The plastic parts around the bumpers & wheelwells
has, of course faded. What's the best paint to use,
anybody use a brush ?? Looks like it might be a pia
to take off.

The grill, headlight trim and fender trim come off easy, I took those off. The door trim and rear quarters...I just used painters tape and newspaper and sprayed away! Use Krylon Fusion, no prep needed with the exception of wiping the area prior to painting with a wet rag. I used Krylon Fusion 3-4 years ago and mine still looks good. It might be a pain but it is so worth it! Good luck!

I repainted all of my plastics and rear bumper and this is what I used:


After:

are the trim parts hard to get off? and how do you get them off

The entire front end will come apart in individual pieces so that you don't have to mask off anything. Even the crossbar on the grill insert seperates. The majority are held together with either the xmas tree style plastic screws or a plastic twist lock type screw. Once you remove the front bumper, it is pretty easy to disassemble the rest of the plastics.

None of it was too taxing and I did the whole job in about 5 or 6 hours.

Its just the front I know, sorry
Before-


After-
Note that I also painted the headlight trim, this way you can look at mine and his to see if you want to do this to your's

I'm halfway done with mine using grey herculiner. I'll get some pics up when its done.

Im getting ready to do this, between the bug grease and the faded plastic, its just time.

A good yanking will get anything off.

Need to try and get a better method to reattach the grill to the bod. Any ideas?

heres my front end herculined, still waiting for brackets for body lift.
i think i'd be a little more happy with a more uniform finish but i hand painted it all.

Fought with it when I painted my grill too. I don't know what year you have but on '03's (and probably the '02's an '04's as well), if you remove the clips on the body and attach them to the grill, the grill will then just snap back in place.

I agree it's a real pain to and do the replacement in the reverse order of the removal. But, like I said, remove the clips from the body, attach them to the grill and then put the whole thing on the truck. It will just snap in place. Real simple like.

HTH!

-G

a good tip for painting plastics is sanding down the finish with a REAL fine grit sand paper. i use 1500 before painting and then paint. I typically go with 3 to 5 coats and then 2 to 3 coats of clear coat. if you want a good shine to it, wet sand again with 1500 and then 2000 grit after. your gonna need a light abrasive to get rid of any blemishes from the 2000 grit. I suggest meguiars plastx for about 5 coats and then use show car polish. The best is Zaino bros. kinda expensive but outstanding finish. gotta let each coat of zainos dry for a half hour before buffing by hand. do 2-3 coats until glossy. should come out pretty good that way.

This was great. I spent a couple days taping and painting my car. Has really made a difference. Ive gotten many complements

I dont have any pictures but ill be more then willing to answer questions if you email me or post any

I did it with the front grill/ bumper and rear on the car.
Door handles
Door trim

I removed the Top rack
Wheel well trim

Did my daughter's X with the Dupli-color bumber paint and it turned out great...........now time to do mine....

I did mine last week.... SO easy! Looks sick with the blue..