'70-'72 Duster grill repair tips

[clhyer]

I just done some repairs to my grill and thought that I would share. It was fairly easy, and relatively inexpensive. I did three separate "repairs" that I think are common to our grills.
The first repair is the upper mounting tabs that broke off. You can see that it was repaired before, and that was fine until I needed to remove the grill for a/c install. The mounting tabs broke off again.View attachment DSC01431.jpg


For this repair I went to Lowes and picked up a piece of .093 Lexan plexiglass. I choose this as it seemed to be more flexible than the standard plexi. I think the 8X10 piece was around $4 or $5.View attachment DSC01432.jpg


I wanted to fit this plexi into the groove on the top of the grill, it required a couple minutes of sanding with 80 grit to get a nice snug fit.View attachment DSC01433.jpg
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The mounting tab that is broken off only has a partial groove. I notched the plexi so that the tab fit snuggly on the end. When cutting plexiglass, I use my scroll saw on a very slow speed. If you cut too fast the plexi heats up and melts back together right behind the blade. By using a very slow blade speed and feed as fast as possible I get a good clean cut that cleans up with just a couple swipes of the sanding block.
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After notching the plexi for the tab, mock up the fit and trace the outline of the pattern. Drill the holes first while you have a large piece of plexi and use a round file to do clean up. I clamped the plexi in a vice close to the holes. Then it was back to the scroll saw to cut it out.
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Hit the edges with the sanding block, mount the U nut and check the fit:
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TO BE CONTINUED...

 

[Rengo]

This is new..

 

[clhyer]

And our second repair, a crack in the top of the grill. I got lucky, and the crack did not get into the viewing area of the grill. I used another piece of the plexi and cut the first piece a little shorter in length so that the piece repairing this crack was a full 10", and then I cut a small piece to scab on the back to glue the two repair pieces together.
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At this point I identified the end of the crack and drilled a small 1/16" hole through the grill to stop the crack from spreading further. Sorry for the poor quality pics here.
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We are now ready to tackle the "glue up". I had some bumper repair epoxy that I used. It is a 2 part system that cures in about 15 minutes - work fast!!! And, it remains flexible when dry. This stuff is fairly expensive as I recall. You could probably use JB Weld or something similar, although if you can find a flexible plastic product I would recommend that. Mix it up, spread it on both parts and clamp in place.
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The last repair was not really a repair, but a fix nonetheless. A tab on the lower edge of the grill broke off. This tab holds a small #6 U nut where the headlight trim fastens. Instead of glueing a piece of plexi on the back, I found a U nut at Lowes that works great. It is a Hillman U nut, part no. H#831245 and is called a "#6 wide". Not only is it "wide" to go over a thick piece of metal, it is also much longer that the one attached to the broken tab. This is long enough to slide down over that broken tab and actually grip it securely.
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Next I set the grill in place and checked to see that all the parts fit. It fit great. Back off to drill some small holes in the repair plexiglass to accept the chrome edge trim.
It probably took me almost as long to type this all up as the repairs actually took! Good luck with it, take your time and you can do a good quality repair that will last.
C