Thread: painting grills
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Old 11-16-2005, 03:35 PM   #4
///M Power

Name: ///M Power
Title: Senior Member
Status: Offline
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: St. Louis, MO | Redondo Beach, CA
Rate My Car: 23 / 329
Your Ride: 95 m3 turbo
Grill surrounds are chrome plated plastic. I just painted mine black yesterday

Heres what you do. Take off radiator cover, use two screwdrivers and pop out the grills. Try nto to break any tabs. Once thye are out use a screwdriver and pop the surrounds out from the kidneys. Try not break any tabs. Once off get soem 80 grit sandpaper and sand the shit out of it. Hopefull the chrome wont start crackign but if it does and it starts to peel dotn worry too much. Then after sanding them down (includign edges) gets some adhesion promoter. spray on. wait 10 mins. do a second coat. good great grand. then get some premium primer filler and git ir done. apply a light tacky coat. wait 5 minutes. then apply a good coat. wait 10 minutes. apply another solid coat. good deal. These should also make any slight dents ont h surroudsn disapear. Now if they ook to be really good and smooth then u dont need to sand them down again. here I used 300 grit sandpaper on one of the grills cuz the chrome uderneath peeled so i wanted to make it look smoother. then wash and dry them off. i used a blow dryer. then get some spray paint. I used gloss black. apply a light and verytacky coat. give it about 7 minutes. come backa nd apply a real coat. another 7 minutes.a pply another rea coat. another 7 minutes.a dn finally a third good coat. it should all look smooth now. then i went ahead and got some clear coat. applied a tack coat. then 5 mins later did a good coat. 5 mins later another good solid clean coat. the I let them dry for about 3 hours. really i shudve waited longer but i had to go. i shudve left them off but as of this mornign they dont look bad at all. in fact look pretty professional. anywho id let them sit overnight just to be good befor eyou apply any pressure to attach them back to the kidneys.wen putting them back ont he kidneys i wudtry adn use two screwdrivers and avoid touching the surrounds at all t avoid fingerprints and excessive pressure that may dent or blemish ur super thick coated surrounds once on the kidneys just pop them back into the car and put ur radiator cover back on. done and done. they came out great.

buddy nathan going to town with sand paper


pic took last night in garage. better pics eventually.
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