Dino's grille restoration

[Dino]

Warning!  Very long post!

I figured since we only have about 700 threads on how to restore a grille, we need one more!  First two pics show the grille as it was.  This was a few years ago.  The third and fourth pics show the result of a booboo in the garage last spring.  There wasn't a mark on that I piece until that day.  The rest of the grille was your typical worn out mess.  The paint was worn, there were stress cracks and several pieces were missing from the back where the U nuts slide onto.  Both headlight doors were damaged as well; one was missing the stop tab, the other had typical damage from rocks and such, typical fare for an old grille.  The trim was typical as well.  The anodizing was cloudy and full of pits, no shine to speak of.   

[Dino]

One thing that stood out with this grille was the center section, the driver's side particularly.  When I bought the car it came with a spare grill.  It had a wasted I piece and the driver's side center section was missing.  We'll call this grille #2.  The one in the car is grille #1.  I took both grilles apart because it was clear that the buckets on grille #2 were in better shape as the others'.  I then looked at all 4 headlight doors and again grille #2's doors were in better shape, not by a lot but better nonetheless.  I then looked closely at the center section of grille #1 and found that that piece came from grille #2.  Unfortunately whoever did the transfer was either lazy, drunk, or both.  The piece was not plastic welded or even glued in place, it was stuck in there with some type of liquid nails.  The small tabs were just laid side by side and a dab of the stuff held it on.  It looked horrible.  I figured I'd just remove it and install it properly so I removed that driver's side piece and cleaned it up.  There were 2 fins missing and another 3 fell off soon after.  By cutting it out of the other grille, it was also a bit short.  I took a look at the center section of grille #2 and found that it was actually in better shape than the other so I decided to put the piece back where it came from.  This is the kicker: grille #2 was in far better shape than grille #1 so when damage occurred to grille #1, grille #2 became a donor.  If these douche nozzles had simply swapped grilles there had been no need for any of this.  First pic shows the center piece I removed.  The following three show the center section of grille #2, the one I'll be restoring, and the cut marks that occurred when someone down the line removed the piece.  Grille #1 is in the shed and will act as a backup or for parts in case I hit a deer or something.   

[Dino]

First order of business is cleaning up the cut marks.  I'm not using any glues or fillers, that stuff doesn't last.  So since the grille is made from ABS plastic I made a batch of ABS goo.  I went to Menards and bought a little elbow of ABS in the plumbing department.  It was less than a buck.  I cut off small pieces with some plyers and dropped them in a glass jar with a lid.  I added some acetone and the next day I had a thick goo of liquid ABS.  As long as you keep the lid on the jar it'll last forever...or a long time anyway.  Leave it open and the acetone will eventually evaporate leaving you with a block of plastic.  I used a small filler spreader to push the goo into the cut marks and added a little more to cover the entire area.  Once dry I sanded it smooth, taped off the area and sanded in the little depression at the rear where the fins will get welded in.  The bottom corner of the center section had been cut pretty bad so after filling the cut marks I bolted the bucket to it and masked it off.  This way I could build up the plastic and make it flush.

[Dino]

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[Dino]

This liquid plastic dries pretty fast, but the thicker you build it up, the longer you have to wait.  It was also barely above freezing in the garage so that makes it all take a lot longer.  While I had to wait I turned my attention to the top of the center section where the release handle goes.  The top of the grille had been pushed back and was bowed out quite a bit.  One or two of the fins had snapped off.  I carefully heated the top row and pushed it back into place.  I let it cool while I braced it and once done I took some of the ABS goo and laid it on a separate dish.  I added some acetone and mixed it up until it had the consistency of glue.  I used a small art brush to dab it onto the fins and grille and "welded" the pieces back together.  This whole thing took maybe 5 minutes.  Very easy to do but it was nerve wracking having to heat up the plastic because if you take it too far, you'll end up with something Dali painted!  The last pic shows how I straightened a warped headlight door.  It was bowed back by a lot so I threw it in hot water for a while and placed the edges on two blocks of wood.  A big block in the center and a clamp were used to bow it the other way.  I did this two or three times until I knew how far I needed to bend it so it would spring back and remain straight.  I had to bend it so it almost touched the workbench.  Crazy!    

