[Pon]

So I got my trailhawk last week and was so excited that I went down this trail behind my job. I ran over a tree branch that kicked up and now I have a scratched grill trim and paint between the bumper and grill. I ordered the touch up paint and while I wait for that I wanna do something about this trim.

So now on to the reason of the post, I thought hard about what color to paint the trim and wanted to get everyone's opinion on how it looks. I am using plasti dip and did one as a sample and peeled it off right after. I tried to remove the girl to paint it and I tried my best but couldn't figure it out and with no kind of help on the net at all I wasn't flying blind. So I watched a bunch of dip videos on YouTube and it was easier then I thought and I really dig the result. After I do it officially I'll post up like step by step of it.

Here is it painted and after I peeled it off showing that gross scratch lol I painted it red so it accents like the tow hooks and emblems

 

[CLShifter]

Wow, that looks like it turned out great! I plan on trying this eventually with my new Latitude, in order to black out the chrome rings. Looking forward to seeing your step-by-step.

 

[crom]

I really really like that... Like really like it... Really looking forward to your step by step

 

[Hdreserve]

Everyone is different with colors & I just don't prefer the red & orange together. I thought of going with the orange Rene & would have done something to have either black or orange tow hooks instead. Great job on covering up the scratch & love the concept of being able to change the grill color!

 

[Jamesl304]

I was thinking about doing the same thing, are you going to do the whole grille? And did you manage to get just that piece of trim out or just paint it in place?

 

[tony]

i think it would be cool to find some orange camo wrap and to wrap each one of those in the orange camo

 

[Jamesl304]

So I managed to take the grill inserts out without removing the entire grill. Went through an entire can of plasti dip and it came out pretty good I think!

 

[LittleRedJeep]

Looks good.. The black and red really accent each other well.

Any hints on removing the inserts? That was my original plan for dipping mine black but just could not figure out how to get them out and didn't want to break them.

 

[Jamesl304]

Yea sure! So the first thing you need to do it take the 4 torx screws off the top and the 4 plasting plugs. Then you need to take the plastic skirt that goes around the yellow hood latch off. It takes a different size torx but I just used a flat head screwdriver to remove them. That will give you access to 2/3rd of the clips on the back side. I found that using 2 flat heads and doing the top clip and a side clip from the back works best. You need to slide the flat head in between to separate the clip in order to pull the trim piece off and keep a little tension on it while you do the rest of the clips. There is also a rubber skirt that is on top of the radiator which but it is easily worked around. Let me know if you have any questions or for pictures

 

[pgm888]

Yea sure! So the first thing you need to do it take the 4 torx screws off the top and the 4 plasting plugs. Then you need to take the plastic skirt that goes around the yellow hood latch off. It takes a different size torx but I just used a flat head screwdriver to remove them. That will give you access to 2/3rd of the clips on the back side. I found that using 2 flat heads and doing the top clip and a side clip from the back works best. You need to slide the flat head in between to separate the clip in order to pull the trim piece off and keep a little tension on it while you do the rest of the clips. There is also a rubber skirt that is on top of the radiator which but it is easily worked around. Let me know if you have any questions or for pictures

It looks awesome. I send you an IM for more details. Thanks.

 

[MRM331]

Yea sure! So the first thing you need to do it take the 4 torx screws off the top and the 4 plasting plugs. Then you need to take the plastic skirt that goes around the yellow hood latch off. It takes a different size torx but I just used a flat head screwdriver to remove them. That will give you access to 2/3rd of the clips on the back side. I found that using 2 flat heads and doing the top clip and a side clip from the back works best. You need to slide the flat head in between to separate the clip in order to pull the trim piece off and keep a little tension on it while you do the rest of the clips. There is also a rubber skirt that is on top of the radiator which but it is easily worked around. Let me know if you have any questions or for pictures

I did this same thing. It's not easy but very possible. The smallest flathead you can find will be your friend.

-Jason

 

[vodkaRenegade]

So glad I found this. I just plasti dipped my Jeep badges front and back and the sport badge. I wanted to do the chrome grill inserts too but did not want to risk breaking anything. Didnt have the torx to take a look under the shroud. Had to borrow a set from work to swap my diverter valve but I took em back Friday.
Also dipped the orange front corner running lights in smoke translucent color. About to go pop them back on and see how it looks.

 

[vodkaRenegade]

I did my grill inserts a couple weeks ago. That air deflector was not easily worked around for me. I ended up removing it. Had to drill out the two soft metal pop screw thingies. Whatever they are they don't seem to be made to be removed and reused. After that the price could be popped out without too much trouble. Aside from dropping a screwdriver down into the splash guard and having to fish it out through the small holes in the bottom of the bumper it all went rather well lol. Next project is blacking the chrome bezels inside the headlights. But that's much bigger task.

 

[CLShifter]

Aside from dropping a screwdriver down into the splash guard and having to fish it out through the small holes in the bottom of the bumper it all went rather well lol.

Lol this exact thing happened to me while removing my rings for painting a few weeks ago! My small screwdriver ended up sitting on the ledge in front of the intercooler. Luckily I had a magnetic pickup tool to reach it and the screwdriver was small enough to fit through the grating in the bumper.

I left the rubber skirt in place, so with the contortions my hand was doing to detach the rings, I think dropping the screwdriver at least once was inevitable.