Quick and easy grille refurb...

by **OKANG** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 5:44 pm

Last weekend I refurbed my grille. It had the infamous chipping chrome problem.

Before

After

The entire grille was sanded and painted flat black. The center bar is covered with color-match vinyl and I might do the outer portion later on.

by **BradOwens** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 5:45 pm

nice. back in the day i painted my whole grille flat black with a silver emblem. 2 bad a guy i knew ruined it

by **Sentinel** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 6:14 pm

Did you sand it by hand or did you have a grit blaster?
Looks like a pain in da' ..

2000 SLEv6: TRD RSB, Eibach, Tokico

by **ClassySolaraGuy** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 6:37 pm

Nice work! Great pics too. How long did it take you?

by **OKANG** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:37 pm

Sentinel wrote:Did you sand it by hand or did you have a grit blaster?
Looks like a pain in da' ..

2000 SLEv6: TRD RSB, Eibach, Tokico

Hand sanded with 400, then 800. I just went over the tops of the small, vertical slats, so it wasn't too bad.

ClassySolaraGuy wrote:Nice work! Great pics too. How long did it take you?

It took me about 2-3 hours total, which includes drying time for the paint before applying the vinyl. The paint is Duplicolor Truck & Van, btw (the only aerosol paint I will use). It goes on thick, applies evenly, and dries very quickly compared to cheaper paints. The vinyl is from Avery and cost me $10. However, that's for a yard - enough to do the entire grille.

by **Astro** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:41 pm

Look nice. You should just vinyl the outer portion IMO, would look much better.

by **Solorange** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 12:34 pm

Im thinking about doing the same thing but just leave the silver chrome around the toyota emblem. I was goint to try a power washer to take the chrome off. If i set it to a single stream it and take the paint off a car so i figure it could take the chrome off.

by **toy4x4boy** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:30 pm

Is the vinyl factory white or is it just "white"?

by **OKANG** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 4:34 pm

Astro wrote:Look nice. You should just vinyl the outer portion IMO, would look much better.

Yeah, I may try that too. That's the beauty of vinyl - I can just pull the center bars off.

Solorange wrote:Im thinking about doing the same thing but just leave the silver chrome around the toyota emblem. I was goint to try a power washer to take the chrome off. If i set it to a single stream it and take the paint off a car so i figure it could take the chrome off.

I'm not so sure that would work. Even with sandpaper, it wasn't easy to remove.

toy4x4boy wrote:Is the vinyl factory white or is it just "white"?

It's a pearl white that's VERY close to the factory paint. I can't imagine getting any closer. Paint will look slightly different because it has more depth than vinyl.

by **nj99solara** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 8:39 pm

Solorange wrote:Im thinking about doing the same thing but just leave the silver chrome around the toyota emblem. I was goint to try a power washer to take the chrome off. If i set it to a single stream it and take the paint off a car so i figure it could take the chrome off.

With the right power washer it will just blow off like dust....that's what I used to get what was left of my chrome off and it only took me like 30 seconds for the entire grille.

by **Jai_Jai_Binks** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 8:44 am

nice work, thankfully my grill's still not chipping yet....

by **gone** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:14 am

nice job, looks alot better

Quick and easy grille refurb...

Quick and easy grille refurb...

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