LS460 - Engine Bay Paint and Refresh.

With all the plastics in the engine bay I  wanted to add a personal touch to the engine bay. All the black side and front pieces are very grainy and I wanted a glossy finish to them. Every single pieces was sanded starting at 180 grit and made my way up to 400 grit incrementally. A thorough cleaning of the parts followed ensuring all wax, residues etc are stripped. Prep is key to good adhesion and the outcome of the paint job.

Pictures after the pieces were sanded  and prepped.

To prime the parts I used SEM High-Build Primer Surfacer. This is a flexible acrylic coating for priming steel, aluminum, urethane, fiberglass and plastics. It features superior adhesion and filling properties. When you are shooting this you can almost see strings of glue flying out. Product is awesome, it says it is easy to sand which to me was far from the truth!! WOW! What a pain in the ass. I don't know if I was doing something wrong but it just wouldn't sand after the first 5 minutes of sanding. It would just clog the paper up and seems like the surface hardens and does not want to sand. Everything else about this was awesome, very flexible and fills in because it is a high build primer. 

After an hour of trying to sand it with a block and 360 grit sand paper, I was getting no where. What I ended up doing was using 180 grit sand paper on a DA and using that to flatten everything smooth. My thought process was to sand it with 180 grit and put a nice smooth thin coat of regular primer on top. Below are pics of what the panels looked like after 180 grit and prepped again for a coat of primer.

Smooth and flat and after a coat of primer!!

A quick wet sand and Jeremy laid some paint on it. I picked a Toyota color called Attitude Black, it is black but has a slight green, blue and purple pearls in it and it is very subtle, the light has to be hitting it at the right angle to actually see the effect. After the base coat, Jeremy used some 600 grit to level off a couple of areas that weren't as smooth, dusted more color on till everything looked smooth and level.

Panels after base coat. 

Panels after clear.

At night with the panels on.

You can see the effect when light hits it.

Mostly looks black otherwise.

Engine cover the silver looked a little bland so another Toyota color just to change things up a little.

Some of that pearl popping in the sun.

Pretty happy with how things look for now. 

-AJ Abraham

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LS460 - Wind noise fix aka "JMcRaney Wind Noise Fix"

I would really like to thank Charles for documenting the fix and also for taking the time and effort to help me with it. I had messaged Charles to get a template in pdf format so I could make the template out of metal ahead of time and keep my down time low. Not only did he send me the template but he was kind enough to make and mail it out to me. Although I wasn't really experiencing a whistling noise etc I thought I would go ahead and preemptively fix the issue before I put my visors on. The instructions are well documented here so I'm not going to elaborate no it. I just added a little of my OCD and understanding of the fix into it. 

These are the tools that I used:
Non marring mini pry bars - to pry up the  trim
Plastic blades - clean up the double sided tape and glue from under the trim.
Caulk Applicator tool - to smooth out the caulking and fill in gaps.
Isopropyl Alcohol - clean up excess caulking and prep before silicone glue is applied.
Goo Gone - clean up tape and glue from under the trim.

After trim removal.

Used goo gone and scraped the tape off and also used the caulk applicator tool to get the gaps free from the old foam and glue. 

Wipe down with isopropyl alcohol. Prep is key for adherence to any substrate.

Taped up the gaps where the silicone glue is to be filled with. Prep is key.

Used the applicator tool to spread and push in the silicone glue. The different edges of the applicator tools helped smooth everything out and remove the excess glue.

Removed the tape, edges are clean.

The metal patch I scuffed up with 80 grit sand paper and wiped it down with isopropyl alcohol before more of the silicone glue was applied to adhere the patch. Pressed in the patch evenly and it'll squeeze out the glue from the sides and used the caulking application tool to scrape up all the excess glue and smooth out the joints. Used isopropyl alcohol again to clean up.

Full cure time is 24hrs but drove the car a couple of hours later and is still quiet. As mentioned I wasn't experiencing any weird noise issues, this was just a preemptive fix. I'll attach the black trim in a day or two after full cure and verify that there are no wind noises. Thank you again Charles for the help.

After about 48hrs and verifying that there were no issues with my install it was time to put the trim piece back on. I removed the taps that would normally clip the trim piece on, sanded the base with 50 grit sandpaper so the silicone glue has something to bite to, prepped both surfaces with IPA and spread some glue on and attached it.

I went ahead and taped up the edges . I squeezed the trim piece down and this squeezed out the glue around the edges. I used the grout tools again to wipe and smooth out the excess glue and used some tape to just hold the trim in place while it dried.

This is what it looks like with everything cleaned up and tape removed after about 4 hours.

I'm going to let it continue curing for a couple of days and then install my visors. Happy so far.

-AJ Abraham

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@flawless_fitment
@aj_ls460

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