Anybody Ever Painted There Chrome Bumpers/grills?

[tweba99]

I have a 99' Silverado and I love the look of the z71 tahoes that are came out around the 99-03 body style that have the black bumpers, side mirros, trim and grill. I have a black truck and I am thinkin of painting the chrome on my mirros, bumpers, grille, and side trim black. Has anyone does this? What kind of paint did you use and do you have any pictures? Thanks!

[John inNH]

Hi Trevor,

I've done this to both my '94 and '98 Silverado's. Both suffered from the chrome wear problems, fading and peeling. I used the same paint as I would use to paint the truck, basecoat/clearcoat on the '98, and single-stage urethane on the '94. My paint supplier had a specific primer for plastic, that is whats important, the paint sticks to the primer, so the primer has to stick to the grill. I sanded the grill with sandpaper from 100 to 400 grit, then primed and resanded with 600. Both grills looked great. Ask your supplier for the primer for plastic (my supplier refers to it as "glue in a can". I'll try to post a picture tomorrow. I will probably paint my new Suburbans grill too, it has a few wear spots.

As far as the bumpers, same basic thing, sand the chrome and use an epoxy primer. Paint as above.

 

John

[Rolandd]

If you can get the bumpers sand blasted that is the way to go--while primers exist that do an OK job over chrome, you can get an elastisized paint for metal bumpers which will take getting hit much better. Also, you can probably purchase a new black bumper for what it will cost you to paint the chrome one. Then you have a spare bumper, just in case....

[tweba99]

Thanks for the tips John.

 

If you can get the bumpers sand blasted that is the way to go--while primers exist that do an OK job over chrome, you can get an elastisized paint for metal bumpers which will take getting hit much better. Also, you can probably purchase a new black bumper for what it will cost you to paint the chrome one. Then you have a spare bumper, just in case....

 

I was actually wanting to do all of this myself and not take it anywhere. I was also wanting to try and do this with some rattle can paint instead of with a guy if possible.