Finally polished the aluminum 1963 grill

[ralf]

For polishing aluminum this stuff is the Holy Grail:

http://www.nuvitechemical.com/Products.asp?ProductID=1

[Captainfab]

Awesome job on the grill

[1963c-10]

1st I washed grill w/dawn and hot water to remove as much dirt and road grime off the grill that I could. 2nd step was the oven cleaner. I did several coats over a couple of days, just put down a good heavy coat, let it work, remove with hot water and a sponge and reapply until you get the aluminum to etch...will have a powdered white look to it. 3rd was couple of good passes with the brillo pads and hot water. Now this will probably sound a little funny, but my next step was to put the grill in the shower and I let the hot water run over it for a few minutes and you'd be surprised how much little stuff came out....little pieces of oven cleaner and brillo detergent, worked really good....then just let it air dry real good. 4th was the polishing (I tried several polishes that I had and the Mothers aluminum polish by far gave me the best results. I did the grill in 3 sections....my work space is a little smaller and it was easier for me to do personally. Did it on nights and weekends....if I had a week off, could probably have been done in 2-4 days of straight work. The bezels I sprayed in my stainless steel sink and just let them soak. Drano can be used also to remove the anodization in 1tbsp/gallon. Sodium Hydroxide is the chemical that will remove the anodization. I tried two different oven cleaners....the name brand stuff ez-off or something like that was garbage. Our local grocery store is Food Lion...they had a cheap brand that was like $2.50 a can and it worked great. 2 cans did my grill and bezels. 1 box of brillo pads and 1 small jar of the Mothers Aluminum/Mag polish.

[1963c-10]

Originally Posted by ralf

For polishing aluminum this stuff is the Holy Grail:

http://www.nuvitechemical.com/Products.asp?ProductID=1

Whats the price on this stuff like?

[1963c-10]

Here you go burbluv

[1963c-10]

Finally completed the grill. Did a final clean/polish and installed the grill decals. The first couple of pics are after final polish...showing detail of before and after the decals start to go on. The decals fit pretty good, but some minor spots where the decals didn't quite fill everything in..had to trim the "E's"

[1963c-10]

Next few are just applying more decal and finished product.

[hopped up]

nice job!! grill looks good!!
Posted via Mobile Device

[1963c-10]

Thank you. Only a few months of a night or a weekend here, but I think it came out good. Stripping the anodization and polishing was the most tedious jobs.

[C/10 King]

B e a u t i f u l !!!!!!!

[1963c-10]

Thank you sir.

[1963c-10]

Any new additions?

I wasn't 100% happy with the Classic Parts decals, so I had some made and they are a much better fit. I'll post some info on the new decals tonight. Also had them cut in blue to match the new paint that'll get laid down this spring

[joedoh]

gorgeous! I need to polish mine.




and polished aluminum only has three states, just polished, getting polished, and needs polished.

[blazer-k5]

Great looking grille man.

[Rich 5150 69]

great job Jon, you`re doing some nice work.

[1963c-10]

Thanks guys for all the kind words.

Joedoh....let the fun begin. Was a lot of work, but well worth the results. Let me know how it turns out. Your grill looks nice and straight. I had a bad dent over the driver side headlight that took me some time to work out, but it's barely noticeable now.

[TJ's Chevy]

I have an oem aluminum grill on mine. 64-66 on though. Took a couple hours of scrubbing with some good polish and it cleaned right up. Thinking of taking it and getting some body work done to it. Much better quality then these junky re-pop grills. Nice work 63 C10! Looks like it was well worth the effort and no doubt was time consuming!

[1963c-10]

Thanks TJ. Was a project I did awhile ago...had a member looking for the page so I brought it back up. I am very pleased with the results. Sadly....it'll be spring before its gets mounted. I have too many body issues w/my grill support, so I have a nice rust free one from my 61 parts truck that'll take its place along with donar inner/outer fenders and a donar hood. Northern PA was not nice to the truck. But I have plenty of nice used OEM parts ready to go on. Plan is to take the front end off, do disk conversion, install big block, new front end on and hopefully not have to deal with a bunch of gremlins in the process.

[1963c-10]

Looks like I got another to do

[clemdaddy]

beautiful work.

[1963c-10]

Originally Posted by clemdaddy

beautiful work.

Thanks....this one has a few more dents to knock out, but none of them are very bad. Nice thing is aluminum isn't hard to work with....just time consuming.

[duallyjams]

Can you give exact details of removing the dents.

[1963c-10]

Various brass punches, rubber mallet or small brass hammer and lots of patience. Its aluminum, so it doesn't take a lot of effort to get the dents out. Hardest part is finding the right punches or round brass stock to fit into what areas you need to remove the dent from.