my grille. and mirror covers. no more chrome on the truck. they are the only things on the truck that arent black, or silver.

basically, what im asking, can i prep the "chrome" so that i can paint it?

flame me or not, i really want to do this.

 

honestly...before you dive right in, see if someone wants to trade you mirrors or grille.....


makes no sence to waste a perfectly good set of chrome capped mirrors....if you know what i'm sayin'..

 

well you would just need to scratch the surface of the chrome plastic covering, but yeah you can paint them, just prep prep prep and use the right paint and you should be ok.

 

im sure you could find an XL owner that wishes they had an XLT...

 

nobody wants my front grille. its got a good crack in it from when i hit that jeep on the trail a while back. i really have nothing to lose lol

if it doesnt turn out well, i'll just buy an XL grille on ebay.

 

can someone photochop the grille and mirror covers a flat black for me?

 

another thing i've thought of doing, painting them body color...

 

i would first sand it down with like 150-300 grit sand paper. yea i know thats a big diff lol.

this gives the primer something to stick too besides a smooth surface.

after its lost its shine and looks pretty dull then you can just spray like 2 coats of primer.

then spray 2-3 light coats of paint.

finish off with about 2-3 coats of clear.

this is just from my experience so if anyone has a better way to do it then just cancel mine. but with the clear you can pretty much spray as much as you want until it has the finish you want. the more you spray the more gloss it will have but it will also give more protection from scratches and chips.

 

The chrome parts on the mirrors pop off.. paint them silver...

Hang the chrome grill in the garage and get a black or black/silver or silver grill.

 

how do they come off? is there any kind of adhesive to worry about? or are they just snaps or something

 

ohhhh...Ty. Want a set of the older styled mirrors with turnsignals??? I'm seriously considering chroming my truck out again...i kinda want those mirrors....




**believe it's adhesive 3M tape, and snaps for those covers.

 

on chrome

I remember looking in the parts manual at ford with the parts department in Tucson.

I know they come off. I think they use adheasive... go talk to the local parts department... the power mirror usually has them. tell them what your looking for and ask to see the parts on the monitor.. I bet you could get the peices seperate, then paint them (Right) and install them.

I had a set of those 06+ one peice manual mirrors on my 96... they wistled on the high way...

 

that is kind of tempting

but i dont know if i would want to go to the older style mirrors...

 

I did some chopping work...



Flat black grill and mirror caps





Same as above but with bedliner all the way across the rocker.





Here I tried to color match the mirrors and grill, this is the best I could come up with.

 

xlt's had a black grill standard unless it had a chrome appearance package

08 they made it standard to have a chrome grill

 

damn the black looks really good.. lol

and here i am painting it body color, we'll see how it looks. and if i dont like it, i'll do it black.

 

meh, i dont like it. and the silver ford paint doesnt match very well anyways.

im doing it black.

 

I like the silver!

 

Take a picture with the hood closed and step back a little.

I think i like it. But i think black would look better.

 

black FTW

 

body color looks the best

 

lol its getting done in black roll on bedliner. can you say rugged? depending, i might paint the bedliner silver at some point. but idk, it looks freakin sweet.

 

]

done! super rugged!

 

Shouldnt have done the ford emblem. But looks ok.

 

the emblem was toast when i pulled off my decal overlay i had. it did the same thing as the rear did. discolered it badly.