[Dino]

The bottom attachment points on both buckets were broken, one on each.  I don't have pictures of the one that was missing the most but it was way worse than the one I'm showing.  I think about 1-1/4" was missing.  Once that one was repaired I drilled a new hole through the new plastic for the U nut.  I do have pictures of the other side to show how I repaired it.  This worked out really well and was probably the easiest part.  I didn't have the missing piece and I didn't want to cut up the other grille parts so I started by cleaning up the piece.  I then took a wood paint stir stick and masked it off.  I grabbed some paste wax and coated the masking tape.  I stuck it into the part and held it tight against the damaged part by stuffing a rag under the stick.  I brushed on some liquid goo to soften the plastic and then added more with a spatula.  I taped a toothpick, coated in wax, against the stir stick so the goo wouldn't go past where it needed to be.  Once dried I removed pick and stick and used a file to smooth out the plastic.  No work needed to be done on the inside of the piece, it was flush all the way to the original plastic.  None of the goo stuck to the stir stick or pick because of the wax, so it was easily removed.   

[Dino]

Alright, time to make the center section whole again.  Before I do anything else it's time to clean up the entire piece.  A nice warm bath with dawn dish soap, followed by a lot of sanding so the piece is essentially ready for primer.  It's much easier to do this with half the center missing!  I bolted the headlight bucket to the grille and laid the missing piece in place.  I held it there with some masking tape and a few spring clamps while I took measurements comparing it to the other side.    On the edge of the piece are solid plastic blocks; a square one on the bottom and a rectangular one on the top.  They must've used a thick blade to cut through this because a lot was missing that I had to fill back up.  First thing I did was glue the fins back onto the grille where they did meet the plastic.  That way the piece wouldn't go anywhere and I could remove the bucket.  I used a small piece of wood, again wrapped in tape and coated with wax to secure behind the gap.  Actually the block was secured on the front where the plastic needs to be smooth.  I then filled it with goo from the back and sanded the front flush.  I did this in two sessions as it's hard to get sandpaper in there and I didn't want to use too much goo.  I ended up making a small sanding block out of a scrap piece of wood.  I turned out perfectly but it took me an hour or so to get there.  I did use a small file on the back as well just to make it look good, but I forgot to take a picture.

[Dino]

I don't have pics of the finished product or any of the actual procedure for that matter but here's where I'm making one of the missing fins out of a scrap piece of abs.  I made them oversized, welded them in place and used a file and sandpaper to shape them.  They look as if they belong there.  The hardest part of the whole job was filling the gaps on the fins because if you use too much goo, you spend the rest of the day sanding.  And there are a lot of fins!  I found that using a small brush to brush the goo in place, followed by brushing it with straight acetone to smooth it out works best.  Some fins I had to redo but the sanding was kept to a minimum.  I also filled in some dimples on the rear sides of the buckets.  I saw no use for them so I made it all flush, looks much nicer now.

[Dino]

After all this it was finally time for primer.  The headlight doors and bezels didn't need any, but because of all the sanding and filling on the main pieces I thought it wouldn't hurt!  I used two light coats of Duplicolor adhesion promoter followed by one light coat and two wet coats of SEM 42013 High Build Primer Surfacer.  I then wet sanded with 400 followed by 600 and 800.  The bare plastic pieces also got two coats of adhesion promoter.  The whole thing was then painted SEM 15253 Titanium Metallic Color Coat.  I then masked the silver and shot the rest in SEM 39143 Trim Black.  I was going to top it off with SEM Low Luster Clear but something went wrong and it turned the silver a dull grey and the black in a faded flat black.  Luckily I was doing the small pieces first so the main grille was not affected, but I ended up redoing the headlight doors and bezels and those bezels are a pain to mask!  So the grille has no clear.  It's okay though, it's strong paint and I don't mind reshooting it every few years to keep it looking fresh.   

[Dino]

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[Dino]

I redid the silver on the center section and the buckets because I tried cleaning off some overspray on the center section resulting in blotches, and I had some overspray on the buckets as well  which you can see in the pictures.  It was really small but I knew it was there so it had to be fixed.  It didn't take much to mask the black areas and redo the silver.

