Making the Grille Shiny

[Wheel]

Those cowl vents look good. They are plastic, so no paint to strip. What kind of paint did you use?

How about the windshield wipers? They are metal so the paint could be stripped down and the metal polished. My Fiat is black, so I am trying to treat her with a little more bling.

I ended up picking up a small bottle of Blue Magic Metal Polish to finish the grille up. It is supposed to be safe for all metals and leaves "a silicone film for a lasting protection to keep the shine". Time will tell I guess.

[124JOE]

wheel,i worked at a hobby shop for 7 years
they have paint for plastic "lexan"its an enamal
it etches into the plastic and is rc fuel proof
the brand is pactra
outlaw black

[RRoller123]

@Wheel: Sorry it took a while to answer your question. I just used a rattle can touchup from PepBoys, in Toyota Silver. I did the same color on the mirrors too. Thought a little about painting the wipers, but I think I will leave them black. Here are the mirrors in the same Toyota Silver:

[dantye]

These grilles are pretty flimsy, and often are broken in several places. They are also easy to break when removing, cleaning, polishing, or re-installing if you are not careful. Mine was broken in 3 places when I got the car and rattled like hell.
I removed it and cleaned it up but did not polish it. Then I patched the broken areas using small strips of that heavy duty fiberglass carton strapping bent laterally into to V-shapes and glued invisibly to the back with super glue. Then I painted it with three coats of chrome paint. There are several kinds available, but the ones designed for wheels are typically more durable. Not "Concourse," but good enough to become a "Calendar Girl."

[RRoller123]

Installed my new "chromed" grills today. It took (3) rounds of chemical paint stripper and wire brushing in the drill press to strip them completely. Then (3) coats of sandable primer and (3) coats of "chrome" enamel. The lower grill is held in by some sort of plastic knibbling-pin-doohickey threaded parts on either side that disintegrated upon removal. The "W" shaped brackets survived. So I fashioned up a replacement method using SS 1/4-20 x 1-1/2 hex head bolts and large SS fender washers and matching rubber washers to span the access hole. Installed a U-nut clip plate on the "W" shaped holddown. Then the holdown could be positioned behind the lower grill (pita) and the bolt pulled it in tight against the frame. There is enough lateral play that you can get the vertical parts of the upper and lower grilles to line up well with each other. You can't see the bolts holding the lower grill in unless you get down under the car. Works pretty well. Pics below. (So now the last thing on my exterior color modification scheme is to do something with the zebra striped rocker panel covers.)

[Wheel]

Lookin' good!!

[RoyBatty]

You all got me scheming about how to dress up my black grill.
I decided to clean it up and apply a silver finish to the horizontal sections only. It came out pretty nice.
With the vertical sections left in a black finish, it gives the appearance of only having the horizontal sections installed.

[RRoller123]

Post a picture! That sounds pretty cool.

[Chihua33]

RRoller I'm glad you posted that picture of that lower grill clamp thing, I was so dang confused last night trying to figure out how that grill attached! Unfortunately I don't have those clamps with mine...Maybe I can rig something up!

[RRoller123]

Here is how it goes together, I would expect that the "W" pieces could be easily fabricated from a piece of aluminum or such, maybe even a block of delrin or hard poly. I haven't heard these little clamp parts mentioned much on the Forum and am not sure if they are generally available, but probably are off of a parts car? The original nut plates on the "W" pieces are plastic and just exploded when I tried to remove them. I have no idea how they are rigged up inside the wall of the body so nothing shows, but the bolt solution I did doesn't show either, and anyway if it did, a little paint would hide it pretty well. Forgive my terrible penmanship, my right wrist is badly arthritic from years of woodworking and computer mousing.

(I just realized in the pic below that I drew the "W" piece backwards, the points of the grille obviously point to the front of the car, where the bolt comes from, but you get the idea.)

[dantye]

A few dabs of clear silicone sealant at potential rattle points can also help, since these grilles can be bent by a small bird.

[RRoller123]

Yes, and I forgot to mention that I formed a slight curve in the bottom grille so that it wouldn't hit the frame of the car at every bump. The "W" pieces hold it quite firmly, and just a little applied curve keeps it from banging around.

[RoyBatty]

Not sure about the image quality for this shot but here goes.

[DocGraphics]

That looks nice Roy, I debated doing exactly that when I had mine out to paint but decided to just do the "chrome" paint on the upper & matt black on the lower.

Think I'm going to use the "chrome" paint on the cowl grills too, mine were painted burgundy along with the body & disappear.

[RRoller123]

Looks nice, and it makes the car look to have a wider stance too! Like the fog lights, been thinking about that myself.