Painted my grill - chrome removal is a b...

[Humvdood]

I tboned a lady when north texas had some ice storms last month.
Totalled her ford ranger but all it did to mine was crack the grill and break my turn signal off of the headlight housing.

I hate fake chrome and was planning on getting the grill painted factory black anyway but my regular paint and body guy said he wouldn't touch it unless I removed all the fake chrome.

I went ahead and plastic welded the grill where it was shattered and cracked using steel wire mesh half way through removing the chrome - wish I would've waited on the welding since it would've made removing the chrome foil so much easier.

You can sand this stuff off with 40 grit sand paper but you're going to blow through about $50 worth of paper doing that and you're going to risk losing the ridges and curves as you try to remove it.
I got most of it off with a razor blade and a pair of pliers.
but it did'd hit me until near the end that hydrochloric acid will take that stuff off without eating the plastic - you'd need some type of dip tank - I used a storage tub and dipped the side in that I hadn't plastic welded and it came out super clean. If I'd done the whole thing though, it would've eaten that steal wire mesh from my plastic welding.

I just painted it with bedliner for now cause I got tired of looking at my H3 without a nose.

 

[RamRod]

Very cool, ABNTROOP told me he did the same with some of the smaller chrome pieces on his rig, I never would have thought of using science!!

Got any pic's of the tub!?

lol might not want to tell alot of people that you have a tub of hydrochloric acid laying around! I think mot people have seen what it can do on Breaking Bad

 

[SedonaBound]

You were reading my mind...I was just going to post a question about paintability of a chrome grill. Did you try to rough up the chrome coat with scotchbrite or steel wool so primer would stick? What concentration was the HCl, where did you get it, and what did you do with it when you were done? I'm not too keen on messing with a big tub of acid. I'd like to paint mine to match the Sonoma Red on my T.

 

[Humvdood]

You were reading my mind...I was just going to post a question about paintability of a chrome grill. Did you try to rough up the chrome coat with scotchbrite or steel wool so primer would stick? What concentration was the HCl, where did you get it, and what did you do with it when you were done? I'm not too keen on messing with a big tub of acid. I'd like to paint mine to match the Sonoma Red on my T.

I'm a full time environmental biologist and use HCL to preserve water samples - I was telling my boss about how much trouble I was having getting that crap off and he suggested I take some from the lab. I did 1 to 1 strength in the tub, I think 100% might eat through the thinner stuff pretty easily with just a paint brush. You can get HCL at home depot or any pool store. I don't have a pic but it was just one of those plastic storage tubs for easter ornaments - wouldn't use it for long term storage and it only got a the side smooth. If I had it to do over again i might have gotten a trash can and diluted the acid and let it sit longer - that one to one ate it to bare plastic in 2 hours. As for disposal, I just put an add on craigslist in the free section saying I had 5 gallons of 1 to 1 HCL in a storage tub what I'd used it for and that whoever wanted it to come get it. probably some questionable legality there but I'd rather let someone else deal with it.

 

[Humvdood]

You were reading my mind...I was just going to post a question about paintability of a chrome grill. Did you try to rough up the chrome coat with scotchbrite or steel wool so primer would stick? What concentration was the HCl, where did you get it, and what did you do with it when you were done? I'm not too keen on messing with a big tub of acid. I'd like to paint mine to match the Sonoma Red on my T.

as for the scotchbrite pad - I paint stuff all the time and have done some of this chrome cladded stuff - any time I leave just a little bit of chrome, the chrome flakes once you paint it - so I didn't want to deal with that on my own car. plus it was starting to bubble all over the place and looked liked I'd wrapped the grill in aluminum foil - I didn't want that happening under the paint

 

[CaseyS]

Seems like that is one way to get the chrome off. Just paint it.

 

[taylorblake831]

You can buy it but the gallon at a pool company I use to dig pools when I lived in Texas and we sold that stuff all the time


-TEXAS FOREVER-