Grill Blackout

[Bluenine7]

Hey guys,

So i'm looking to do the common front grill blackout, and was just wondering what the best way to go about this is.

Is there somewhere you can simply buy a fitting piece of vinyl or is it more a can of spray paint job?

[lancerdarryl]

Both ways seem to be popular.Paint is the easier option but vinyl is easier to remove if you don't like it.

[Mystique]

Plasti dip is easy, requires a lot of masking! You will need to do the chrome pieces as well considering you have an LX! pretty sure there are a few photos in my mod thread from when i did mine if you need an idea, otherwise Youtube is your friend!

[Lancer1993]

I've tried both, Plasti Dip was not as good as wrap IMO and both take as much prep to do properly.

The issue I found with the Plasti Dip was you need to remove the tape carefully or you'll pull off the wrap, so you need to cut along the tape or remove the tape while the final coat is still wet. Also found the edge of the paint stained when I polished the car, so keep any wax off the Plasti Dip.

Just redid the wrap on mine as I had the bumper resprayed recently.


Also did this on the back, precut the wrap before putting it on.


All up took 3-4 hours, this includes removing the top grill to get the wrap under the edge, also loosened the lower grill to do the same.

Another benefit of the wrap is the choice of styles you can get and colors over paint.

[Mystique]

Ive had the same dip on my front bar for 2 years and it is still holding up. I used duplicolour custom wrap instead of Plastidip. Duplicolour has a nicer finish.

Its all down to personal preference and what you prefer using.

[Lancer1993]

I'm not saying its a bad option and I'm considering doing some other bit of my CJ with some peal off paint, things like the mirror covers. Just need to get them off without breaking something, but that's a whole other topic.

[Mystique]

If you don't do the chrome pieces, how it will potentially look.



I realised after I did it that I probably should have done it, so I didn't touch it for another 12 months afterwards until I built up a bit more confidence. But masking was probably the most painful part, not going to lie. I may have gone slightly overboard, but I wanted to prevent as much off spray as possible, and with a friend who did her front bar at the same time, we slowly ran out of paper haha.



But finished product. Definitely worth it.

[Braydoz]

It's a fairly simple job. Just beware that when you pull of the masking after the dip is dry, it'll peel a little so you can either remask every time or pull it all off, mask it again then spray over the peely bits and pull off the masking when it's still wet.
Just did the plate bar rather than all the way down. It was never going to be a perfect finish otherwise and that'd annoy me.

Looked like this when i did it.


And still holding up a year later, save for a few stone chips. Needs another touch up layer.



It's a good little first mod and leaves you wanting more. Next step for me is calipers. I'm thinking gooooold.

[Ronan.Butler11]

It's a good little first mod and leaves you wanting more. Next step for me is calipers. I'm thinking gooooold.

Been wanting to do calipers for a while, was thinking a dark blue but im not sure how that will look

[AussieGSR]

I have been investigating options for this and think Plastic Dip option is worth a try.

I have found three different products locally, does anyone have any feedback on benefits or negatives of each?

[ReeceCozaa]

I’ve used dupli colour on my front grille, and on my roof, this is the how the roof ended up(originally matte black but I’ll also show a photo when shiny by being wet/washed)

And


Now I can say the roof has stayed close to perfectly fine for 8 months solid full off hot Aussie summers, rain and all! Also the only way I can fault it is there is a TINYY bit of peeling near my roof diffuser which in turn can be easily fixed.. with the spray you’ll get you’ll end up with a Matt black finish unless you use the dupli Color clear coat/glossifier which I have and been meaning to add to my roof but never ended up getting to it.. for the front of the car on a CJ this should be more then good enough for the job! Just be very careful, spray evenly, take your time and MASSSSK off every bit of your car you do not want to get hit with.

[AussieGSR]

Thanks ReeceCozaa really appreciate the advice, i was leaning towards that.

Will do a trial blacking out my badges first then move to the grill and lower lip section.

What products did you use to clean and prep the area?

[ReeceCozaa]

Anything to help mate, for the roof I used old bed sheets to Cover nearly all of the sides, you need to be careful when it comes to spraying with even regular winds as this stuff will fly right onto another panel and you’ll have to rub out all of it if that were to happen.

For the grille you just really need news paper and masking tape, the news paper should cover your bonnet and bumper really securely so you don’t get any miss sprays and the masking tape will be used as a guideline and to obviously hold the news paper down, as for cleaning o honestly just used water and dry wipe, I rushed my grille but it ended up working well, plastidip will honestly go over any surface but if you have any debree and dirt on the grille it’ll show through as bumps, so I would recommend giving it a good clean and making sure the area being sprayed is 120% dry or else it won’t work