Hey guys, got a question for ya. I got this grill off of a friend of mine and took some SOS pads to it to shine up what I could and painted the main bar black. The picture makes it look a lot better than it is but it does look decent from about 5-10 feet away. It was originally all chromed but is an older chrome job and the chrome on the main bar was basically all gone. The main bar is pretty straight BUT it has really bad pitting and a few smaller rust holes. I tried to put multiple thick coats of paint on it but still doesn’t look good to me. I’ll have to take filler and put all over it, sand it etc etc to get it flat enough to look good and paint again. The teeth and headlight buckets still have chrome on them but there are places where the chrome has came off, rusted, and chipped. One of the teeth actually has a couple of rust through holes in it due to the front clip it was on was sat up on its end where the weather and rain could collect and of course rusted the backsides of the teeth. All three teeth have small dents in them. The grill was taken apart to be chromed however many years ago so I can bolt it back together and everything. It would cost me $750+ to get a whole grill chromed (thanks to arrowheadfred I now have a straight enough grill that I can eventually get chromed just can’t afford it now). Do you guys think I should put this grill on my truck and use it till I get ready to chrome the other one? OR put the straight “but not chromed” grill on until I can get it chromed? I really do like the chrome teeth with the “main bar” being black look but the grill has those flaws like the dents and such I mentioned above. My truck is going to be a driver but I still want it to look good you know? I guess I could sell it (the chrome one) but ….I don’t know

Oh yeah, the one tooth on the right I haven’t cleaned up yet, it still has surface rust/grime on it. I couldn’t get a good pic of the small dents each teeth had. Like I said, from a about 5-10 feet away it looks decent.



this is the tooth I haven't cleaned yet

This is what it looked like before, didn't think to take a pic with teeth on it before I removed them

 

If you can get it to look decent from 10 feet away, and you're relatively happy with the look, use it until such time you can get something better. Nothing wrong with that.

BTW, SOS pads are way too course of steel wool for good chrome polishing. You really want something more on the lines of 000 steel wool for that kind of cleaning. You can use it with rubbing compound, too, to help with the polishing effect.

 

The picture you posted looks good without the teeth, gives a real custom look.

 

I'd pretty up the old one as good as I could and use it until I got the new one chromed. If you run the new one and, God forbid,
something happened to it like some idiot backing into it , then you'd have two bad ones and nothing good to chrome.

 

I have at least two grilles that are just the straight bars, without the teeth, that are in good shape. Might save you time rather than fix yours.

PM me if intersted.

 

Well I actually have 1 "main bar" that is really straight, one full grill with 3 straight teeth but the main bar has bondo in it from a big dent I believe but the rest of it is pretty straight, and finally I have the one above. I'm thinking of maybe taking apart the grill with the bondo dent and fixing it then put the chrome teeth and buckets on it. I think it would be less work maybe if I fill and straightening the one with the dent in it than the one with the bad pitting all over it......maybe LOL