I recently completed a big renewal project of my 2001 LC that I documented here:
forum.ih8mud.com
One thing that's really been irking me is the Mr. T logo in the middle of the steering wheel. When the truck was new, the logo was chromed. But over the years the chrome finish wore off and what was left was just the white plastic. That plastic logo has been looking horrible against the back drop of the brand new wood steering wheel!
My first fix was to try hitting it with chrome spray paint. Epic fail. I tried masking and cutting out the logo and then spraying it, but I still had a lot of paint bleed through. But that wasn't even the big problem. It didn't even look like chrome. Just gray spray paint.
So next idea was to try a vinyl film. I purchased a small roll on Amazon and just had a go at this. I give this repair a B-. The problem, I think, is that I didn't use the right film. This stuff had an adhesive backing and was pretty thick I think. I was cutting it with an Exacto knife with a new blade, but the material was tough to cut and tended to pull a bit rather than slicing clean. This stuff also didn't shrink up very much from my heat gun. So I think a re-do with more fit-for-purpose material would probably come out even better. But here's how it came out:
I'm not too happy with the cuts, there's a lot of jagged edges where the material was pulling rather than slicing easily and cleanly.
So I'd be game for trying this again if anyone can point me to better vinyl foil for the job???
2001 Land Cruiser Renewal Complete
My renewal work on my 2001 Land Cruiser is complete. I’m calling it a “renewal” because it really wasn’t all that bad to start out with, so it wouldn’t be right to call it a "restoration". It’s also not really right to call it “mine” because it’s my wife’s truck. We are the original owners, and...
forum.ih8mud.com
One thing that's really been irking me is the Mr. T logo in the middle of the steering wheel. When the truck was new, the logo was chromed. But over the years the chrome finish wore off and what was left was just the white plastic. That plastic logo has been looking horrible against the back drop of the brand new wood steering wheel!
My first fix was to try hitting it with chrome spray paint. Epic fail. I tried masking and cutting out the logo and then spraying it, but I still had a lot of paint bleed through. But that wasn't even the big problem. It didn't even look like chrome. Just gray spray paint.
So next idea was to try a vinyl film. I purchased a small roll on Amazon and just had a go at this. I give this repair a B-. The problem, I think, is that I didn't use the right film. This stuff had an adhesive backing and was pretty thick I think. I was cutting it with an Exacto knife with a new blade, but the material was tough to cut and tended to pull a bit rather than slicing clean. This stuff also didn't shrink up very much from my heat gun. So I think a re-do with more fit-for-purpose material would probably come out even better. But here's how it came out:
I'm not too happy with the cuts, there's a lot of jagged edges where the material was pulling rather than slicing easily and cleanly.
So I'd be game for trying this again if anyone can point me to better vinyl foil for the job???
