Automotive

Plastidipping the Ranger grill.

oday I decided it was time to do something about the faded grill on the “new” Ranger.  It started its life silver/chrome, but in the past 13 years had turned to a horrible yellowish plastic color.  I decided I’d give plastidip a shot after hearing great things.  I pulled the grill (which was held on by the most brutal clips) got it masked off.  Lacking any sort of proper paint studio, I decided to use the bed of the truck and a tarp to get the job done and it worked great.  I applied probably 10+ coats in the end, mostly due to the honeycomb pattern which required a lot of sprays at a lot of different angles to cover.  In the end I think it turned out pretty good!

 

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The starting point of the grill. It was looking pretty tired, especially against the black of the truck.
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I pulled the Ford badge, masked the trim (I was afraid if I tried to remove the grill from the trim I’d destroy the plastic clips that held it in place) and set it up and got to work in the bed of the truck.
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Nearing completion, just a couple more coats to go.
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The completed job with everything installed back onto the truck.
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I also “rejuvenated” the headlights. I forgot the name of the product but it involved wet sanding the lenses down and then applying an IR curing epoxy to them to gloss them up. Not bad for 13 year old lenses.

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Close up. That badge could use a good cleaning, I think.

 

In the end I’m really happy with how everything turned out.  I’m interested in seeing how well the plastidip holds up, but even if it’s not well, it was $5 and a couple hours wasted at the most.