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It was a pain in the a to remove the silver trim without breaking tabs, but removing the diffuser was not bad for me.
As promised. Installed pics. Rear bumber silver trim and side S5 badges painted a metallic black that was the OEM color of my old Camaro. Very similar to Mythos black from Audi.
Rear diffuser/spoiler painted Navarra.
I'll install the matching mirror caps this weekend.
Wow, very professionally done. Beautiful work! I didn't realize you were painting the diffuser to color match the car. That is very different and looks really good.
How did you get the side badges off and painted without touching the S5 badge? Tag charges about 200 for those alone!
Thank you N8! and Freesole.
I did not actually paint these parts myself. I removed them and had a professional body shop spray them.
The side badge silver trim pops off with panel popping tools, and prying upwards from the bottom. They literally clip into the black plastic trim around them.
TAG charges some pretty exorbitant prices for their parts. They say because they used new oem parts but I cannot justify the costs of most of their items.
I did order a lower center black optic grille from them because their price was cheaper than the Europrice price. Unfortunately, they said it would take 3 -4 weeks to get to me and I am at 6 weeks and it has not even shipped yet.
BreedAs,
That is looking good, really good! Good color scheme! Are you going to have the window trim painted Black as well?
Thanks for the tips on the trim and side badge removal.......
BreedsAs, In regards to the springs how did you compress the struts to get the springs off? Curious cause I have done springs on others cars with coil overs and they can be a pain the ****.
I am going to order the springs now.
BreedsAs, In regards to the springs I have how did you compress the struts to get the springs off? Curious cause I have done springs on others cars with coil overs and they can be a pain the ****.
I am going to order the springs now.
3Cat,
You will have to pull the strut out. So you won't be compressing the strut in the car or anything.
The way I did it was to;
1. Of course, jack up the car by the pinch welds, remove the wheel bolt covers, then bust off the lug bolts.
2. Take off the upper knuckle bolt (long one with two ball joints) from the upper control arm. Then hit the knuckle with a mallet and they'll disengage from each other.
3. Remove the lower strut extension bolt connecting to the lower control arm.
4. Remove the front sway bar end links all together.
5. Take off the upper strut mount 3 bolts in the engine bay.
After that, you just have to "persuade" the strut extension "U-style" boot area over the lower control arm so that it can fall down.
You will need a spring compressor to compress the stock springs, but you won't need it to compress the aftermarket springs (at least I didn't for my 034 springs). The top strut mount bolt will tighten down without compression.