Disassembled and modded the '14 faux gas cap...
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Mach 1 Member
Joined: April 17, 2013
Posts: 678
Likes: 5
From: Hickory Creek, TX
Disassembled and modded the '14 faux gas cap...
I'm waiting for the RTR decklids to become available again, but figured I'd take a shot at making the stock panel more attractive (plus I wanted to see how hard it would be to remove the panel)...
3 hours later, here's the result:
May not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like the deletion of the chrome. I used red plast-dip for the GT, black plasti-dip for the rest of the cap, and some 3M carbon fiber film I had sitting around.
Getting the panel off is easy... just remove two screws on the bottom corners. Then take a plastic panel removal tool and pop off the deck panel insert. If you want to mod the cap itself, its easiest to just disassemble it. On the back of the panel, you'll see two silver press on grippers- pry them off. Then, take a plastic panel wedge and insert in the upper corner of the faux cap while running fishing line between the cap and the panel to remove.
Now you need to get the center piece removed from the faux cap... Use a Dremel with a burr to remove the melted plastic rivets. Then use a small screwdriver to push through the resulting holes (I also used some fishing line here as well). Be careful- the center insert has some thin sections between the letters that you need to push on gently to disengage the plastic shield.
At this point, you'll notice the "GT" letters are actually part of the chrome faux cap. I figured I would turn them red with some plasti-dip I had laying around. Once that's dry, I created a masking tape tent over it and used black plasti-dip over the rest of the cap. (Note, I had black plasti-dip on this part already, and it was easy to remove to start over again.)
While all the coats of plasti-dip were drying, I decided to spice up the center panel with some 3M carbon film I had from a previous project (available on eBay very reasonably). If you go this route, use a marker to trace around the piece on the back of the film (which has handy 180 reference lines), cut out and apply the film, then take a LOT of time and care using an exacto to precisely trim around the openings. Then just put it all back together and- bingo!
If I had it to do over again (and it would be pretty easy to do so), I would use spray on bed-liner for the surrounding part of the cap (and I'd wait longer for everything to dry- but I'm impatient).
Now I'll just wait for the RTR panels to become available again- or not, the new look might grow on me.
3 hours later, here's the result:
May not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like the deletion of the chrome. I used red plast-dip for the GT, black plasti-dip for the rest of the cap, and some 3M carbon fiber film I had sitting around.
Getting the panel off is easy... just remove two screws on the bottom corners. Then take a plastic panel removal tool and pop off the deck panel insert. If you want to mod the cap itself, its easiest to just disassemble it. On the back of the panel, you'll see two silver press on grippers- pry them off. Then, take a plastic panel wedge and insert in the upper corner of the faux cap while running fishing line between the cap and the panel to remove.
Now you need to get the center piece removed from the faux cap... Use a Dremel with a burr to remove the melted plastic rivets. Then use a small screwdriver to push through the resulting holes (I also used some fishing line here as well). Be careful- the center insert has some thin sections between the letters that you need to push on gently to disengage the plastic shield.
At this point, you'll notice the "GT" letters are actually part of the chrome faux cap. I figured I would turn them red with some plasti-dip I had laying around. Once that's dry, I created a masking tape tent over it and used black plasti-dip over the rest of the cap. (Note, I had black plasti-dip on this part already, and it was easy to remove to start over again.)
While all the coats of plasti-dip were drying, I decided to spice up the center panel with some 3M carbon film I had from a previous project (available on eBay very reasonably). If you go this route, use a marker to trace around the piece on the back of the film (which has handy 180 reference lines), cut out and apply the film, then take a LOT of time and care using an exacto to precisely trim around the openings. Then just put it all back together and- bingo!
If I had it to do over again (and it would be pretty easy to do so), I would use spray on bed-liner for the surrounding part of the cap (and I'd wait longer for everything to dry- but I'm impatient).
Now I'll just wait for the RTR panels to become available again- or not, the new look might grow on me.
Bullitt Member
Joined: July 30, 2008
Posts: 425
Likes: 8
From: Indianapolis, IN
Looks really nice, good job. I had the v6 tribar pony rear panel put on my GT when I got rear ended. I had to pay the $20-$30 (I think) cost difference between that and the GT one. I have been wanting to do the chrome in black have just been too lazy to mask it off or take it apart. Yours looks really nice though.
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