I'm looking at buying a 71 Riv grill at a local yard. It's got a few cracked bars and I'm wondering if it's fixable and what a fair price might be.
The grille looks fixable but will take some time to do. Plastic grille are made from ABS plastic and can be glued with ABS pipe cement. Do a search for grille repair and you will see what people are doing.
I did a search but I didn't come up with much. I had read the material was ABS so I guess plumbing cement will work just as well as anything. How about those Eastwood epoxies? And benefits with them? I'm thinking about working time. With ABS cement, you have a very short window to get the parts in the right spot.
Thats going to be a tough one to repair. I've used various epoxy on plastic and in fact one case was on a 71 Riv grille. Just make sure it says its for plastic. I had a small build-up of epoxy on the cracked areas because wanted a stronger repair vs something that might not be visible but not hold up. I wouldn't pay more than $15 for that grille. Decent ones aren't that difficult to find but you have to be assertive in your search.
Are you in the Riviera Owners Association? I have made many parts contacts through advertisers in the Bi-monthly newsletter. I go to their national meets when I can and make parts contacts there as well. Often times I find parts that normally wouldn't ever be advertised. Of course I search craigslist nationwide, watch ebay, and check publications like Hemmings. Welcome to the world of owning Rivieras. Sometimes you really have to work to find parts but if it was easy, anyone could do it and our cars would be no different than Camaros and Mustangs. :TU:
Jeff What i would use is weld bond (also called cold weld)- with small metal strips and extra to reinforce it in behind. its a very strong product - that bonds to any non porous material Ive used to fix lots of things ( over flow tanks, bake a lite handle on the barbeque, starter brush holder, headlight switches, fan shrouds, even a leaky exhaust manifold (that only held for about a year) its good for small things and can be filed and sanded , even though hard to do, wet sanding works best. Tip if you clean excess off with laquer thinner and smooth it with a wet finger (sticks cut to clean out the grooves)( maybe even some for spaces between bars to hold things in place while its sets) it sets up in about 5 to 15 minutes and it comes out super smooth if you time it right and get a little water on top. you'll need to use laquer thinner before it dries to get off your finger too. Some flat black and silver and grey paint - patience you should be able to get that one looking great. check out the boattail registry www.boattail-riviera-by-buick.com
You do know that this weekend there will be some Buick people in Danvers, Ma who may have the parts you need. Not a very long drive from Warwick :TU:
Buick Club of America northeast meet at the Crowne Plaza July 6-9. They call the place something else now, but the address is still the same
I repaired my grille about 20 years ago. The biggest problem I had to deal with was warpage of the bars. Hard to tell from that photo, but if any of the plastic bars are bent, they are almost impossible to get perfectly straight, even with reinforcement. You are also going to have to fill in the dings in the front of the grille where the impact caused the crack. If you like a challenge, go for it, but there are bound to be other, better grilles out there. Good luck!
Do what we do around here. Cut out the bars so you just have the frame. Then put a black mesh screen in the frame and reapply the logo in the original position. It'll give a clean sporty look and be alot easier to fix in the future.
I also repainted it with a high heat, flat silver spray paint and then painted black in the grooves. Mine looked pretty new several years after that.
Thats fixable. The front tips on a couple of my slats were knocked off. I went to the thrift store and found something plastic, I think it was a floppy disk holder, I cut it up and ground pieces down to be triangular. Then glued them in and painted over it. Its not perfect, but unless you are kneeling down looking right at it you would never know. Painting it is another challenge. It is Argent Silver, I actually found the paint at NAPA. Painted the silver first, then spent about 6 hours painting the black in between by hand.
