Cutting fins in grill + paint & mesh. [Archive]

youngin3

07-28-2008, 01:14 AM

I decided I would go ahead and do this since it was pretty much free, and I was tired of my car looking grandma-ish with the chrome fin grill. :D

I used a jigsaw to cut out the fins...
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/lavieinjuste/Image023.jpg

Here's some pics...
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/lavieinjuste/Image018.jpg
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/lavieinjuste/Image019.jpg
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/lavieinjuste/Image020.jpg

Trimmed it down a little closer with the jigsaw...
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/lavieinjuste/Image021.jpg

Me & Dad went to get paint, and were screwing around. I was telling him about some of you guys' avatars...
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/lavieinjuste/Image026.jpg

:D

mapid145

07-28-2008, 01:32 AM

lol yah.. ass wipes

make sure u sand it down before u do anything

dwjp90

07-28-2008, 01:33 AM

hey get a dremel and some bondo use the dremel to grind it down then put some bondo into the groove, sand and ad paint

youngin3

07-28-2008, 01:46 AM

I left the center piece. I am not doing the zenki style grille.

I did sand it down pretty good to most people's standards, but I missed a few parts I guess that I didn't do very well on and my first coat of primer came off when I sanded it down.

I went over it with the sander again, and now I am doing lighter coats so they can dry better.

Is 15-20 minutes between coats okay? I am doing them really light, you can see the primer behind the first coat of color if you look close. That is how thin they are...

dwjp90

07-28-2008, 01:53 AM

depends on the paint look at what it says
(i kno you werent doing ZA style, if you use dremel and grind the lumps down so they invert, you put a lil bondo in ther and sand that eaier than sanding plastic but nvm at this point, get some 150 and 500 sand paper, use the 150 then the 500 with water to get it real close n smooth

fatal1

07-28-2008, 02:01 AM

yea definately depends on the paint, but 15-20 min is more then enough really for applying coats for really any spraypaint. it is actually best to reaply coats when the paint is still tacky

dwjp90

07-28-2008, 02:03 AM

what color you painting it? beige?

youngin3

07-28-2008, 02:10 AM

I'm painting it glossy black.

I've got the primer done now, and I just laid down the first coat of black...

I'll take a picture of what it looks like, just a second...

dwjp90

07-28-2008, 02:13 AM

lol thats how i started out

https://www.thegalantcenter.org/showthread.php?t=30615

youngin3

07-28-2008, 02:15 AM

haha awesome. Mine looks just like your first picture right now. The paint is kinda wet, and my phone takes crappy pictures, but here ya go.

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/lavieinjuste/Image027.jpg

youngin3

07-28-2008, 02:16 AM

It shows where the primer came off. I am hoping that'll sand out as I move on... Maybe not.

dwjp90

07-28-2008, 02:16 AM

nice, yea thn i was like fuck it im going to do this eventully.

dwjp90

07-28-2008, 02:17 AM

what paint are you useing? brand name.

youngin3

07-28-2008, 02:23 AM

Krylon Fusion

I made sure it said it was for plastics on the back of the can just to be safe...

zknight01GTZ has been helping me over the phone with this when I was gathering materials.

dwjp90

07-28-2008, 02:26 AM

dude, you dont need primer for that stuff, lol
and you can go thicker layers than that, that stuff bonded to the chrome on mygril and i still cant get that shit off. i used pant thinner and all kinds of stuff to get it off, no luck. you can paint a nice layer of it and go from there.

youngin3

07-28-2008, 02:36 AM

I rubbed my finger up against it, and it peeled right off. It only dried for fifteen minutes or so, and I didn't give it much between the two or three coats I had on already...

It seems to be doing better now.

I am going to keep sanding those little ridges where I didn't get the chrome all the way off, and it'll all even out in the end.

Thanks for helpin out.

youngin3

07-28-2008, 02:44 AM

Started sanding again and the shit came off!

All the way down to the chrome.

I am just gonna paint it all on up to the black, and then I'll let it dry for the rest of the night and then I'll do the gloss tomorrow I guess.

