Right, I've been looking at a new front grill for the daily bus, but at the moment fund's won't allow for a VX grill or one of the ebay specials. So I decided to try and do a bit of work to my existing grill to see what sort of results I can get.
First job remove the three torx screws from both wheel arches, then all off the torx screws from the top of the bumper then loosen off the two bolts on the bottom mounting brackets (I think they were E12?). Now with a slight bit of persuasion the bumper can be pulled out of the side mounts and the entire thing will drop forwards.
Now it was time to remove the chrome trims from the grill, it takes a bit of patience and a small screw driver will help to pop the tabs down, but you need to be careful not to snap any of them off.
When I had the trims I wanted off it was time to pop the bumper back into place then bolt it all back up.
Now into the garage and time to break out the 800 wet and dry and give all of the trims a quick scuff, then panel wipe them all down and then they get treated to a few coats of grey primer and left to dry over night.
So last night has now turned into today and the primer has fully set, so back out to the garage with the 800 wet and dry to flat off the primer a quick visit from the panel wipe. So now we get to introduce the trims to the Sapphire Black and the result is below.
Now I know you can't see the now black trims too well on the now black work bench but I'll admit that on on of the coats I made a rookie error and got a small run on one of them.
Now thanks to some egging in from my work mates through WhatsApp I headed out to the garage armed with the missus hair drier and the determination of a man with a plan and spent the next 20 mins getting arm ache wafting the hair drier over my work bench. I then gently took the 800 wet and dry to the run annnnnddd.......
What occurred next can only be described as several minutes of industrial grade swearing. It turns out that the 20mins of arm ache wasn't enough to harden the paint enough to attempt to flatten it out tonight.
However my halfrauds touch up pen came to the rescue and it managed to fill the void left from where the run pulled off and a fourth coat has smoothed it over a bit. Now all this is locked in my garage for the night and will get flattened off tomorrow before the lacquer goes on.
First job remove the three torx screws from both wheel arches, then all off the torx screws from the top of the bumper then loosen off the two bolts on the bottom mounting brackets (I think they were E12?). Now with a slight bit of persuasion the bumper can be pulled out of the side mounts and the entire thing will drop forwards.
Now it was time to remove the chrome trims from the grill, it takes a bit of patience and a small screw driver will help to pop the tabs down, but you need to be careful not to snap any of them off.
When I had the trims I wanted off it was time to pop the bumper back into place then bolt it all back up.
Now into the garage and time to break out the 800 wet and dry and give all of the trims a quick scuff, then panel wipe them all down and then they get treated to a few coats of grey primer and left to dry over night.
So last night has now turned into today and the primer has fully set, so back out to the garage with the 800 wet and dry to flat off the primer a quick visit from the panel wipe. So now we get to introduce the trims to the Sapphire Black and the result is below.
Now I know you can't see the now black trims too well on the now black work bench but I'll admit that on on of the coats I made a rookie error and got a small run on one of them.
Now thanks to some egging in from my work mates through WhatsApp I headed out to the garage armed with the missus hair drier and the determination of a man with a plan and spent the next 20 mins getting arm ache wafting the hair drier over my work bench. I then gently took the 800 wet and dry to the run annnnnddd.......
What occurred next can only be described as several minutes of industrial grade swearing. It turns out that the 20mins of arm ache wasn't enough to harden the paint enough to attempt to flatten it out tonight.
However my halfrauds touch up pen came to the rescue and it managed to fill the void left from where the run pulled off and a fourth coat has smoothed it over a bit. Now all this is locked in my garage for the night and will get flattened off tomorrow before the lacquer goes on.
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