Painting behind the grill area
Painting behind the grill area Those of you with billet grills that painted behind it black, did you actually take it to a body shop or did it yourself? If you did it yourself, are there any guides?
Do whatever you feel comfortable with, but this is what I would suggest as a minimum:
- Limit anything you do to only the area covered by the factory plastic grille. That way if you hose anything up at all worst case you can take it back to stock and nobody will be the wiser. You don't need to go out into the horizontal flats to make it look ok. With the way the grill sets in the recess just painting the vertical flat and a about half of the blend into the horizontal areas is good enough.
- Mask off the area with a good quality paint masking tape. I like 3M.
- Rough up just the clearcoat with a light wetsand or roughing pad. Don't go so severe that you break into the paint itself or down to primer. Just enough to put a little texture into the paint.
- Clean up the area well and remove all dust and lint. (Microfiber as noted above). Windex and then a water rinse worked well for me.
- Buy a inexpensive, large, painting tarp and mask off the entire area, along with the tarp all over the entire front end of the car, up and over the windshield, doors, and fenders. Overspray can go very far, especially if you are using spray paint outside. Cover up everything!
- I used Rustoleum "Industrial Series" flat black spray paint. Used light coats, did about 6 of them waiting about 5 minutes between each coat. Let it dry overnight and then re-installed the grille.
Don't get too tore up about doing this. The "back to stock" approach is your insurance. The area is very hard to see once the grill is installed, so a small run or other issue will not be noticeable. And this is on the front of your car, so if you drive at all, it is going to get dinged and chipped up. There is no way I'd have a body shop do this, but my car is a daily driver.
- Limit anything you do to only the area covered by the factory plastic grille. That way if you hose anything up at all worst case you can take it back to stock and nobody will be the wiser. You don't need to go out into the horizontal flats to make it look ok. With the way the grill sets in the recess just painting the vertical flat and a about half of the blend into the horizontal areas is good enough.
- Mask off the area with a good quality paint masking tape. I like 3M.
- Rough up just the clearcoat with a light wetsand or roughing pad. Don't go so severe that you break into the paint itself or down to primer. Just enough to put a little texture into the paint.
- Clean up the area well and remove all dust and lint. (Microfiber as noted above). Windex and then a water rinse worked well for me.
- Buy a inexpensive, large, painting tarp and mask off the entire area, along with the tarp all over the entire front end of the car, up and over the windshield, doors, and fenders. Overspray can go very far, especially if you are using spray paint outside. Cover up everything!
- I used Rustoleum "Industrial Series" flat black spray paint. Used light coats, did about 6 of them waiting about 5 minutes between each coat. Let it dry overnight and then re-installed the grille.
Don't get too tore up about doing this. The "back to stock" approach is your insurance. The area is very hard to see once the grill is installed, so a small run or other issue will not be noticeable. And this is on the front of your car, so if you drive at all, it is going to get dinged and chipped up. There is no way I'd have a body shop do this, but my car is a daily driver.
