Painted My Grills on my '01 ES

[MisterT]

Not much to do when you have an ES other than a MP3 conversion, so I tried the gutter guards and they were too short for the bottom by only a matter of inches (otherwise they would have looked good!) And the top, well, you have the damn emblem right smack in the middle. I took a chance, but am pleased with the results of simply painting the grills. Here are before and after shots.

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BEFORE

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AFTER

The top of the grill is easy to come off. Two phillip head screws that come off and 4 (2 on each side) plastic screws that pry off).

The bottom I left alone and covered bumper, upper grill, and headlights and sprayed it.

Materials used: Duplicolor Chrome paint made for trim/accessories and Multipurpose primer (not for METAL surfaces)

I sprayed 2-3 coats of each. Duplicolor does not recommend heavy coats of the Chrome paint. Some who did theirs after mine used clearcoat, but I didn't. It may not be a bad idea. It is very cheap to do and looks nice.

MisterT

 

[Matthew]

very clean looking, close ups?

 

[MisterT]

That is as close up as I have it right now because I had to borrow the digital camera.

 

[vlad]

I always wondered what that would look like. It looks good but I think you should of taken the lower grill off because by painting it while it was on it looks like you also painted some of the stuff behind it. Maybe it's just the pics though. Definately post some more (day/night) whenever you get your hands on another digicam.

 

[MisterT]

It looks good but I think you should of taken the lower grill off because by painting it while it was on it looks like you also painted some of the stuff behind it.

That is part of the plastic of the lower grills (the three middle pieces and the pieces next to the fog lamps). Trust me, Iwas careful not to spray directly up in there. I had newspaper stuffed every where!!

MisterT

 

[jono1200]

I am planning on painting my grills as well, and founf the bottom grill fairly easy to remove.
It's much easier if you remove the air dam first, (held on by four screws) , and the licence plate holder. After that, just unclip the grill from the rear (one clip at each corner, and four central ones) and puch it out. The four corner clips take a minute of fiddling at a funny angle to get, but I think it took me 10 minutes tops to get my grill out!
Happy painting.....