Sharktooth grille

[71blueduster]

Repaired the cracks, painted and installed the sharktooth grille I bought off ebay. Here are some pics.

Before

After

 

[Wylde1]

Lookin' good. Makes a big difference. :thumbup:

 

[68 Sedan]

Sweet. I take it it's a direct replacement. No mods needed?

 

[1964 hippo]

all-hell yah!!!!!

 

[Bigmacdak]

Congrats man! You worked hard on it & it shows. Looks like a totally different car IMO.

 

[WyKev]

Looks Good!! Hey, you wouldn't happen to be from Western Nebraskie would ya?

 

[71dustar]

have any pics of your work in progress with the grill?

 

[charger70]

have any pics of your work in progress with the grill?

Yeah, what he said.

Makes a big diferance in the character of the Duster doesn't it?
I have to do one also so any advice please?
any suggestions or shortcuts?
Which color first?
The masking for the second color is intimidating

 

[CAJUNCARNUT]

When Restoring A 71 Or 72 Duster That Is The Finishing Touch, A Sharks Tooth Grill, It Makes These Cars.

 

[71blueduster]

Yeah, what he said.

Makes a big diferance in the character of the Duster doesn't it?
I have to do one also so any advice please?
any suggestions or shortcuts?
Which color first?
The masking for the second color is intimidating

No pics of the work that was done, sorry. When I got the grille off ebay, it had a few cracks in it. I used a dremel with a cone shaped grinding tool and notched the cracks on the front and backside of the grille then filled both sides with epoxy. After filling the frontside, I scrapped off the excess epoxy leaving just a little to make sure the notch was filled. On the backside I just smoothed out the excess epoxy and didn't do any sanding to it since it can't be seen. After a day or so, I sanded down the epoxy on the frontside to make it smooth, and tried to not sand the plastic too much. I didn't use any primer when I painted it, but I'm sure it would help out.

As far as painting, I sprayed the center section with Krylon Fusion Satin Black. After it dried, I taped off the entire sections of the fins in the middle (I was going to try to tape off all of the fins individually, but there are over 150 of them and it would have taken me 2 weeks to do that) then sprayed the rest of the grille silver. I used the Mopar Argent Silver wheel paint. I also used the headlight buckets that were already on my car. I just masked off the outside chrome and sprayed the middle silver.

From the standard grille to the Sharktooth grille, the turn signal light sockets were different. My standard grille had the type that are held in place by screws whereas the Sharktooth grille had twist in sockets. Fortunately 73+ Dusters use the same style, and a member here sold me a set. I just had to splice them into the wiring harness.