Let's see those Original Chevy/GMC truck grilles you restored

[sduckworth13]

We have a bunch of talented guys on here that do amazing work and was looking for pictures of grilles that have been restored. Can you also list what process you used to restore your grille.

Thanks for posting your pictures and info,
Scott

[Lou Boffa]

interested

[BugzC10]

Subscribed...before and after pics would be nice.

[72 Sierra]

looking forward to this.

[Aussie Ol' Blue]

Bring it on

[thesledhead]

Well I cant find a before pic but here is my after, I started with a decent junkyard grill that had the normal pits and a 2"X6" dent on the crease next to the driver side headlight. I worked the dent out with wood on the face of the grill and then messaged it with a wooden roller from the other side. Then I polished the hell out of it. The plastic came out of my donor truck, I cleaned it up and painted the silver in with model paint. Its not perfect but great for a weekend driver.

[sduckworth13]

Originally Posted by thesledhead

Well I cant find a before pic but here is my after, I started with a decent junkyard grill that had the normal pits and a 2"X6" dent on the crease next to the driver side headlight. I worked the dent out with wood on the face of the grill and then messaged it with a wooden roller from the other side. Then I polished the hell out of it. The plastic came out of my donor truck, I cleaned it up and painted the silver in with model paint. Its not perfect but great for a weekend driver.
Attachment 1205197

Attachment 1205198

Attachment 1205199

Very nice truck, the grille looks great.

[thesledhead]

Originally Posted by sduckworth13

Very nice truck, the grille looks great.

Thank you.

[BugzC10]

Originally Posted by thesledhead

Well I cant find a before pic but here is my after, I started with a decent junkyard grill that had the normal pits and a 2"X6" dent on the crease next to the driver side headlight. I worked the dent out with wood on the face of the grill and then messaged it with a wooden roller from the other side. Then I polished the hell out of it. The plastic came out of my donor truck, I cleaned it up and painted the silver in with model paint. Its not perfect but great for a weekend driver.
Attachment 1205197

Attachment 1205198

Attachment 1205199

Beside elbow grease, how did you polish it? What did you use?

[thesledhead]

Originally Posted by BugzC10

Beside elbow grease, how did you polish it? What did you use?

I wet sanded some of the bad spots around the repair with 2500 or 3000 grit? and then used a Mothers Ball in my drill to polish.

[cheyenne shortstep]

Here's mine, started with a decent grille that had the typical small dents, dings and scratches. Stripped the anodizing with paint stripper, hammer & dolly, filed flat, sanded starting with 220 wet, worked my way up to 1500. Then polished with a wheel on the drill and polishing compound [rouge], finished with Mothers and a ball. I took extra care to make the peaks perfect and sharp with a sanding block, in all I have about 35 hours including painting the inner [which is a perfect condition OG] and the detail around the headlight bezels which I also sanded smooth and polished. I am doing another but will cut a few corners as I think I got a little carried away with this one.

[7d1truckguy]

here is a couple of pics of my 1971 gmc grille, before I removed the black paint, and after I removed the black paint It took me 8 hrs to remove all of the black

[sduckworth13]

Originally Posted by cheyenne shortstep

Here's mine, started with a decent grille that had the typical small dents, dings and scratches. Stripped the anodizing with paint stripper, hammer & dolly, filed flat, sanded starting with 220 wet, worked my way up to 1500. Then polished with a wheel on the drill and polishing compound [rouge], finished with Mothers and a ball. I took extra care to make the peaks perfect and sharp with a sanding block, in all I have about 35 hours including painting the inner [which is a perfect condition OG] and the detail around the headlight bezels which I also sanded smooth and polished. I am doing another but will cut a few corners as I think I got a little carried away with this one.

That's looks great, appreciate you posting and listing the steps.

Originally Posted by 7d1truckguy

here is a couple of pics of my 1971 gmc grille, before I removed the black paint, and after I removed the black paint It took me 8 hrs to remove all of the black

Looks great, I definitely like it better without the black.

[Lou Boffa]

I'm inspired. Got lots of dents, deep scratches and dimples. Once the weather warms up, I'm on it. Thanks guys.

[19GM71]

Before and after. Not perfect, but much better. I used oven cleaner and scotch brite pads to remove anodizing, the some sand paper, a little bit of hammering, then a whole lot of polishing with Mother's and a power ball. I then taped the shiny part off and painted the letters with spray paint. I used black pin striping tape to make the lines above and below the letters. Definitely cheaper than buying a new one. Good luck.

[sduckworth13]

Originally Posted by 19GM71

Before and after. Not perfect, but much better. I used oven cleaner and scotch brite pads to remove anodizing, the some sand paper, a little bit of hammering, then a whole lot of polishing with Mother's and a power ball. I then taped the shiny part off and painted the letters with spray paint. I used black pin striping tape to make the lines above and below the letters. Definitely cheaper than buying a new one. Good luck.

That's looks great, I just picked up a 1969-1970 grille from rwade ( Wade ) off the parts forum. It has 0 dents and just needs to be polished out and needs the letters painted and striped again across the middle. He had two grilles for sale. One had a tiny ding and one has no dents. Here is a picture of the grilles. I'm getting the top grille in the second picture.

[sduckworth13]

Here they are after he cleaned them up.

[leddzepp]

You are much better off restoring an OEM grille. I paid $225 to have mine done by a local shop...it was money very well spent. Doing it yourself costs a lot less, but if you have the time to do it, that's the way to go...either way it's less money than an ill fitting repro grille. I believe member DT-1 restored his grille and laid out the steps in a thread a while back...it looked fantastic.

[sduckworth13]

Thanks Scott, I did check his thread out. He did a nice job on it. I have another grille I can practice on. I'm staying away from the 69-70 reproductions, they don't have the same same tooling and it just doesn't look right too me.

[litew8]

Best before pic I could find:


After:




Methods are essentially the same as all mentioned before.
I removed the anodizing with oven cleaner (used outside in well
ventilated area and do not let the cleaner sit too long or it can stain the aluminum (from what I've read)).
Sanded out light dings and worked my way up to super fine paper.

[sduckworth13]

Nice work, your grille looks great. There was a product at work we use to use called Alumna-brite made by ZEP. They quit buying it after they found out it also is a calcium channel blocker after a guy at work was admitted to the hospital for some side effects after he used it. Basically it was very harmful, but it would clean dull aluminum to a mirror finish within minutes.

[litew8]

After a few minutes the oven cleaner gets rinsed off. Some strong stuff (lye) - even cleans off old grease dirt from chassis (don't get it on painted surfaces) and parts. I've yet to coat the surround for protection. I bought a can of some stuff (coricone) a while back but haven't gotten there yet.

[litew8]

Originally Posted by sduckworth13

Nice work, your grille looks great.

Thanks! Many hours invested to get that look.

[sduckworth13]

I was actually wondering that myself, how many hours do you have in polishing out your grille?

[72 Copper C-10]

Originally Posted by sduckworth13

Nice work, your grille looks great. There was a product at work we use to use called Alumna-brite made by ZEP. They quit buying it after they found out it also is a calcium channel blocker after a guy at work was admitted to the hospital for some side effects after he used it. Basically it was very harmful, but it would clean dull aluminum to a mirror finish within minutes.

I think i can still find some of that stuff or close to it, but not in stores (obviously!)

I cant wait to see more! everyone's grilles look awesome, I cant wait to do mine!!