Duster grill

[1974-318]

Hi,
Here are 2 pics of my grill. The first one is an old picture of the car the seller sent me when I was interested in getting the car. When I went to see the car and bought it the grill was black. I like the black but my car has white stripes and a white roof so I'm leaning towards going back to silver.

What color would be a best match to get back to pic #1. Anything special I have to do in preparing it for paint?

Thanks

 

[gdrill]

I like the silver as well. If it is the same grill, it doesn't appear it was too bad before he painted it. I think you could use easy off oven cleaner and strip it back to original. Someone with more knowledge wil confirm or deny this I'm sure!

 

[1974-318]

I like the silver as well. If it is the same grill, it doesn't appear it was too bad before he painted it. I think you could use easy off oven cleaner and strip it back to original. Someone with more knowledge wil confirm or deny this I'm sure!

thanks, I didnt even think of that but as you said I'll wait to hear if the oven cleaner might work.

 

[1974-318]

found a few threads about this and really was not interested in the time and effort of masking and spraying. My car is by no means a show car so absolute perfection was not the goal.

I tried the metallic sharpie in silver but it wasn't quite working as well as I wanted. Came up with another solution to try and its working pretty good - bought a small can of silver paint, cut a sponge into about 1½ x 1½ inch square. Get some paint onto the sponge and then dab off on a piece of cardboard any excess. Then start dabbing gently onto the front of the grill. Next to no pressure at all required as this will create runs however if you get to it quickly with a clean finger or papertowel you can get rid of the excess. Will post some pics later as i had to quit about 80% of the way in as I got a call from school and my boy is sick. Pics to follow.

 

[1974-318]

here are some before and during (not quite done yet) photos. The driver side portion was done with the sharpie, not happy with it and will remove and use the paint. Best part is, the center part only took about 20 minutes and that was going slow and being deliberate.

 

[1970Duster]

Much better!

 

[gdrill]

Lookin' good. That's funny, I was just thinking about this yesterday, wondering what you had come up with!:thumblef:

 

[74DartSwinger360]

That looks great. The sharie dont look too bad. Once done with the silver I would remove the grill from the car and shoot it with some clearcoat. Either from a sprayer or spraybomb stuff both work great

 

[1974-318]

Thanks, the sharpie I found tended to streak and it was hard to keep a consisitent flow going so I was going back over parts doing touch ups, making new streaks etc etc. The sponge and paint worked quite well. Just my luck though, couldnt even get through a quick job from start to finish. lol

 

[1974-318]

Here is the finished grill, before clear coat which wont happen till spring sometime. Pretty happy with the way it turned out.

 

[gdrill]

That looks awesome! Nice work, what a difference. :thumbup::thumbup:

 

[briankaplan]

Kind a looks familiar to me.