Paint Chrome Grill | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Paint Chrome Grill

I removed my Safari bar which was chrome to let me install and my front hitch. With the bar gone, the chrome grill just looked like too much to me and some other people. I took some charcoal colored vinyl I had and covered the grill to get a feel for what it would look like. I liked the general look of it and decided to go ahead and paint it up.

Using James T's thread I tried to bubble the chrome from my grill, but my chrome is very resilient as you can see. It would wrinkle but not peel-

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So I broke out the dremel detail sander I bought some time back and started sanding.

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While sanding I decided to leave the vertical bars chrome, so I masked the center off

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Sanded and ready to paint-

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I used dupli color Dark Shadow Grey rattle can paint, and dupli color clear top coat. Four color coats later and two clear coats later-

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All of this went so well and I had extra paint, so I pulled my discolored front bumper, sanded with 800 grit, primed with flexible primer, and painted, then cleared same color-

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Let it all dry a couple of hours and put it on-

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Here is a before from when I was working on my front hitch the other day-

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Looks nice.
 




































i like it....very nice.
 






Looks good, i need to paint my bumpers sometime. By sometime i mean this summer, kinda snowy out now.
 






looks very clean
 






ever consider body color instead? i did the inside of my grill body color and left the outside chrome, now am doing an '01 limited bumper body color too to go with it, but then again i like monochrome...
 






ever consider body color instead? i did the inside of my grill body color and left the outside chrome, now am doing an '01 limited bumper body color too to go with it, but then again i like monochrome...

I thought about it, but the color would be hard to match without getting a quart color matched at a paint shop. I don't have any equipment to paint like that, and there is no way I could buy a decent paint gun right now. I did all of this for $16.

But it is a good idea, if I ever get the right stuff (time, shop, equipment, money) I want to do some serious custom painting.
 






I just wish the bumper color was similar to the grill color, I guess the darker base color of the bumper made for a darker finish. I may paint it later with grey primer and then paint it again.

Evan,

I think the color variance looks great! I came here looking for inexpensive details/repairs for our 99 Mounty and your Bumper/Grille work is exactly what I had in mind!:thumbsup: One Question: Our front plastic bumper cover has a couple of small scratches and impact gouges from hitting a fire hydrant at low speed {:rolleyes:ABS doesn't suspend the laws of physics or mitigate oversteer honey.} If needed I'll post a separate thread with photo but what filler, like bondo but for plastic, would you suggest?

P.S. Good Site. GREAT People!
 






Welcome to the site, Bill

You'll need a filler that is flexible, my bumper flexes a whole lot, a filler that gets rigid wouldn't last any time. I honestly don't know what a good product would be, but it must remain flexible. They make flexible primer as I used, it won't flake off or crack when the plastic flexes.
 






Try some jb weld--
let it cure well over night-if you put it near a heat register it really helps. When it is good and hard, sand it down smooth. :thumbsup:
 






Thanks Gentlemen!
 






Love the color...
 






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