I don't know what else to do!!

beam514

07-28-2008, 02:54 AM

I didn't use Krylon fusion, just normal krylon, and my grill came out great. No chipping or flaking really except one part I didn't sand very well (but you can't see it cause its on the horizontal piece under the hood)

really, you should do the clearcoat within like an hour or two of finishing with the color coats (This is what warmandscsi told me and I tried it and it turned out great on a dif. project)
I didn't do that for my grill cause I didn't know at the time, and although its holding up well, if I were to go back I would do it the right way

youngin3

07-28-2008, 02:58 AM

How many clear coats should I do?

I was thinking a good 8 - 10 light ones...?

beam514

07-28-2008, 03:05 AM

You know, I really have no idea. On my grill i did a lot of thin coats, and it has a kind of bumpy look to it (which is okay cause my grill is matte black)

now for my eclipse wheels which are glossy, I did just a few kinda thick glossy clearcoats, and so the surface is like silky smooth
I really don't know for sure, but if you want smooth-glossy, I would do kinda of a thick layer that you can see, but not so thick that it starts to run... hopefully someone else here can give some advice

here are some pics of the paint+clearcoat on my wheels. You can really see how smooth the finish is
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc141/beam514/IMG_0463.jpg
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc141/beam514/IMG_0465.jpg

youngin3

07-28-2008, 03:09 AM

I think it will be okay if it is screwed up looking, this is a learning experience. I can always sand everything off and start over. My dad ended up buying the paint for me anyways, so I still have the cash I was going to spend on it in the first place.

I am still doctoring at the one spot on the center of the grill. I don't want it to be retarded looking. Once it is pretty much gone, I will start clear coating it.

beam514

07-28-2008, 03:13 AM

all right good luck :D

you will be so much happier with the look of your G afterwards. I seriously hated the grandma fins too and now everytime I look at the car I admire the grill LOL

youngin3

07-28-2008, 03:20 AM

Thanks for helping.

That was one of the only things I don't like about the body of the 8G. The next thing I am going after is the front fender gap, and zknight01GTZ is possibly going to sell me his GTZ springs when he gets his Teins.

youngin3

07-28-2008, 03:44 AM

1st coat of clear and it looks ten times better. I think this will probably turn out a lot better than I thought it would.

:D

youngin3

07-28-2008, 08:28 AM

Triple post, but I am done with it for now.

The paint in the middle is gonna chip or peel off when I wash the car, I know it. I am gonna have to sand it down really good and paint it right. I'm kinda pissed about that but oh well.

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/lavieinjuste/Image031.jpg
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/lavieinjuste/Image030.jpg

ricky_db

07-28-2008, 10:47 AM

It looks good man

dwjp90

07-28-2008, 11:27 AM

ok get krylon fusion gloss black, sand the living fuck out of your grill, then spray a med thick layer of it on to your grill, let dry for two-three days

99 galant

07-28-2008, 11:45 AM

nice work for the first time around, came out better then what i would have most likely done

youngin3

07-28-2008, 07:17 PM

I took it off and sanded it down some more. I guess part of me rushing through it last night was because I ran out of sand paper. I went and got some 60 and 200 grit and smoothed it all out so maybe it'll look a little better.

I also picked up some 3M weatherstripping seal in a tube to hold down the mesh. I thought it would be perfect since it was tacky right out of the tube and it's black so it'd be okay if it bled over a bit.

I need to do something else to the car to make the grill stick out less. It is just one black part on my not black car. haha

If I smoke the headlights, will it make less light come out? I have the fake HID bulbs in there and they aren't the brightest ever...

mapid145

07-28-2008, 08:12 PM

get the real hids.. trust me its like night and day.. for ur grill try to get some touch up paint for ur car and paint the mitsu symbol into ur body color..

and since u still have ur jigsaw.. might as well get rid of the fins in ur front bumper.. the vertical and the horizontal one

youngin3

07-28-2008, 08:15 PM

get the real hids.. trust me its like night and day.. for ur grill try to get some touch up paint for ur car and paint the mitsu symbol into ur body color..

