I am thinking of switching my front end of my plain ole 01 to an 05 and up. I'm torn on getting rid of the chrome and going all painted up grille and bumper or getting a chrome set up. I found a paintable 05 take off with the oval for 60 bucks. Who out here has a all painted front end on your ex with pics. I know there are plenty with the chrome set up. I have 2 people emailing me about buying their grille now. Thanks

 

Just look in the galleries.

 

I like the factory tan color

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...d-stuff-5.html

 

I like the PTM front ends over chrome. Mine is chrome though. I might get a PTM white grille and swap it to see if I like it.

 

Thanks guys, that's exactly what I was looking for. The dilemma I have is that mine is blue over tan like snow's and where his white is easier to match with his truck mine will be s little difficult. I like the look of the painted bumper also over the chrome. Snow I don't know how I missed your thread on the bumper fab. It looks great. AOx 4 if you are looking A white 05 grille there is a nice one on CL for 75.00 thanks again guys for the pics.

 

I actually had two different batches of white made for mine and luckily the second (final) batch was a good match. The first white was actually darker than the rest of the X.

What ever color is on your vehicle it shouldn't be to hard to match with the paint code off the door/pillar tag.

The paint I went with was dupont, I normally use PPG. From what I hear any one of our vehicle could have been painted with either ppg or dupont from the factory. it all depends on who had the best price or the product on hand at the time the factory needed paint. I believe my X has PPG paint because none of the dupont stuff was perfectly right and the color code wasn't an easy match, it had to be crossed with the dupont codes.

Lots of good shops now days can also just simply shoot your stock paint with a gun to check what color it is. You can take just the gas cap in or the whole truck. They clean a spot, shoot it with the gun, and it tells them what paint to mix up. It is very accurate and even helps with older faded vehicles because it will compensate for the fade.

Doing the two tone grill was a PITA for me. If all went like planned the first time it would have been routine. But I got a couple bits of dirt in a very visible place on the grill which I tried to pull out while still wet and all was downhill from there. I ended up having to strip and repaint the grill... NOT easy to strip paint off a plastic grill.

Good luck and keep us posted on the progress! We like pictures!

 

I definatley will, I was concerned about the fade part of the hood compared to a nice shiny front end. I don't have the funds for a whole paint job yet . Thanks !