I would suggest that rather than risk getting overspray on the car and having to mask everything, remove the grille and handle. The grille has 5 nuts on the back to pop it off the hood, and the rear handle removes with a few screws and a couple nuts. When you prep them it's much easier to use a grease remover and wash the parts if they're off the car, plus you can drive it while you let the paint cure a bit without worrying about screwing it up from hitting a bug.

 

no kidding! i'm a spectator there EVERY YEAR. my mom's boss has a kick-a$$ old red studebaker there every year too. it's been down to the Santa Barbara Wheels and Waves too. i live no joke 20 minutes from Solvang so...a meet there is a piece of cake (or a piece of pizza, as in Tower Pizza for lunch!!)! so if i don't manage any of the other meets before then, we should really try to get a bunch of us there for that show.

and Leon, good advice. i was actually going to start looking for a how-to on removing the rear one, since i know it's a bit more integrated, but i know the grill is pretty easy to get off.

 

Hey Yonash,

You access that rear beauty bar by:

Remove two plastic rivets at bottom on door panel by pushing center
of rivet in 1/16th" and then remove entire rivet.

Pulling downward on the rear hatch handle along the top edge of it
will release the top of the handle from the hatch and you can remove it too.

Remove the third brake light cover by pulling it straight off. If you start at one side and pull up the end as it lays on the lower hatch panel and pull straight out. Then work your way across being careful not to twist it.

Remove the lower hatch panel starting at the top edge and working your way down. You are pulling plastic fasteners that can be strong. Just pull downward until they let go working your way around the panel. It is helpful to have an extra set of hands at this point to avoid dropping your interior panel.

If any of the fasteners remain in the hatch after removing the cover they must be carefully removed from the hatch and placed back in their slots on the hatch panel before re-installing the cover.

Find the electrical plug that powers the license light and disconnect it.

Then you take a deep 10mm socket and remove the bolts holding the beauty bar to the rear hatch.

Sounds tedious but we've had them off in a few minutes.


Don

 

having the appropriate 3M adhesive in a roll at work made it easy, I just sold myself 2 feet of it and then removed the bowties with the hairdryer and a guitar string method. sand, prep, paint with High Solids Aluminum, then 2 coats of metalflake clear and one of a good hard regular clearcoat, and we're good to go. Please excuse the dirt, there are more puddles than streets right now as the winter snow meets the first really good warmup we've had.
I still have some touchups to do around the rear one, the back hatch of mine has several tiny paint chips, including where I believe someone has tried to snitch the bowtie... I still have 16" or so of the adhesive, so when it's a bit warmer I'm going to peel off the back one again and fix a bunch of them, for now I have to wait until the color match paint pen comes in for me (Olympic white is apparently rather a high demand color).
Here's a shot of the front one, it's the only comparison shot I have.
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You can't see the very fine metal flake in the picture very well, but in person it sparkles and changes color.