Nah, I like the red. I think I just want to make some other parts of the car black to match it.

and since u still have ur jigsaw.. might as well get rid of the fins in ur front bumper.. the vertical and the horizontal one

That will leave gaps in the bumper where they used to be though, wouldn't it? I have no experience with bondo or fiberglass, so I don't know how I would fill them in.

beam514

07-28-2008, 09:49 PM

you can do what I did and paint the horizontal bars and fin black. I messed up when I was taping though, so I'm going to end up painting where the fins touch the bumper and the horizontal bar touches the side too.

heres a pic from MOD
http://socallifestyle.com/MOD08/IMG_3605.jpg

dwjp90

07-28-2008, 10:21 PM

^ thats what i did at first,
go to a cvs or soome kind of store that carries stuff thats as seen on tv, get magic putty and use that to fill in the gap, then get a thing of touch up paint for bodega beige and paint that part of it

dwjp90

07-28-2008, 10:23 PM

paint the side parts on your g black (they say galant)

and paint your radiator support flat black

4g63lover

07-29-2008, 12:02 AM

sand the grille all the way down...

sand it with 200, then a 600.

the re-paint it.

one tip though, if you dont want it to chip, I'd use rim paint.... they take a whole lot of beating to chip, and driving on the highway is not even enough beating to chip it.

I used to have a graphite grill painted with the rim paint and it NEVER chipped ever.

youngin3

07-29-2008, 12:09 AM

I am tired of fucking with it. I am leaving it as is for now until I cool down and have a chance to get more paint and sandpaper. I screwed up putting the emblem back on because I put too much adhesive and it bled out. I started wiping it up with my finger, and it spread across the emblem and the grill, and it won't come off. If I get it back to the way I want it to be, I am going to have to buy a new emblem off of someone, or completely get rid of it by filling in the hole with something. I really like the emblem though.

greddy

07-29-2008, 12:12 AM

Yeah, my grill is painted with rim paint, and it's gunmetal, and it doesn't chip or anything. Blacking out your heads doesn't lose you light, cuz you don't paint the reflector, my G was like yours with a dark grill and light 99-01 heads, so I just got blacked out heads and it looks 30x better. Here is a before and after pic
Before
http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/8460/p1000905io9.th.jpg (http://img374.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p1000905io9.jpg)

After
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/3661/74179484dg8.th.jpg (http://img514.imageshack.us/my.php?image=74179484dg8.jpg)

youngin3

07-29-2008, 12:16 AM

Can I black out my stock heads, or do I have to buy aftermarket ones?

greddy

07-29-2008, 12:36 AM

You can black out your stock heads, I bought a set that was already blacked out from another member really cheap. I saved my other heads to try a projector project. All you have to do is take them apart, take the reflector out, spray everything flat black, put the reflector back in, and make sure you seal it really well or else they'll get moisture inside. And clear your corners while you are at it. I have some nighttime pics posted in a new thread, it doesn't affect the lighting one bit. I have the same fake HIDs in while I'm waiting for my head and fog HID kits to come.

dwjp90

07-29-2008, 01:58 AM

lavie, its real easy to get a new emblem, just go to a junkyard, they are bound to have a couple 7gs or a few 8gs, on the back of the 7g is an emlem that will go right in.

RAZ_76

07-29-2008, 02:16 AM

PAy shipping both ways and 40 bucks for my parts and labor and I'll black out your heads really good.

dwjp90

07-29-2008, 02:26 AM

lavie, raz paints cars so you can be sure that it willl b qaulity

raz, the car in your sig, are you going to paint that one flat black?

youngin3

07-31-2008, 11:26 AM

lavie, its real easy to get a new emblem, just go to a junkyard, they are bound to have a couple 7gs or a few 8gs, on the back of the 7g is an emlem that will go right in.

I found an emblem on a 7G at our local junkyard. It was on the front. They had two 7Gs, no 8Gs, :( and only one eclipse, but it was an 01, manual transmission, and everything was gone out from under the hood.

PAy shipping both ways and 40 bucks for my parts and labor and I'll black out your heads really good.

I think I'll wait on that. I might just tint them.

ZigenScarface

07-31-2008, 11:34 AM

so u n ur dad talk about TGC together?

youngin3

07-31-2008, 02:33 PM

so u n ur dad talk about TGC together?

Huh? What makes you think that?

He doesn't know anything about TGC really. He just knows I get a lot of ideas off the internet...