Grill, Front Bumpers and an Antenna

I think the easiest thing I've done on this car is to install the antenna.  It took two minutes.

The grill in the background is the one that came with the car.  The ribs on that one are in poor condition but the brackets are good.  The grill in the foreground has nice ribs but it has several broken brackets.  Between the two I will make one very nice grill.

As I removed the brackets I sandblasted and painted them before reinstalling them. 

All done.  The one in the front has nice ribs and perfect brackets.  It's time to install.

The grill should be held in with 11 fasteners but I am only using 2.  I am dry fitting for the bumpers.

Speaking of bumpers, I decided duct tape makes a pretty good substitute for chrome.

Just kidding.  The duct tape is protecting the chrome so I can sandblast the back side in the blast box.

After sandblasting I primered and painted the inside surface.  They look nice.

Lots of hardware and brackets are required.  Turns out the two on the far left are incorrect for our 63.

None the less I did a dry fit using the brackets I do have.  It looks great and I hope to get the missing brackets on E-bay.  Wish me luck.  They are a one year only bracket and I prefer original.

Installing the front bumpers has been a slow process because I don't want to scratch the paint.  I am taking my time and you'll see more on these bumpers in the next posting.  And speaking of the next posting, I'll be out of pocket for awhile but I should have something in 2 or 3 weeks.

Thanks for watching!  

Refurbishing Corvette Window Trim

Lester recently asked about how I was refurbishing the trim pieces.  As you can see, my trim pieces are discolored, dull and rusty.  Fortunately, the trim is stainless steel, not chrome.  It will clean up nicely.

I picked a corner piece as a representative sample.  It is painted, pitted, rusty, dull and scratched.

Because of the pitted areas I had to start with 800 grit sandpaper.  I dry sanded this piece until all of the blemishes were gone.  This piece still has a very minor pit but I am not going to be concerned.

Next I use 1000 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches left by the 800 grit paper.

That was followed by a hard cloth buffing wheel with coarse rouge.  Rouge is like a stick of hard plastic.  You briefly hold it against the spinning wheel then polish the item.  Coarse grit rouge is black and I only had to use it for a couple minutes.

Here's our piece just after I used the black rouge.  The piece is a little dull but the scratches are gone.

I finish with a soft cloth wheel on the buffer and green rouge.  Green is for stainless steel. 

Here's a side by side comparison.  I cleaned the under side with a rag and Goof-Off, a great all purpose solvent/cleaner.  Now all I have to do is spend a couple hours doing the rest of the pieces.   

The windows are installed and so are all the trim pieces.  The trim isn't flawless but it is shiny and looks great to me.  I am very pleased with the results.  Double lick on the following pictures and check it out.

Lester, thanks for the great question.

Next will be the side exhaust.