I did the same thing with my grille a last month and it turned out great too. I couldn't stand the fading of it. I painted it the same charcoal grey looking color though. I believe O'reillys had a spray paint with original ford colors with the metallic grey I used.

My back center caps are a bit faded though so I think I'm going to steal your idea and see if I can get them to look as good as yours.

 

Just painted my grille returns flat black. It contrasts with the chrome real nice.

 

Yeah, I thought about going grey too... but when I realized there's no other grey on my truck what so ever... I decided to with black. Then I didn't whant tacky looking glossy black or flat which im not too fond of... SATIN it was...

Who knew painting a grill insert would be so complicated!

 

I too prefer Satin over flat/gloss. I just with the 96 cent spray paint cans had that option... The only way i could do a satin type look is laying down flat black and dusting it with gloss, then sanding/blending.... Too much work.

 

Looks good.

 

Finally did mine!

 

NICE!!! A little paint goes a long way...

 

That looks nice! I'm thinking about repainting mine because I didn't sand down the inside of the grille enough so when light reflects off of it at a certain angle it still looks likes its fading. But it does look way better then it did before.

I just finished painting my hood/cab/and tailgate a little bit ago (they were all fading and had irreversible clear-coat damage) and wow that made a huge difference. I'm no master painter, and had to paint at night with a flashlight in my mouth (time crunch) in my driveway with dirt roads, but I'm very happy with the results. I spent only about 190 (i got to borrow a paint gun and compressor) and I think the parts I painted look great! Yeah there is a lot of orange peel texture of the clear-coat but who cares its not a Lamborghini! I'll get some pictures up and post them when I get a chance

 

Alright here are some quick pictures of my new paint! Like I said the hood, cowel, cab, and tailgate, and top of the front fenders were painted. I didn't take too many pictures but there are these few.







Oh and here are some juicy goodies I'm waiting to put on! Just need to order the Y-pipe and muffler when I get paid!



The paint matched up perfectly, I just have a bit of the "orange peel" on the hood that you can on the reflection. I don't know if I have the skill to wetsand it out but I'm happy with how it turned out. If I get real bothered I may pay some shop to wetsand it later but for now I'm good.

Edit: Spelling!!

 

That looks pretty good. I have that painted intake on, it kind of clashes with the ford blue but i hope to change that soon


I want to do the valve covers black, either satin or glossy.

 

Ahh I don't think it clashes all too much. Your truck is kind of a color in between both the green and blue. If you had other things in your engine painted both of those colors it could work. I really want to get new valve covers.. mine are just a greyish brown looking.. they look super bland and boring. I don't know though, putting new valve covers seems like it would be a lot of work for just cosmetics that no one would really see.. and with all the junk in the way of them on my truck I think its too much work to try and paint.

 

Yeah, it looks ok but the blue is too much. I really want something like this
BRAND NEW FORD RACING 302 351C 351M 400 BLACK SATIN VALVE COVERS #M-6582-A341R | eBay
I think some nice black ones would look good.

 

Yeah those are nice.. those are the style I want for my truck too.. but I don't know how much work would be involved in replacing them. I have been debating saving up for new heads/cam/intake but don't really know if it will be worth it. But I figured if I ever save up the cash and courage to take apart my engine I would get new covers like that while I do it also. I just don't think I could get away with painting them to make them look any better.

 

Yeah i doubt painting my covers would do much good. Mine are fairly easy to take off, i can get to most of the bolts though i might need to buy a second extension for my socket wrench. Plus the cheap rattle can section at walmart doesn't have satin colors...

 

Hey, why did you pick shorties? and what are those?.