Grille restoration

[Stu]

Anyone dismantled a 70 Challenger grille or similar and reassembled successfully?

Just about to start stripping the paint and my preference would be to dismantle it completely first. No idea how easy / difficult it would be to drill out the rivets and redo. Not something I’ve ever done before. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever had my rivet gun out of the packet.

Thoughts anyone?

Ta!

[Pete]

I would not strip, they are very fragile; I would mask up / over-paint as necessary.....

[Stu]

I can’t paint over the paint that’s already on there, it’s laid on thick using what looks like a big lumpy stick. It’s also painted on bits that shouldn’t be.

Was just going to very gently see if I can get going with some stripper and very gentle scraping.

[Blue]

I wouldn’t take it apart either, strip it as it is.

[Stu]

Ok, that’s roughly where I’m at, as I’m pretty sure getting apart would be no problem, but putting it back together well might be!

I’ve started gently stripping and scraping, but it’s not aided by the fact that I the paint used is loosely related to tar…

Going to take some considerable time, I reckon.

[Dave999]

can you slime it in something and stick it in a bin bag for a week?

i guess you'd have to test the slime on the back first...just to check it doesn't eat ancient aluminium pot alloy and plastic

Dave

[Dave-R]

Its easy to drill out a few rivets and replace them.

[Dave-R]

Simples.

[Mark B]

I was lazy and did mine in situ.

viewtopic.php?t=57258&start=15

[Stu]

Excellent job as ever, Dave. That really was a belter of a car, lost track of it now, where is it these days?

Question on the stripper, did you scrape it, rough it off, or what? I’m finding that gentle scraping is eating into the metal, but using a rough pad isn’t getting through the 26 layers of hammerite…

Also finding some ‘oles that need attending to.

What did you do about the egg crate portion?

[Dave-R]

Excellent job as ever, Dave. That really was a belter of a car, lost track of it now, where is it these days?

Question on the stripper, did you scrape it, rough it off, or what? I’m finding that gentle scraping is eating into the metal, but using a rough pad isn’t getting through the 26 layers of hammerite…

Also finding some ‘oles that need attending to.

What did you do about the egg crate portion?

Last I heard my old Challenger was in a private collection in Holland or France or something.

The original grille for my car was damaged before I got it so I was always on the look out for a good replacement. I was offered this one for $1 and shipping from Indiana so snapped it up.

This grille was a stock non-R/T version in textured Argent Silver. Being a stock item the egg crate part wasn't painted. My memory is buggered but I think only the T/A had that bit painted black.

When I applied the paint stripper the Argent paint came off pretty easy with a brush and plastic scraper. I wasn't worried about scratching areas that were going to be primed and painted.

I did have to do a bit of polishing on the unpainted bright areas too but it came up great.

[Stu]

Thanks Dave.

Yes, a plastic scraper is the missing piece of the jigsaw that I should have thought of, cheers.

[Stu]

When I applied the paint stripper the Argent paint came off pretty easy with a brush and plastic scraper. I wasn't worried about scratching areas that were going to be primed and painted.

Dave, thanks for this, the plastic scraper is something I really should have thought of, but didn’t until you suggested it. I’m very grateful that you did, it was a game changer for getting the old crud off. Cheers!

Mark, I forgot to thank you for the link to yours as well, cheers for the help.

[Dave-R]

Good to see you managed in the end. A very good job you have done too!