[Dino]

Now it was time to redo the trim.  New trim was not in the budget and I kinda like restoring trim so here we go!  First order of business is removing the anodizing, or there will be no polishing.  A lot of people use Easy Off oven cleaner and that's fine, but I wanted to speed it up a bit so I bought some Lye granules intended to open clogged drains.  The active ingredient is the same as the oven cleaner, sodium hydroxide.  Word of warning: this stuff will burn the skin off your flesh and turn you blind in a second so take proper safety measures if you intend to use this stuff.  I was wearing my old chemistry class goggles and nitrile gloves.  Long sleeves were a given because it was windy and damn cold!  I picked up a $3 wallpaper tray at Menards, threw the four straight pieces of trim in there and filled it with cold water; just enough to submerge the pieces.  I added about 4 tablespoons of lye and let it sizzle.  Always do this outside because the fumes are toxic.  The water also gets pretty hot because of the chemical reaction so start with cold water.  Every few minutes I stirred the solution as the lye tends to sink to the bottom.  After a few minutes it was all nice and bubbly.   From time to time I lifted the pieces out and rubbed them with a red scotch brite.  Once the anodizing came off easily I removed all pieces and rinsed them in cold water.  I used a pan to do the end pieces and the I piece.  In the second picture you can see how badly pitted the trim really was.  Now you can sand out most of it but when it's this deep you should not sand all of it out as the trim will become really thin.  In the fourth pic you can see the difference after wiping one down with some aluminum polish.  This was just a test though; I still had to sand the pieces.

[Dino]

I don't have pictures of the dent removal from the I piece.  I just wanted that ugly dent gone so off I went!   I used a small tack hammer and a few punches and scraps of wood to gently tap and push the dent out.  As with any dent you work from the outside inward so you don't stretch the metal.  I used some flat black as a guide coat and some 220 grit on a wooden block to gently sand the areas.  Wherever black remained I tapped some more.  Once it was all straight I used a file to make it nice and flat followed by 150, 220, and 320 grit dry.  Then I followed that up with 600 and 1000 wet.  For the numerous small dents in the straight pieces and one of the end pieces I used the same procedure.  I spent a lot of time with 220 getting as much pitting out as I felt was safe to do.  To polish I used a small Harbor Freight bench arbor with a spiral sewn wheel and brown Tripoli compound, and a loose sewn wheel with white compound.  After polishing I used a mixture of Windex and vinegar to remove the haze and black residue.  The first picture shows various steps on the straight trim.  The second is the straight trim finished.

[Dino]

I piece trim

[Dino]

Of course something always has to go wrong.  This had happened with the straight pieces as well and now it happened with the I piece.  When polishing on a fast spinning wheel, it's easy to have the piece be thrown away from the wheel.  As long as you have a good grip on it, it won't go flying however, you usually end up smacking the piece against the polisher's metal axle.  This results in more pitting that you then have to fix by using all those sanding steps again.  After this one I finally learned my lesson and wrapped the axles in duct tape!  The bad news wasn't over yet though.  Just as I'm getting a good shine on the I piece, the wheel grabs it and bends the crap out of it.  I had to take a short break after this one!  After a few minutes I took the piece and carefully bent it back into place.  I laid it on the grille's center section and had to tweak just about each corner but to my surprise that was easy to do and there's no trace of any damage at all!  Since there is no anodizing on the trim now, it'll have to be polished again from time to time so if you choose to restore your own trim keep that in mind.  All it takes is a quick wipe down with Busch's or Mothers but you have to do it nevertheless.  Reanodizing this is not in the budget.  Maybe one day I'll buy repro trim...maybe.

[Dino]

So there you have it, it's done!  This is the plastic parts assembled and the trim in place.  In further posts you'll see the complete package: grille mounted in the frame and pods and brackets in place, all things I painted over the summer.  I also cleaned up and repainted the door emblems.  I didn't have enough screws to attach the headlight bezels to the frame so I ordered a new set.  They're nickel plated so I'll have to paint them black.  I also need a new bolt on the top of the frame, right in the middle.  I lost it and had to put a cruddy one in there for now. I'll still have to mount the unit on the car and center the grille and I also have to tweak the headlight doors a bit by adjusting the hardware on the back.  But for now, she's all done folks.

[Dino]

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[Dino]

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[Dino]

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[PlainfieldCharger]

  Great job and thanks for posting. Great job on the both the ABS repairs and Trim anodizing. I have some 70 coronet grills to do, now I know how I am doing them!!

[timmycharger]

Great job Dino, great tips. Really like that ABS goo 

[Bronzedodge]

That is really awesome.  great post Dino, thank you!

[WHITE AND RED 69]

Awww Yeeaahh!! That looks fantastic!    

[tan top]

 nice job   

[stripedelete]

You really did a great job.  No, "but how'd he do that" gaps.