The rain came in time for the weekend. I should have spent my day cleaning the house…but instead I decided I would feel much better about the day if I made some much wanted mods to my Midlife Crisis.

Here’* what I did:

Engine cover before:


During: Please note that the paint was to have a textured, "hammered" look to it....



And after:






Before on the car:



And after on the car:



But WAIT! There’* MORE!

Recognize these? Okay…so they’re upside down…



They come out very easy…if you do it the right way… with the hood open, gently push up on the plastic front piece while pushing out the grill part. There’* two little tabs, one on each side. Be sure to push the grill OUT away from the engine bay…


There are three tabs on the bottom….



During:



Before



After:


Here you can see both cover and grille: Before:



and After



Some may think a silver cover is tacky...but with my rims, grill, and badge all silver, I really like the way they all tie in together.











Overall, I’m extremely happy with both the cover and grille. Total cost was about $4 for the paint – specially formulated for plastics, no primer required…chip resistant in 7 days. Hopefully the grill won’t chip before then - I can't NOT drive for 7 days. We’ll see how that holds up. If it does chip...then I'll have to repaint with a temporary grill for the interim.

Nice mods. The grille really meshes with the lights and the fogs a lot better now. Engine cover looks nice too.

Excellent job Tracy.... That looks awesome. Funny thing the other day i was washing my car and thought about painting the grill pieces too. How hard were they to get out and did you have to sand them a bit before painting?

Deb

I like the engine cover it really brightens up the engine compartment. I'm gonna reserve judgement on the grill til I see it in person. It looks a little too bright but may just be the photos. From the photos I'm wondering if gray would be better than silver.

Smashing

Flows well

Nice job there Tracey.......now go and do your laundry and house cleaning...oh and don't forget to cook dinner for the kids!

I'm thinking of doing both mine white.......what dy'a think?

Looks good Tracy.

Did you also take the red out of your arrow?

I think you should have used red for the engine cover 3800 Series II logo but the black doesn't look bad.

I have thought many times of painting my grills silver. Even had them out a few times to get ready to do but decided not to at the last minute because of two reasons. The black contrasts more with my silver colour and if the paint chips over time it would start to look bad and have to be repainted. Did you know the dealer wants $50 apiece for new ones!

Maybe Boosty can find some in his scrap yard journeys so I can swap back and forth. :?

For what she does for them,they should be doing all that FOR her

Thank you for the comments everyone!

Techy Ted - In person, the color is identical to my banner and nose badge. I'll take pics outside when the weather clears a bit to try to get a better looksee of the grilles.

BaileyJack - No sanding or priming was required with the paint I bought by Krylon called Fusion - formulated for plastics. Supposedly chip resistant. The grilles come out very easy…if you do it the right way… with the hood open, gently push up on the plastic front piece while pushing out the grill part. There’* two little tabs at the top - one on each side. Be sure to push the grill OUT away from the engine bay. Once those are popped out, lift the grille to clear the three remaining tabs located on the bottom.

Brian - no kids to feed this weekend, good thing eh? Go for the white...if you don't like it, you can always repaint it!

Paul - Yes, I silvered out the arrow a while ago - I cheated by putting a decal on it. I thought about going red on the cover'* lettering, but decided that since I've eliminated all red with the exception of the hub centers, that I would stick with black and silver for now. Besides...I only had black paint laying around the house. I sprayed on a piece of cardboard, stole the kids' new paintbrush from a watercolor kit, and painted it on by hand. Lol. I was nervous about painting the grills too...but finally figured "big deal, go for it". This paint claims to be chip resistant after seven days...I'll let you know how it holds up.

I like the grill Tracy I think it brightens up the front end.

now for the cover? Hmmmm I'll have to see it in person.