After my Pity Party Post, I've actually accomplished some fulfilling stuff. Though none of it helps to get my car actually running, it does feel like progress. As I'm 500 miles away, the only thing I can do is fiddle with the small parts I bring down here. That means I spend an unreasonable amount of time restoring the trim and accessories and stuff.
This episode: Grill restoration and some shiny bits:
For whatever reason, my 1600 had a 2L grill on it. I've been told that a lot of folks did that way back when the 2L grills cost less than putting my daughters through college. As far as I can tell that is the only non-stock part on the whole car.
I'm mostly committed to restoring the car close to original, so I've gone back and forth between using a 1600 grill or the 2L grill that was on the car. I am taking personal liberties here and there - like instead of black instrument bezels, I did dull silver as God intended, a 2150 stroker, custom suspension, etc.
As a result of my impulsive over-purchasing syndrome, I found myself with two additional grills, a 1600 and another 2L, both of which needed restoring.
I started restoring all three grills at the same time. The first step was straightening any metal as best I could. Then I took them down to get further straightened and triple plate re-chromed. The center bars of the 2L grills are stainless, so I had those straightened and polished. The 'D' emblems were re-chromed. I then completely stripped, sanded down to bare metal, straightened, primed, and painted the back grids. This was a ton of work, but all of them turned out really well.
Since there was no painting required on the 1600 chrome, that grill was finished first. And it turned out amazing… and I sorta regret it, but I sold it in order to add to the depleted Roadster Fund (I've sold off my fly rod collection to fund the project thus far).
I then went after painting the middle bars and the emblems for the 2L grills. I spent a crazy amount of time working on the emblems… had some trial and error, as I had to redo my first attempt, but I learned a lot and found a pretty good path to getting them looking really good. I hand-painted self-etching primer where needed. Because they're wedge-shaped, I then made a little foam 'tray' to hold the emblems perfectly level, so I could paint/pour semi-gloss enamel all around the center 'D', and it would dry level and smooth. That worked really well. And for the inside of the bars of the emblem, I just painted one side and after that dried, I flipped it over and painted the other.
The middle bars are deceptively a pain in the butt. Lots of tight little masking required. But I got them masked, primed, and painted with a satin black.
Then I masked the chrome surrounds and painted the backs of the chrome with a series of paints which kind of makes it look bead-blasted. This will help with rust, but is mostly overkill because you can't even see it when the back grids are on there.
Next was hardware and assembly. I bought all new stainless everything, and even cut new studs for the D emblem attachments.
All in all, I'm really happy with how they turned out and I feel some satisfaction from the effort.
If my math is correct, I still have one too many grills, so I'll be selling one of the 2Ls soon I suppose.
With my chrome job, I also sent out a bunch of little bits, so next task will be reassembling some of that stuff - like the wing windows.
I'd much rather have a running car than a pretty car… but this is the path I have to take… so onward. Baby steps.
