Stainless Steel for Engine Cover

[Dutch Star Don]

Summit now offers three strips of stainless steel to cover the horizontal bars on the 2019 DS. I saw a coach on FB, with similar colors to mine, that added the SS. One thing they did and I felt made the coach look better, was to remove the mesh on the engine door and lower bumper and paint it. My Dutch Star came with black mesh as I'm sure all do. My rear paint is almost a dead match to almond Rustoleum, in a can, so I painted the three mesh pieces.

Just painting the mesh, made the coach look nicer. The first picture is just paint. The second photo is with the SS. The photo was taken in my backyard, so there are some reflections and shadows, but you can get an idea of how it looks.

The SS shipped to my house was $209.00

[MikeyG]

Looks great Don.
Mine should arrive in the next day or two.
Any DS Don secrets to the installation?
Did you butter the ends with silicone to prevent dirt from getting between the SS and the paint?
Cheers,
Mike

[Mapnerd]

Wow, that looks awesome. Don’t suppose they offer any strips for Ventanas?

[ARD]

That looks GREAT!

[Stuart W]

Originally Posted by ARD

That looks GREAT!

Very nice Don

[FLSteve]

Nice … I like it. Looks like I need to add this to my list. Thanks for posting this.

FLSteve

[Dutch Star Don]

Originally Posted by MikeyG

Looks great Don.
Mine should arrive in the next day or two.
Any DS Don secrets to the installation?
Did you butter the ends with silicone to prevent dirt from getting between the SS and the paint?
Cheers,
Mike

It took a couple of tries, but I found the secret. There are two strips of two sided tape on the back of each piece, running the length. I sliced through the protective cover of both pieces of two sided tape (red plastic covering), dead center of the SS piece. I peeled the red cover back, both directions on both pieces. This left me about 4" of the sticky side of the two sided tape exposed. The covering that I peeled back, I folded over the edge of the SS piece.

I took two pieces of Gorilla tape, about 6" long and attached them to the underside of the first horizontal engine cover bar on both ends where I wanted to install the SS piece. I visually centered the SS piece and then held it in place by bringing the Gorilla tape up and over the SS piece. Basically, taping the SS piece on the engine cover door at both ends. I was primarily looking to see if the piece was centered left to right. Once I had it centered, I visually centered it top to bottom on the door. Once I saw everything was aligned, I pushed the center of the SS piece against the door, adhering the SS to the door. I then pulled the red covering (4 pieces) both directions, exposing the two sided tape. As I worked toward both ends, I pushed the SS tight against the engine door.

Hope you can visualize what I did. I basically pushed the SS against the engine cover and then pulled the covering off of the two sided tape.

[MikeyG]

Crystal clear Don. That allows you to "walk" the SS cover into place. Otherwise its an all or nothing. Prime for misalignment.
Thanks for the tip Don. I hope to receive them and install this weekend.
Did you see a need for a silicone bead at the ends like the sill SS trim on the coach?
I also ordered the SS door handle for the front door.
Never hurts to add a little shine.
I'll post photos when I'm done.

[rlott2k]

Looks real nice! ( I still think it looks a bit like an angry robot)( not that there’s anything wrong with that)

[Johnsonk64]

I ordered these at the rally in Syracuse. Pretty easy to install if you take your time.

I didn't paint the grill pieces, but plan to at some point this winter.

Looks great Don!

[Smitty77]

Need a 'THUMBS UP!' button.... And 'LIKE'...
Smitty

[Dutch Star Don]

Originally Posted by MikeyG

Crystal clear Don. That allows you to "walk" the SS cover into place. Otherwise its an all or nothing. Prime for misalignment.
Thanks for the tip Don. I hope to receive them and install this weekend.
Did you see a need for a silicone bead at the ends like the sill SS trim on the coach?
I also ordered the SS door handle for the front door.
Never hurts to add a little shine.
I'll post photos when I'm done.

I didn't see a need for silicone at the ends, but, I might run a bead along the top of each piece, since that's where the dirt will collect. They use some pretty tough 3m tape.

I also did the front door handle. Not only does it look really good, I was tired of trying to keep the black handle looking nice. Your finger always rubbed shiny spots on it.

I know you can go crazy with chrome (SS) and it doesn't take much to overdo it. After install, I found the front door handle really complemented the bay door latches. I installed the engine cover pieces, knowing that if they were "too" much, I could remove them.

[MikeyG]

Thank you Don. I'll take a look at that detail.
Eagerly waiting for the UPS delivery and hope to do the install this weekend.
I'll report back when I'm done wit pics.
Cheers,
Mike

[Canuck53]

Originally Posted by Dutch Star Don

I didn't see a need for silicone at the ends, but, I might run a bead along the top of each piece, since that's where the dirt will collect. They use some pretty tough 3m tape.

I also did the front door handle. Not only does it look really good, I was tired of trying to keep the black handle looking nice. Your finger always rubbed shiny spots on it.

I know you can go crazy with chrome (SS) and it doesn't take much to overdo it. After install, I found the front door handle really complemented the bay door latches. I installed the engine cover pieces, knowing that if they were "too" much, I could remove them.

Did you just order SS door handle from PTL? Is it just the outside handle? Any issues or tricks to install?

Hat was the cost and part number for the handle? Thanks