What have you done to your Ecoboosted vehicle today?

Macgyver said:
Awesome Stuff. I was gonna paint but I think I will pay to have that stuff wrapped.

Thanks Macgyver. I have talked to a few auto body friends about painting fake chrome over the years and the answer is always, "if you can wrap it, wrap it". The properties of the chrome plated plastic are quirky in that a tremendous amount of prep has to be done to the trim, and a bonding agent of some sort has to be added to the trim in order to adhere properly. For the best result, the trim should also be taken off the car which can result in bending the molding, splitting the backing, or breaking the pins that hold the trim to the vehicle.

So my $0.02 is that it's quite tedious to paint the trim and perhaps 2-3x more expensive than a good wrap job.
 
Installed a new grill in the car yesterday.  No picts yet, waiting for wheels to arrive and be installed to complete the transformation before I go for the glam shots...

Ever stop and think about why they used 2 plastic push pins to hold the middle of the pictured panel on, when the rest are all metal bolts?  I think I found out one reason why..

I have always heard that putting the bumper on is a 2 person job.  I did not have a second hand to help and had to get the car back on the road so I could drive it to work today.    I found a neat trick to installing the bumper with one person, it worked super easy and based on what I found I am pretty sure that Ford designed it to be done this way. 

I had bumper with grills attached sitting on a blanket, Looking at the bumper and car, I realized I could hang it in middle then work on the sides if I put the upper panel on it.  So I installed that upper panel the goes around the hood latch so the bumper and panel was one big assembly.  I did not snug the phillips head screws, I just got them so there was a little bit of play in the panel.  This actually made the bumper a nice solid assembly that was not flexing all over the place like it does without that top panel.  Then I was able to lift the entire assembly up gently and slide into place.  I put 2 of the metal bolts in place when I then realized that it would have been much simpler and faster to drop the two plastic fasteners in place for a quick hold.  I have a strong feeling that is exactly why Ford used plastic ones there and used two, if it was jut to hold the panel down one, would have been plenty.

Once the bolts were threaded in a bit and holding everything in place I went to each bumper corner and snapped them into the brackets by the headlights, then went back up top and began tightening done all the bolts and screws.  It worked really well, you just need to be slow and steadying bringing up the bumper so that you do not swing it up there and ding the fenders.
 
Got the rear license plate, trunk, and reverse light bulbs swapped out with LEDs. Waiting on my Drive Bright LED DRLs to come in tomorrow to go ahead and swap the front bulbs to LED. After that it's waiting for my Go-Fast parts from LMS to arrive hopefully Friday and get those put on.  ;D

Anyone know of anyone who has tinted their rear taillights on a '13+ and done just the clear lense portion (so reverse/turn/reflector part) and left the red ring on the outside untouched? I'd love to see a picture if anyone has.
 
Dropped offmy calipers to get powder coated. I'll post some pics next week when I get time to pick them up.

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^looks good! what did you use? i did mine today too. feel your pain with the black car
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Been a busy week and a half with baby shamu under the knife.  But the last big step in the transformation happened today and baby got new dubz. 
More picts to come when I post a build thread (hopefully tomorrow.), but for now here is a teaser picture of the wheels that arrived yesterday and were installed tonight.
20*9.5 with 35 offset.
 
Not to brag or anything but I have seen pics on them on his car.... and they look REALLY nice!!!!!!!! I wouldn’t change the color IMHO...


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You're gonna wrap a neon green thong around what exactly.....?

Wait wait, on 2nd thought, maybe I don't wanna know.
 
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