I know this subject has been beaten to death but please hear me out i am reconditoning several 72 GS grills And I Am going to do one with argent silver textured like you see on some (Bad word here ) Mopars grills and back panels ,if you know what i am talking about ,it looks very rich and nice on the grill and is a different look , I think better looking apearance wise than original that is if you are not a conesour What do you think would any one be interested i will post in a few days Dave P/S pardon the spelling getting old some times it just does not come to me of all the things i have lost i miss my mind the most
What do you all think a 72 GS grill is worth , All cleaned up painted and ready to bolt on . Fixing them up is time consuming and tedious to get a good solid 35 + year old grill to look like or as close to a newone . I will post some pics as i get them done here is the last one i did
With the downturn in the economy it might have lost some but grilles lie that rutinely sold for 325 to 400 on Ebay. I paid 550 for an nOS one a couple years ago
350 range sound ok w/ me from the pic i saw. what have u been thinking of charging? what about sending our cracked ones to you as a core when ordering any discount then? i really like the idea that someone is redoing 72 grilles way to go :TU:
same here, would you consider redoing ours? ive got 2 that would need some work, not tons of work but some. buickbert
Let me get some before and after pics together and some colseups of repair work Then i will ask for some more imput before i would get into restoring them , Like i said they take a lot of time and paciance neither of witch i have had much of lately with the economy and trying desperately to finish a 8 year frame off restoration mod on my 72 Thanks for all the imput I still am not sure of the paint paterns some i have seen are painted like the one i posted and others are painted black down the middle front to the lip. Dave
here's a few pictures of one I saw on ebay a couple yrs ago. I dont remember now if it was NOS or just restored. I kept them because I planned to do my grill which is painted all black. Id like to do the silver on it.
I would say that grille has been restored...all the original ones I have seen have a small silver strip that runs up the side of the smaller square hole area on each side. I've attached two pictures of the original grille off my 72 vert before I repainted it...the pics aren't great as they are from camcorder footage, but you can plainly see that strip. Also note the separation between black and silver is quite feathered in the middle of the grille, although you would never see that anyway once bumper is installed unless looking way too close!! In fact I have a pretty trashed 72 grille in the garage that has not been touched, I could dig it out and take some close up hi rez pics of those areas if anyone is interested, but not until tomorrow. Also of course the grille on my vert too but I have already detailed that one.
here are some pics of one i am working on still needs detailing the egg crate area ahd parts missing and 2 stud mounts were cracked . solid now . Have to remember these parts are 37 years old but wheni am done if you flex the gril there is no crackink sound and feels solid . Hope i can finish thisone and I am going to do one in the textured silver . It realy looks sweet , Not correct but stands out Dave
Couple more pics, this one is Fremont built Oct 71 GS 455. You can plainly see the thin vertical stripe and the feathered edge (again) but note the grille is molded of a creamy type color and then painted silver/black. Also note the top parts of the bars are black the bottom are unpainted. They used some kind of mask and gave it a quick spray from front/top as its quite sloppy. This grille is beat pretty bad. My Flint built (Sept 71) ragtop grille was molded from black plastic and just the silver was sprayed. Same P/N. Its not hard to mask if you do the black first. You'll notice the silver stripe is just that, it does not extend into the bar area so easy to do if you paint black first. Don't forget these these things were sprayed with templates so were pretty badly done, anything you do will be better than stock. Hope that helps. BTW Plasti-Kote hot rod black and Plasti-Kote dull aluminum are dead matches for original, esp if you spray the aluminum "dry" it has a slight texture to it.
Question: Do you have to straighten any of the bars? There is a section on my grill that seems like it got hot and all the bars sagged with the heat. Thats all I can figure anyway. This is the only pic of the grill I can find. You can see all the bars on the right side seem a little off.
I have fixed and streightend bars and other areas with a heat gun or hair dries but you have to be very very carful not to melt it just warm it up to flex and hold untill it cools recomend a oven mitt it will be hot As was noted early on the thin silver are down the inside ede of the egg crate strip can be hand painted after the black is done , with a steady hand ,and a fine paint brush . as for color i use eastwood argent silver and a semi or flat black high heat grill black has a nice flat finish and when done i spray the whole thing with a satin clear it dulls the silver and unifies the finish as well as protects it.. they look great Like Tim said they are porly painted from the oem so any thing you do will improve the looks As for a price I haven;t gave it much thought and with or with out a core i did not even consider , I am thinking i will finish the 4 i have and see what they bring ., Under stand they are still a 37 year old part and are not Perfect But are solid and look as good as I can make them Look . Dave
thats about all a guy could hope for unless someone does a complete repop of one (please) yours look real nice though will definately keep an eye open on your progress maybe when u get some done i could get "my wife" a grille for her birthday don't u think that would be nice of me? i can almost hear her now :spank: :laugh:
Can anyone recommend what type of glue to use to mend back these grilles. My grill looks perfect but if you pull up on the top of the grill it separates in a few places.
here are 2 i just finished up I did one with the textured finish argent silver and one with regular argent what do you think? Dave