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Xaqtly
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2012-03-05, 02:56

The thread for creative projects you're doing, so you can keep us up to date and journal it and/or post photos.

This weekend I fixed a nasty eyesore of a problem - the chrome front grilles on my car. I'm not much for chrome. I don't like it on wheels, or on cars in general. Cadillac is, I think, still trying to appease older drivers while beginning to make new and exciting cars for younger drivers, so they figure they'll just slap some chrome on there and it'll be all good. Well I wasn't having it.

I am not a fan of making cars look stupid, and I really enjoy subtlety rather than obnoxious loud colors, stripes, 22" chrome rims etc., but something had to change.

So when I started, my car looked like this. This is how it comes from the factory, with chromed grilles up front.









I thought that chrome was doing a disservice to the looks of the rest of the car, with its black (stock) wheels, and dark tint. I didn't want to make it look stupid, or overstated, but I really dislike the chrome. So the answer was to make the grilles match the other parts of the car, with black contrasting the diamond white, just like the stock fog light enclosures and the wheels do. If done correctly, it would look good but still be subtle and not look like an aftermarket modification.

I decided on using Plasti Dip, as it was going to be easier to apply it without having to take the grilles out of the car. Since it acts like rubber cement before it cures, it would be easy to simply rub off any accidental overspray if necessary without having to worry about actually spraying black paint onto the body.

So we filled the space behind the grilles with newspaper to avoid spraying the heat exchanger and the radiator, used 3" painters tape to mask off the surrounding body, and got to work.
















After doing the grilles, I decided that the side vents, which were similarly chromed, needed the same treatment. So we masked them off and did the same thing.













Suffice it to say I am extremely pleased with how it came out. It's exactly what the car needed, in my opinion. It still looks factory stock... just better.
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