hearno
Senior Member
I've had a LOT of free time lately and I've been trying to take advantage of it. A couple of things on my truck have been bugging me for a little while and today the weather cooperated so I woke up early to knock out as much as I could. I've put up a few posts lately looking for info on how to do certain things but couldn't find much. A member was kind enough to post up the FSM how to for the windshield cowl removal. Mine was looking pretty rough and chalky. It really made the front end look like shit. Since I have a sport, my bumpers have the silver inserts which I don't really care for. I've wanted to black them out for a while but not with paint. I was by myself so that made taking pictures hard and while I can't do a complete how-to, if anyone has a question please ask me. Here's what I did today.
1. Remove the windshield cowl to paint it. I used "Rustoleum paint for plastics." It works great and looks factory shiny. I prepped the pieces by cleaning them with water and dish soap. Then I used 3m adhesive remover to get any leftover residue off. One important step I've never seen anyone mention when painting plastics. This time of year especially, plastic builds up static electricity. It makes dust and other crap stick to it while you're trying to paint which makes the end result look bad. I spray the plastic with a shot of "Static Guard" that I keep around for my uniforms. It gets rid of the charge and dust etc isn't attracted to that piece anymore. Then I hit it with the 3m again to make sure the surface is still clean. Spray the paint and let it dry.
Before:
And the end result, installed:
Next up was the front silver trim. I decided to take the bumper off to make it easier. HUGE thanks to [MENTION=55855]zopperman[/MENTION] again for being my on-call helpline. Once the bumper was off, which was really easy, just not obvious, I used blue paint tape to make off the sections I didn't want to spray. I used a 3m scuff pad to rough up the silver factory paint. Then I used duplicolor adhesion promoter to spray the surface. Next up was Rustoleum aerosol bed liner, I did several thin coats. I ended up using a whole can. Another how to stated not to use the can once it was 80% empty because it would splatter. See this thread for a good write up: Drunk's side molding remedy
Here are the results.
Unfortunately, the rest of my truck is disgusting so it's hard to see how nice it actually looks. Overall I'm happy with the way everything turned out. I'll see how the bedliner holds up but reviews say it's fairly strong. Should be stronger than the paint anyways. The bumper came out awesome and the bedliner gave great coverage. Any light spots are dirt that fell while putting the bumper back on.
1. Remove the windshield cowl to paint it. I used "Rustoleum paint for plastics." It works great and looks factory shiny. I prepped the pieces by cleaning them with water and dish soap. Then I used 3m adhesive remover to get any leftover residue off. One important step I've never seen anyone mention when painting plastics. This time of year especially, plastic builds up static electricity. It makes dust and other crap stick to it while you're trying to paint which makes the end result look bad. I spray the plastic with a shot of "Static Guard" that I keep around for my uniforms. It gets rid of the charge and dust etc isn't attracted to that piece anymore. Then I hit it with the 3m again to make sure the surface is still clean. Spray the paint and let it dry.
Before:
And the end result, installed:
Next up was the front silver trim. I decided to take the bumper off to make it easier. HUGE thanks to [MENTION=55855]zopperman[/MENTION] again for being my on-call helpline. Once the bumper was off, which was really easy, just not obvious, I used blue paint tape to make off the sections I didn't want to spray. I used a 3m scuff pad to rough up the silver factory paint. Then I used duplicolor adhesion promoter to spray the surface. Next up was Rustoleum aerosol bed liner, I did several thin coats. I ended up using a whole can. Another how to stated not to use the can once it was 80% empty because it would splatter. See this thread for a good write up: Drunk's side molding remedy
Here are the results.
Unfortunately, the rest of my truck is disgusting so it's hard to see how nice it actually looks. Overall I'm happy with the way everything turned out. I'll see how the bedliner holds up but reviews say it's fairly strong. Should be stronger than the paint anyways. The bumper came out awesome and the bedliner gave great coverage. Any light spots are dirt that fell while putting the bumper back on.
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