Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

I've written a lot about my Explorer lately.

To be honest, after it was first recovered I felt like scrapping it. I was angry that it had been stolen and then I had to pay out a bunch of money to get it released from the yard. To be fair the local Police did telephone me when they found my truck. If I could nave gotten there in time I could have avoided the tow and storage fees. I tried but I couldn't get there before it was hooked up.

However after a period of grousing I decided that that not only still had plenty of uses for the Explorer, I still actually liked it.

After repairing the theft damage I decided to start taking some positive steps in fixing it up.

Looking a bit shabby.

Not quite as bad.

The "D" pillars at the tailgate were looking pretty sad. The paint was weathered and worn through, giving the rear of the truck a down at the heels look. I wasn't sure if matte black would be the best color but I still had some of the "Granite" grey Rustoleum spray paint left over from my '70 Mustang project. So that's what I used.

This stuff covers well and it even sticks to flexible plastic.

Prep consisted of sanding and masking.

Smoothed it out a bit.

A couple of coats did make a difference. A darker shade might be better, but it was still an improvement. The window trim looks to be matte black and the "B" pillar trim appeared to be grey. In the future I might just paint all trim the same color.

I didn't have any silicone seal adhesive,

I hate to admit it, but I bought all the missing emblems from Pick and Pull a couple of years ago. I couldn't find any silicone adhesive so I just used Gaskacinch. It sure looks just like rubber cement! Since it was going to be applied to a large mounting area I figured that it should work fine. Still, I'll keep and eye on it. Just in case it starts coming loose.

Blue oval forever!

I used Meguiar's cleaning wax to polish the emblem as well as the tail lamp lenses and headlamps. I really need to polish the entire vehicle.

A definite improvement.

Overall I'm very pleased iwth the results.

This was the kind of quick and easy project that I wanted to document on my blog. It was the initial idea behind starting it. A little bit of effort and materials were used to make a noticeable improvement in the appearance of my vehicle. I find little upgrades like this are still fun and satisfying to do. Unfortunately, not every task can be so simple!