WaveyDavey
Junior Member
- Messages
- 69
Now I'm no expert at this sort of thing, which is exactly why I'm posting this - on the off chance this motivates someone else to have a go.
I removed my grill to gain access to change my front emblem, and in doing so noticed how tired it was looking, with faded plastic, red stripes turned pink, cracked and missing tabs, etc:
The air dam behind was sound but faded and stone chipped:
So I used some Meguires Ultimate Black to darken the plastic, and a lick of Rustoleum Hardhat satin black on the metal grill:
The chrome work also looked a little tarnished, so I removed it all and gave it a buff with some polish: Before:
After:
The badge also got a polish, and a lick of Ferrari red Humbrol:
Then to the main grill. Numerous cracks meant the thing was extremely flimsey, and 3 tabs had broken off - two of which were still on the car. I cut up some aluminium strips and JB Plastic Welded them in place to repair and strengthen the plastic:
This appears to have fully restored its structural integrity, and the tabs appear solidly reattached. The visible side got a skim of bumper filler and a sand:
I also filled any prominent lumps and bumps from stone chips, and sanded the whole thing with 600 grit to key the surface:
After a wash and wipe down, the whole thing, including parking sensor mounts (which also got sanded) were primed with Halfords grey plastic primer:
My skim of the crack repairs hadn't been 100% successful, so I hit them with a few coats of U-Pol high build primer:
These areas were then sanded:
To be honest, the results weren't still perfectly smooth, but given that the grill previously had massive cracks and chunks missing in these areas, which was only noticeable up very close, a very slight indent when looking from a a few inches away, tucked between the slats of the grill, wasn't worth losing sleep over.
I removed my grill to gain access to change my front emblem, and in doing so noticed how tired it was looking, with faded plastic, red stripes turned pink, cracked and missing tabs, etc:
The air dam behind was sound but faded and stone chipped:
So I used some Meguires Ultimate Black to darken the plastic, and a lick of Rustoleum Hardhat satin black on the metal grill:
The chrome work also looked a little tarnished, so I removed it all and gave it a buff with some polish: Before:
After:
The badge also got a polish, and a lick of Ferrari red Humbrol:
Then to the main grill. Numerous cracks meant the thing was extremely flimsey, and 3 tabs had broken off - two of which were still on the car. I cut up some aluminium strips and JB Plastic Welded them in place to repair and strengthen the plastic:
This appears to have fully restored its structural integrity, and the tabs appear solidly reattached. The visible side got a skim of bumper filler and a sand:
I also filled any prominent lumps and bumps from stone chips, and sanded the whole thing with 600 grit to key the surface:
After a wash and wipe down, the whole thing, including parking sensor mounts (which also got sanded) were primed with Halfords grey plastic primer:
My skim of the crack repairs hadn't been 100% successful, so I hit them with a few coats of U-Pol high build primer:
These areas were then sanded:
To be honest, the results weren't still perfectly smooth, but given that the grill previously had massive cracks and chunks missing in these areas, which was only noticeable up very close, a very slight indent when looking from a a few inches away, tucked between the slats of the grill, wasn't worth losing sleep over.