I was getting bored with the stock look of my cobalt, so I decided to take a trip down to my local auto parts place and pick up some paint.

Here's what I started with for those who haven't seen my car,, nothin special,, stock cobalt minus the GM badges.



Can you guess what I'm up to?



I figured why not make it a full day of painting

front cleaned and masked


rear cleaned and masked




by far the best $15 mod ever, IMO,
only 3 coats and still have 80-90% of the can of paint left.
front

rear


I know, I know, the rotors look like ass,,, and as soon as they need to be replaced I will upgrade,,, but til then, might as well punish the stockers.

I dunno why I liked this pic


The fun begins, (I took lots of in between pics,, but there is already a nice how to available)

One coat of primer on the left,,, just starting to sand on the right


Well you know what they say about watching paint dry, so here's the bezel after 2 coats of primer,,, mucho sanding, 3-4 coats of base, more sanding, and 3 coats of clear.


Rims bolted back on


And in case anyone wonders or notices, no the headlights are not fogged up, I just hadn't washed my dirty ass handprints off of the outside yet, and didn't realize til the next day.

Front angle without the emblem


I'm still undecided on the front emblem. I think I'd prefer an SS badge, any opinions?


I would love this pic if I hadn't just rolled through some mud and dirtied up my rim/tire.


Well that was my Saturday, and I'm happy with the results, the stock chrome headlighhts always bugged me. I want to go CF hood and trunk in the future to tie it all together.

All comments, crtiticisms, and suggestions welcome,, thanks for looking

 

Good job. Nothing gaudy. Looks good.

 

looks good bro...

 

Nice pictures, I have an Sunburst orange as well, I don't think I'm going to go black though, just looks weird to me. Probably going to color match the housing with GM paint.

 

yea first thing i did was paint that dumb bowtie black gold looks dumb lol anyways is it hard to do the headlights? and can u just take the orange inserts out cuz i want mine to look like clear corners

 

Looking good. I have a Orange SS2.4 and I was planning on doing my calipers soon.. Originally I was planning on just doing the calipers black to make them blend in better, but red looks really good. You pretty much did all of the cheapy mods that I was planning on doing.

 

I originally wanted to try orange to see if I liked it, but I don't think the paint code is available in a rattle can yet. At least I couldn't find it, I have the little touch up canister though. If you find the coded paint let me know, the Dupli-color book didn't even list a number for it yet

No it is really easy to do actually, there is a how to on this site, but I have done it to my last few cars, so feel free to ask me any questions on it.

I do recommend the oven method (200 degress is perfect) over the hair dryer though. I tried the hair dryer on these and it warped one of my reflectors so bad I had to silicone it back in

You can easily remove the round reflector if you buy the amber bulb to replace the stock clear one (to be legal) but the rectangular reflector would be much tougher as it would leave a huge hole there. If you look at the last pic of the headlight bezel before re-assembly you will see the hole I am talking about.

With that said, if you are good with fiberglass you could easily rig something up there, but I was looking for a one day project. And since my car is orange anyways the reflectors didn't bother me.

When I did my cavy it was a piece of cake to pull the reflectors luckily, since that car is white and the reflectors bugged me immensely, lol

 

Looks damn good man.

I know I want to debadge mine and possibly paint my emblem up front (red to match, or black?)

The headlights and what not......still am undecided, but your car is looking sharp.

 

looks good but why didnt you paint the bar that is by the brake caliper as well?

 

I think I will color match mine similar to a vette.

 

looks awesome.. im about to do it with my car. the only thing i have to say is i cant believe you set your car on top of those rims.

 

I like the contrast between the red and the rest of the caliper bracketry. I've seen it done both ways and I preferred it like that. And if I ever decide otherwise I still have tons of the caliper paint, so it'd only take a sunny afternoon to change it. For now though I still like em how they are

Any other opinions on that?

Thanks for all the comments everyone good or bad, keep em coming

69th post,,, woohoo

 

Look closer,, the car is on jack stands,,, rims are just there incase the stands fail.

Rather lose a rim than my leg

 

Just snapped some more pics in the sun,, excuse the quality they are from the camera phone

 

looks good I painted the bowtie black this weekend and plan on painting the grille and headlights black this coming weekend

 

I though about doing the grills,, I look forward to seeing how yours come out. I want to get the lower grill in first though, then decide. Especially since I plan on doing CF for the hood and trunk eventually. I wonder if the black I used, or the stock grill color would look better next to CF.

 

Nice headlights!

 

^^ Thank you

 

Looks good man

 

Thanks man, your ride was the one that motivated me to do mine so soon

 

Here's a couple more of the calipers with the rims on

 

nice job everything looks good

 

headlights look amazing man, but do the calipers match the color of the car?

 

Nope the calipers are done in red

Thanks for all the comments everyone

 

OMG ur cobalt is blind.!!


looks real good man
later