks for any input. This forum is a terrific source of information!

[tkasten]

I did not like the look of the old Zolatone on our 65 Safari so I cleaned it good then applied 2 coats of Zinser latex primer. Then I applied 3 coats of Valspar Elan Pearl finish latex. 1 day between each coat then 7 days curing time before I did any more work. It's been 3 years now and the paint job is still flawless.

[epperp]

Looks nice! I have not heard of Zinser primer before--is this a primer for metal surfaces?

[Lothlorian]

Our 73 has zolatone and it was sticky, grimey, dirty, and just plain nasty. we tried everything and nothing worked until we used Mr. Clean Magic eraser. It came back like new. The only thing we painted was the endcaps.

My 1960 we bought had been painted by the PO. We went to Sherwin williams and they gave us the primer and paint we would need. We sanded the sloppy drips from the po and repainted. It looks great.

Brian

[tkasten]

Originally Posted by epperp

Looks nice! I have not heard of Zinser primer before--is this a primer for metal surfaces?

I mad a mistake it is not Zinser. The primer we used is Kilz Premium. Your question made me go to the basement paint storage room to check. Sorry.
It has worked wonderfully. We also painted the interior of a 63 Overlander several years ago using the same system and it still looks great. I think the key is getting the old surface really clean before priming. Good luck.

[drunkensloth]

I used two coats of glidden gripper primer and a behr topcoat at the advice of the home depot paint guy. I was a little concerned taking his advice, but it came out great. Our zolatone was nasty looking.

[epperp]

Thanks for your replies.

Cleaning is the best start for painting, but what to clean it with?

My first attempt, based on cleaning house siding, using TSP, bleach and warm water did not go well. It didn't make a dent in the grime/old cigarette smoke staining (I'm guessing at the source), and seemed to corrode any bare aluminum it splashed on.

I'll give the Mr. Clean eraser a try. Any other suggestions?

[barts]

We used a heavy duty degreaser from Costco - OilEater. Wear gloves - it will degrease your skin otherwise; don't dilute very much. This stuff cleaned the vinyl, painted zolotone, .... works like a charm, and is not expensive. Also
removes oil spots from driveways, cleans parts, etc.

- Bart