Hey everyone.

I am here to beat the dead horse, and that expired horse is the Plastidip thread, wherein I will now refer to it as "PD" to abbreviate.

So I know there are dozens of threads on PD, and honestly, this one is no different. I PD my grill on my 2007 G35 sedan, but I ended up doing it while it was still on the car. I know a lot of folks remove the grill, which is honestly the better choice, however it does take longer and my results with painting it on the car were phenomenal.

Anyways, here goes.

The first step I did was to crack open my first beer and contemplate if this was actually worth doing. After a few hard swigs, I decided.... eh... if it sucks... ill peel it off (something not easily done with traditional paint).

I set off initially by thoroughly cleaning the grill and the surrounding areas to be masked/painted. To do this, I doused the grill area with simple green to make sure it was free of debris. I then took a lint free rag and soaked it in alcohol and cleaned the grill and surrounding areas again and let it dry. This showed me how terrible looking my grill was as it has tons of rock chips (which appear black) on a chrome grill. After getting everything clean, I masked off the grill, leaving about a one inch gap from the tape to the grill itself. In retrospect, I should have left a little more room as with PD, more means more to grip on too. You don't want too much, you don't want to waste paint, but you want enough to grab onto.



After this was completed, the next, and a very important step, was to make sure that everything behind the grill was covered. The last thing you want is to get PD all over your radiator and the components behind the grill. To accomplish this, I simply unbolted 6 of the forward bolts on the splash guard and I took newspaper and crammed it up behind the grill. Using a flashlight, I made sure I had everything covered. In the end, when I removed the paper, there was tons of PD on the paper, all of which would have gone to my radiator. I made sure no paper was hanging over the grill where it needed to be painted. In this pic, you can see how rock chipped my grill is.



After masking off the outside areas and stuffing paper behind the grill, I went and masked off the emblem itself because I wanted it to remain chrome and also, it is in perfect shape, not a single chip in it. Now, a few things here. I chose to leave only the FRONT of the emblem chrome. I have seen other people leave the entire emblem chrome all the way to the back, and that's cool (also seen people black out everything) but I only wanted the front part chrome. I used electrical tape because it stuck well and gave a nice hard line. Some people will tell you this is unnecessary as the PD will usually make itself a nice seam, however I have seen friends peel the dip and watch them peel far past what they wanted. So, why risk it? Mask it off and KNOW you will get the clean line! Finally, I added a bunch of paper to the outside edge of the masking tape and sealed it off. This helps protect from overspray. PD is easy to peel away when its thick, but the overspray can be somewhat annoying to remove.



Now that the prep is done, the fun painting part begins. First thing's first, I cracked open my second beer and took a few hard swigs. Now, because this is not normal paint, and because it has a plastic bonding agent built in, I decided to wear a face mask, as the thought of plastic paint entering my lungs was not ideal. This stuff smells terrible, so the notion of a cheap face mask seemed like a responsible idea. The first layer of paint is meant to be light and tacky, but you will notice right away that this is not ordinary paint. It can go on thick and it does not easily run. I gave slow, solid and complete side to side swipes, 2 passes each, to get to about 50% transparency. The pic looks like its almost completely black, but I assure you there is a lot of chrome still on there.



From here, I set a 20 minute timer on my phone to let the coats dry. The PD can says wait 30, my friends who PD told me wait 10, so I waited 20 minutes. The next coat of PD went on much thicker. I did 4 slow passes, changing the angle each time. I pointed it up or down, and inward or outward on each pass. I also made sure to paint all the way up onto the masking tape as a thick coat will help it peel easier.



I repeated this painting process for two more coats for a total of four coats, allowing 20 minutes of dry time between each coat.



On the last pass, I made sure everything was covered nice and thick. The paint almost looks as if it's going to run or drip, but it doesn't. However, a word of caution. If you use a sweeping side to side motion, the edges will always get double contact real quick as you end and begin the next sweep. Keep this in mind as PD can pile up on the edges and would be more apt to run. What I did was on the follow up stroke, I would pull the can away from the grill (about 10 inches away, instead of 6) so it wouldn't go on as thick. I had no runs, but if you aren't careful it could definitely happen.

So, once I did my final coat, I decided to wait 30 minutes for it to dry. This part is debatable as some people would tell you to remove the masking tape before it dries. This is smart, however, any debris that might fall onto the grill when doing so would be unwanted. I waited 30 minutes, then I peeled the paper and masking tape away, leaving myself a nice line to continue the peel.



Now, the peeling part, this is definitely the most important part. Sure painting is important, but you need to go slow and be careful while you peel. Since I painted it on the car, the last thing I wanted was unpeeled portions stuck between my grill and bumper. I made sure I focused on peeling the part behind the grill because once it tears and you move on, there is likely no way to remove the excess without f****** up the PD. It took me maybe 10 minutes to peel, but in the end I had one solid peel. It amazes me how well defined the lines are. I often thought I would just end up peeling the entire thing away, but I didn't. Once I had the grill peeled, I popped out the paper behind the grill and secured the splash guard.



So here is the finished product. It looks amazing and the PD helped fill in a lot of chips. All the lines came out smooth, and overall I am very satisfied. Start to finish this was probably only an hours worth of work. I have received compliments on the grill already, and based of my friend's experiences with PD, I expect this to last for some time. I did consider using the PD Glossifer on the grill but in the end decided I liked the matte finish more. Also, I only used about 1/2 a can which I got from Amazon for about 8 bucks.





I hope this helps anyone wanting to PD their grill while it's still on the car. It is easy to do and looks great.

Now, can anyone tell me in this last pic why my hood doesn't line up closed all the way. It is definitely latched and locked, but if you look at the right side of the emblem, the hood does not seal up. I could easily fit a credit card in there. In fact, when I press down, it feels like it could drop another 1/4 inch and lock in place, but doesn't, anyone know?

Thanks!

_Michael

 

how hard is it to take the grille out on sedans?

 

It's very easy. That's the way I plasti-dipped my grill and it was as simple as could be.

 

Also, why do people blur out their license plate numbers??? They're plainly visible to anyone who sees the car in person. Is there an epidemic on this site of people stalking users? Just curious.

 

Yeah good point. Maybe internet people are more shady, who knows. Plus driving and seeing a license plate is harder to remember (if you did have nefarious intentions) than seeing a picture on the web. I was re-sizing the image so it was one swipe of "smudge" in Photoshop to blur it.

 

I've never removed the grill, but there is a good DIY here:

https://g35driver.com/forums/v36-diy...e-removal.html

_Michael

 

is it harder than taping up the front end and they removing the over spray after.

 

I've removed the G37 grilles (same steps) and it was *maybe 20 minutes. Really doesn't matter in the end if he's happy the way it came out but this is one of the few "mods" that has that luxury since the overspray can be peeled off in this case.

 

Yeah exactly. The taping took maybe 10 minutes. Obviously you can paint much easier with the grill off but with the PD, you can peel away any overspray. Either way works, I just didnt want to remove a bunch of fasteners.

Plus, what else can you paint on your car with awesome results?!?!?

_Michael