68 Barracuda Formula S
your 68 looks great man, I have my front grill out but how do I get it to look as good as yours.
Anvil, light hammer, file, 280, 500, 800 gfit sand paper, $40 harbor freight buffer, silver and green buffing rouge, can of Easy-off Oven cleaner and patience/persistence.
Start by spraying the aluminum anodized part down with the oven cleaner. Let it sit for about 15 mins and rinse. It will remove the anodise very thoroughly. Softly start knocking out any dents you have with your hammer and use anvil or dolly to get your piece back to its general shape. You use your file to true it up and to find you high and low spots. If you have low spots flip it back over and softly push them out. Sometimes I use my thumbs or the handle of a screwdriver to knead or push from behind the piece depending on what movement, leverage I need. Aluminum is soft and very easy to work with. It shapes very quickly.
Check your work continually with flat edge file once you have your shape free of highs and lows you need to remove the file marks with the various sandpapers, starting with heavy grit progressing to light grit. It wil smooth very fast. I like to use a wet/dry paper with a bit of warm water as it keeps paper from clogging andvthe water shows imperfections that I can focus on removing. Once you have it smooth and straight time to buff. Start with med firm wheel green rouge buf till shiney, wipt metal clean of excess rouge. I use window cleaner to help in removing any residue BEFORE using separate soft wheel with silver rouge to get high shine.
When you are done mask and paint your argent silver areas. For the 1/8" black line you can mask and paint or use 1/8" pinstripping black tape ( my choice as it's clean and fast).
I suggest practicing on a few extra pieces before tinkering on the ones you intend to use. It's really about getting a feel for it and learning by doing/ experiment, well there is no substitute.
Pn the chrome inserts or the chrome surrounds that hold your plastic grille (on a 68' ) I used *** steel wool to remove oxidation, and then buffed them out. The chrome held up amazingly good and they shined up like new. The plastic grilles are simply a semi gloss black. I chose black over the original silver as I liked the look. Reassemble using one small 9 year old kid, and install, done!
