I did the back to black thing for quite a while , and then when I had my windshield replaced , and saw how easy the cowl came off , I took it off and painted it with special trim black paint (got it at Autozone ) and also replaced the little rubber seal strips on each end , and took apart washers and cleaned .

 

When looking at the trim pieces, I noticed there's more than just the wiper cowl. There's the door handles, bed trim, front grill, and even the side mirrors. Would make sense to do all together IMO except to paint something like the door handles is scary without knowing how to take those off. Is it common for people to touch up all the heavy duty plastic trim pieces to black?

 

I got some professional detailer "black trim" restorer made by 3M I use it on everything but the cowl , was just too much work and faded gray .
If you use a terry cloth rag , get it soaked up , and keep it in a zip lock , it works great , even use a scrub brush coated with it for tough areas .
The 3M stuff is thick and doesn't run off .

 

Wow thanks for the tip. I think I found it. Is it 3M Bondo Restore Black? What kind of paint and process do you use to do the cowl?

 

You pretty much have to use a small brush on the cowl because of the pattern on it. Also, pre-cleaning is the trick. Drugstore alcohol is good. This would be required before painting too because of the presence of silicone from using tire/trim treatments in the past.

 

Its actually 7 mm.

 

Did mine using this:

 

Glad I found this thread. I was planning on taking mine off this spring to repaint them. I just replaced the corner moldings since the originals disintegrated years ago. Now it's even more obvious how badly faded my cowl covers are. I might use the Mothers Back to Black on things like the mirrors, door handles, bed rail caps, etc. If the cowl panels are that easy to take off, and they're so faded, I don't think the Mothers will be enough.

 

wrvond; that looks great!

 

Yes it does. A really easy project, that makes a great visual improvement. I sprayed mine not too long after my previous post-plastic paint. I did remove the wiper spray nozzles so they wouldn't get clogged.

 

Thanks! I was quite pleased with the result.
I used Dawn dish soap and a scrub brush to clean the plastic, allowed it to dry thoroughly, then applied several light coats of paint.
I didn't remove the washer nozzles because I was afraid the ten year old plastic might be too brittle, but I had no problem with clogging them. The new rubber pieces make a huge difference as well.

 

How easy was it to remove the washer nozzles once the covers are off? Are they just held in by clips? I thought of the same thing and thought of either removing them, or masking them off.