As the first real modification (I wouldn't call installing the CB much of a "mod") we are painting some of the trim panels to match the exterior red paint job. Wood grain is just too "old-person" for us. ;)

Our first step would of course be to get the paint. For the red coat we used Krylon Fusion - a rattle-can paint which is specially formulated to bond with plastic. For the top coat, Rust-Oleum high-gloss clear coat enamel. This combo has so far worked very well, doesn't chip easily and it looks great!

The first pieces of trim we painted were the plates surrounding the cruise control buttons on the steering wheel. I didn't take any pictures of the wheel taken apart to get them out, so a description will have to be adequate.

First step is to disable the airbags - wouldn't be too great to set them off while doing this work. To do this you must remove the fuse from the inside fuse box. There are two, I assume one for passenger and one for driver, but I can't confirm this, or which one would be which, so I would suggest removing both - better safe than sorry. There are four screws on the back of the wheel which must be removed. Two (which actually attach the cruise clusters) are T-20 torx screws, while the other two are nuts (I'll have which size they are posted soon, I have forgotten!). Once you get the airbag portion off the wheel, the trim plates are easy to get out. The torx screws holding the cruise clusters go in through the back plate on the wheel, through the clusters and into a tab on the wheel itself. The cluster just needs to be moved out from under this tab and it lifts out. Disconnect the wiring harness and you're on your way! Here's what the wheel looks like without the clusters:

Once the cluster is off the wheel, flip it over. You can see where the buttons click into the trim plate by two tabs on either side. Carefully push the tabs in and out through the trim plate and the buttons will fall away from the trim. BE CAREFUL HERE: As you will see in some of the pictures later there is a rubber pad covering the contacts that the buttons you just pushed out actually hit. Below this pad are some quite small pieces of metal that are REQUIRED to make the buttons work! Don't let this pad fall off or you will risk losing these contacts! I suggest pushing the buttons out of the trim plate over a box of some sort just in case.

Once the buttons are out of the trim, use something to cover up the wiring harness connector so you don't have to scrape paint off of it later. We used a bit of paper towel and stuffed it down in. If you do this, just make sure you don't bend the connectors.

Now you're ready to paint. Make sure you leave the rubber pad covering the button contacts, or you may have issues with your cruise control working after this! Hit the trim with a thin coat of your base color and walk away for a good 15-30 minutes. Repeat until you've got a 4-5 coats, or about 2 coats after the first coat where you have completely covered the original color. The Krylon Fusion can says that it takes 7 days of drying before the paint is chip resistant. So I gave it a full 24 hours before I put on the top-coat of enamel. I put on 3 coats before calling it good. Once this was done, I allowed it to dry for nearly 48 hours. This produced a nice HARD coat that you would have to TRY and chip or scratch. Turned out very well.

And if you didn't note from my time descriptions, you will definitely need to run your truck for quite some time without them. As they are the cruise control clusters, you will have to go without this luxury for a few days, and it is an eyesore to look at, but it is definitely worth it. ;) Simply put the bolts holding the airbag back in then leave the other two screws off, and you'll be good to go until the paint dries. Just don't rush it! Let it DRY or the paint will be soft! Any handling and you'll have permanent finger prints in the paint job! LET IT DRY!

Now before putting it all back together, I made sure to peel off the paint on the rubber pad covering the contacts. The paint didn't even begin to stick to it, and peeled off easily, as seen here:

Below you can see what the contacts look like before you accidentally find out by spilling them all over the floor, as I did:

Once you get the paint off the pad, stick it back on and get read to snap the buttons back into the panel:

And here's what you end up with:

Now of course you should be able to do this with any trim in your rig. We are planning on painting all of the wood grain trim, plus the trim surrounding the vents on either side of the dash. I'll post more pictures when I get that done.

Happy Jeeping!