My '73 Comet GT Restoration Thread

Plenty i'm sure.. ha!

 

I'm glad you have the correct grill for those slats. That is the major part of it. I see slats come up more often than the actual grill.

I am fortunate that that yellow 72 I now have has the correct grill. I thought something was wrong with it for sure when I first laid eyes on the car. I got it home and when I had the time I inspected it and wiped it down. Grill is complete and slats are there and look good. The grill was coated with oily suit.

 

Yeah, these slats actually came with this grill. I have a second set of slats that I will keep as spares. But, they don't fit this grill near as nice as its matching slats do.

 

Repairing these grilles can be very tedious work, its looking good.....

 

Thanks! Definitely tedious, but I think the result is gonna be awesome.

 

Today I filed and sanded down the major repair. It came out great! I also touched up all the visible repairs with 600 grit. I am done with the repairs! Once my prep and paint supplies come in tomorrow, I will move on to cleaning, prepping and paint, hopefully on Wednesday.


Here is the grill, not even cleaned, with the light assemblies installed and slats loosely set. I can't wait to get this thing all painted up!

 

Painted and mounted lol

 

Mounted... Yeah that is gonna be a while.

 

Did some paint prep and color testing on the test grille today. I am using SEM Color Coat products. After cleaning and applying the adhesion promoter, I sprayed on the silver (SEM Silver 15083). This is the color that will outline the turn signal sections of the grille. Next I masked off a couple sections and then sprayed on the gray (SEM Medium Dark Pewter 15813). This is going to allow me to see the colors next to each other and to see how the masking works out. Finally, I removed all the tape and finished it off with two coats of satin clear ( SEM Satin Gloss Clear 13013). Here is the finished test product.




I am dead set on the silver and the satin clear. You can see that the pewter is a little lighter than the grey in the second pic. The pewter is very close to the grey on a 1976 grille that I have that is in really great condition, which is what I matched my paint chip to. From my experience, I have found that these grilles actually fade darker as they age. The plastic material is a very dark color and the factory paint wears off revealing a darker appearance. I am going to stick to these colors.

 

Nice job on the grill so far - I love JB Weld - I've used it in a lot of places

 

Yours will look way better than mine..

 

Mine seems darker.
http://mmb.maverick.to/attachments/gt-grill-angle-view-jpg.42924/

 

Thanks!

Yeah, yours does look darker. Maybe once my car is painted and I can see it installed I will repaint mine darker. We'll see.

 

Finished painting the grille today! It came out great. First I scrubbed every little crevice and corner using the SEM cleaning products. Here it is all clean and warmed up under the heat lamps. I've got all my supplies ready to go.


The first step was the adhesion promoter. 1 light coat, 1 medium coat, both front and back. Then I sprayed the silver, 1 light coat, 2 medium coats. I'm only doing the silver outline on the ends since I'm using the stainless steel slats.



After letting the silver bake for about an hour, I could not wait any longer and masked it off. I know, I was tempting fate on lifting the silver, but I tested it and it seemed to do just fine. I went for it. Both sides got carefully masked off.


I then sprayed the gray (actually called medium dark pewter), 1 light coat, 2 medium coats, front and back. After letting that bake for an hour, I removed my mask, praying that the silver would not come with it.


It came out awesome! Just like the factory. I finished it off with 2 coats of satin clear, front and back. 1 hour later, I stuck the slats on temporarily. I had to see what it was going to look like. I love it! I'm glad that it is not too dark and I think it will go great with my blue paint and silver stripes.


I also finished up the turn signal housings with a nifty boot for motorcycle connectors and some heat shrink tubing. Should be good enough for a car stored inside.


Once the grille has had a few days to cure, I will mount the turn signals and install the stainless steel slats. Then on to the next project.

 

That came out great, Rusty...nice reward for your time and effort rehabbing that busted grille