Bumper painted

Got the front bumper shot. Front end is pretty much blacked out.

Before:



After:





Working from front to back. Got the door emblems blacked (thanks for the adhesion promoter tip, works excellent). Next in line is the SR5 emblems, then replace my white TRD decals with black ones, then the rear bumper.

 

Nice looking truck!

 

Truck looks good man.

My only tip is be VERY careful with the SR5 emblems. On the Gen1's they aren't the plastic like the others. They are a sort of rubber that is very easy to break then you take them off.

 

I was worried about that. The TOYOTA and Tacoma Prerunner V6 on the tailgate appear to be the same material.

I'll try to mask around them and shoot them black. Failing that, they come off and stay off.

 

looks awesome John!!! really nice now. and yeah, the sr5 and tailgate emblems suck ass......all mine chipped and all while i was removing them.

 

Kudos on the non-chrome front end. It looks GREAT!

 

make the truck look even better. good job

 

Nope. Enkei. Cant' find them on their website though.

Used to look like this:




Then I got out the rattle can and ditched the center caps.

 

good looking truck

 

You you point me in the direction of how you painted the front bumper black.
As it was chrome before...

I think I want to do that as well... Yes I want to be a copy cat.

 

Works for me bro.

It was suggested here to me to use paint adhesion promoter on the chrome stuff. i didn't know about it until after i did the grill, but did before i did the bumpers. the grill is starting to flake already, the bumpers are good as the day i shot them. definitely use that stuff, it's cheap and works.

 

I actually took my tailgate off yesterday and took the tacoma and prerunner v6 badges off. I just took a blowdrier to them to warm up the factory adhesive, then got a razorblade and carefully removed them. I made sure to get right underneath the letters so some adhesive would be left on the tailgate; to sort of act as a barrier between the razor and paint to prevent scratches. Then I just got some Goo-Gone and wiped off the residual adhesive that was left on the tailgate.

Also, when you use the blowdrier to warm em up it makes the letters more flexible so they stretch a little when you take them off, but then go back to their original form almost immediately once they are off. So I wouldn't worry too much about damaging them.

I had to take my tailgate off because it got all fucked up over the past week. So I just got a beefy ass tailgate net which I'm going to put the badges back on; may sound a little weird but I'll post pics tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'm kicking around the idea of taking the tailgate off altogether and just going with a net. Mythbusters came to the conclusion a net produces the best gas "savings". How it beat nothing at all back there I don't know, but it did.

 

Weird, on the way to work today I was talking to a buddy about putting the net on and he said the guys on Mythbusters messed with it and found that having a tail gate didn't mess with the aerodynamics at all because there was a pocket of air that was always in the bed of the truck and that passing air would just flow right above that pocket of air over the tailgate; thus, not having any effect on drag at all.

Either way I can tell you having the tail gate off sure takes off some weight of the truck, which saves on gas.

 

Taking the weight off is something that worries me a bit. The rear end is so light now if the road is even a little wet going around a corner it'll break loose and send the rear end on its own path. Short of a posi rear, weight is the only way I can figure to quench that.

 

Damnit, I didn't think about that.

 

how did you paint over that chrome? If I missed that thread can someone point me in that direction?

 

I took some denatured alcohol and wiped it down. Then sanded it with a DA and 220 paper. A coat of adhesion promoter, another sanding, another coat of adhesion promoter, then shot it black using bumper match paint.

I then used the alcohol on the plastic under the bumper and the filler place above the bumper, gave them one coat of adhesion promoter, and used the same paint on them.

So far not a single spot is trying to flake off.

It was a toss-up between the bumper match paint and the bedliner coating others have used. In the end, cost of the paint won.

 

looks awesome man!