Painted brace between headlights
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From: Showing Italians the power of LS1
Painted brace between headlights I was bored today, so I painted the two braces underhood between the headlights and above the windshield washer resevoir. I was tired of it looking like crap. Here's a few pics:
Sorry, I didn't take any before or during pics, you all know what the ugly gray piece looks like. It's not hard to remove either; on the T/A, you pull out the 3 plastic expanding connectors on top, then flip up the headlights. behind them there's 2 10mm bolts on each side that hold it to the radiator support. then there's two 10mm bolts on the top center. Bend the front bumper back some, and the piece comes out. I also removed the black metal brace that's directly in front of the hood latch and painted it as well. it is held on with two 10mm bolts. I roughed the surface of both pieces up with 80 grit sandpaper on an orbital sander, then cleaned them with alcohol. once they were dry I sprayed a coat of adhesion promoter, then pewter paint. After that was dry, I sprayed two coatd of clearcoat to finish them off. All the paints and adhesion promoter I used are made by Duplicolor and can be found at your local auto parts store. After i re-assembled it, i think it looks a hell of a lot better than the ugly gray plastic.
Sorry, I didn't take any before or during pics, you all know what the ugly gray piece looks like. It's not hard to remove either; on the T/A, you pull out the 3 plastic expanding connectors on top, then flip up the headlights. behind them there's 2 10mm bolts on each side that hold it to the radiator support. then there's two 10mm bolts on the top center. Bend the front bumper back some, and the piece comes out. I also removed the black metal brace that's directly in front of the hood latch and painted it as well. it is held on with two 10mm bolts. I roughed the surface of both pieces up with 80 grit sandpaper on an orbital sander, then cleaned them with alcohol. once they were dry I sprayed a coat of adhesion promoter, then pewter paint. After that was dry, I sprayed two coatd of clearcoat to finish them off. All the paints and adhesion promoter I used are made by Duplicolor and can be found at your local auto parts store. After i re-assembled it, i think it looks a hell of a lot better than the ugly gray plastic.
I did the same thing (same color) a couple years ago, actually it was about 3 since we were in our old house at the time. It's nice subtle changes like this that add to the overall appearance.
Nice job.
Nice job.
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Joined: Apr 2004
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From: Wausau, WI
Originally Posted by 67SS&99Z28
I painted mine black but I agree, it makes the engine bay look 1000 times better. Good job!
Originally Posted by Snootch
I was bored today, so I painted the two braces underhood between the headlights and above the windshield washer resevoir.
awesome gonna have to do this soon...that gray piece along with the pop up headlight brackets(collecting rust) on my t/a are starting to look like real ***...wish i knew how to take that bracket off though without disassembling the whole front end lol 
