What you'll need:
-Phillips screwdriver
-Flat head screwdriver
-Spray paint, Fusion Krylon in Satin black is what I used
-Rubbing alcohol
-Dish soap and water
-Painters or masking tape
First, you may want someone to help you out in the process of removing the cowl and putting it back up, since you may have to vary the hood height during the removal process and this can be difficult with a single person. Start by opening the hood, and looking by the weather stripping where the hood meets the cowl. There should be 3 plastic phillips head screws that hold the upper cowl (part you want to paint) to the lower cowl.
Unscrew these screws and pull the pins out that hold the two pieces together, its kind of tricky so keep working at it. Next, youre going to want to remove your wiper blades. This is done by just lifting on the wipers as if you were going to wash your window, and unclipping the clip on the wiper motor, then just sliding the whole wiper fixture off that wiper motor.
Once you have the wipers off, take your flat head screw drive and start prying up on the cowl on either one of the sides. Its held on only by metal clips, so it takes a little effort but the cowl will release and you will have to work it from one end to the other until you have released all the clips.
Once the cowl is loose from the car, you will have to detach the wiper fluid nozzles. Underneath the cowl there will be a metal clip that you must squeeze together to allow that wiper nozzle to come out from the top of the cowl. Once it is released, hold the fluid line that attaches to the nozzle, and pull the nozzle free of that line. When you put the nozzles back on, youll have to pull that metal clip back out to keep the nozzle in place.
Now that the wiper nozzles are off, free the cowl completely from the car. This may take opening and closing the hood to certain heights to jimmy the thing free, just be careful not to bend or stress the cowl too much in order to reduce the risk of cracking it.
Once its off the car, wash it with soap and water, then rub it down with rubbing alcohol to prep the surface for painting. Doing this will reduce the risk of the paint chipping away in the future. Now use some masking tape or painters tape to mask off the rubber weather stripping at the top of the cowl, as well as the area that allows the hood hinges to move freely. Once you mask everthing off, its time to paint.
I used Krylon Fusion Satin black paint since it bonds to plastic. Spray 10" away from the cowl to reduce runs, and just spray in fast sweeping motions for the first coat. Let the paint dry for 15 minutes, then go paint the final coat until you get a deep black color. Keep the freshly painted cowl away from any dust or leaves blowing around outside so it doesnt ruin the look of your new paint.
Picture of painted cowl, you can see the areas I masked off with blue painters tape:
Once the paint has dried (an hour or so will be fine with the mentioned type of paint) Its time to put the cowl back on the car. Just reverse the order of things when you took the cowl off, and you should be fine.
Now enjoy that deep black look of your cowl once again, and know you only paid 4 dollars for the spray paint rather than 154 dollars for a new cowl from Ford. Here are some pictures of the finished product.
