1939-40 grille chin

[CSHADES]

When I bought my 40 there wasn't much grille left and no lower chin or baffle. I actually didn't know what they looked like because I bought it back in the pre internet days. The first pics are the truck without the chin and the last pics is the 39 with the chin in the factory position. I have been looking for a reasonable priced chin and baffle that was in good condition to use on the 40. I found one at Back to the fifties swap meet last summer and decided now would be a good time to get it mocked up and prepped for paint. The problem I had with doing this was the Po had cut off the bottom of the grille shell where the chin mounts. As you can see the chin mounts very low on the shell. I also had removed the bottom bar of the grille because it hung to low and looked stupid that way. The piece hanging down I just fabbed and installed as part of the mount for the chin as you will see in the next few posts on this. I hope this helps any of you guys out there with the 39-40 trucks. I have never been able to find much on this type of tech stuff compared to the 41-46 trucks

[joedoh]

definitely looks better with a chin! probably ran into too many parking blocks

[CSHADES]

As I said I bought the chin and baffle at the swap meet at Back to the Fifties last summer. It wasn't/isn't perfect but it actually worked out better that way because I didn't feel bad about slicing and dicing it to fit were I needed to go.
As I said in the previous post I had shorted the grille by one bar when I put the truck together in the 90s because the lower bar was hanging down by it self and looked wrong. So instead of a 16 bar grille I have a 15 bar grille. It also helps to get the chin up level with the bottom of the bumper which hopefully will help keep the chin from getting rubbed to badly. The rusty piece in the pics is the rusty flange I cut off. I ended up trimming the chin some more before I was done. I then made a new flange that shorted the baffle up so I can use the original mounting holes for the baffle inside the grille shell. The bottom pic is the bottom of the chin, I had to replace a bit of the tin there because of rust and some brazing that had been done somewhere in its previous life.

[CSHADES]

These are the pics of the final test fit. The button head bolt in the center of the chin screws into the bracket that is in the original post. It helps stabilize the chin. I think it looks good and now I am ready to blast, prime and paint the pieces. I debated over filling the hole for the hand crank and decided in the end that because I didn't have a spot in the grille for the crank I really didn't need one in the baffle. The chin will be painted body color and the baffle will be black for 2 reasons-- I don't have much original paint left and I think black is a better color for the baffle.

[CSHADES]

Did some more welding and grinding on the chin and baffle sunday. I blasted both pieces in my cabinet and laid some epoxy primer on them. Next up-skim coat and lots of sanding.

[CSHADES]

After being sick for 2 weeks, I finally got going on finishing the chin and some of the other details on my 40. I got home a bit early on Friday nite and the gf wasn't home so I headed out to the shed for some quality sanding time on the chin and baffle. Saturday morning I had a drywall finish guy out to the house for some repairs so I had to be out of there by 7:30 am. So I actually had everything finish sanded, painted and cleared by 11 am sat morning. I installed the chin and baffle sun afternoon. It is nice when everything is pre fitted and goes back on the truck after painting with no hassle. The cool part is the paint(purple) and clear that I used was from the original paint job back in 1998. I finally got rid of some of the almost empty cans in my paint locker.

[dennislbrooks]

nice work

[CSHADES]

Originally Posted by dennislbrooks

nice work

Thanks. Now I have to clean and wax the rest of the truck so it doesn't look so shabby against the new paint on the chin.