My '73 Comet GT Restoration Thread

Starting working on a side project. I can't seem to get motivated to do sheet metal work, lol.

I am working on restoring a 71-72 style Comet grill with the stainless steel slats. I have a good starting point, but have some repairs to do.






I have already practiced on some grill scraps, so it was time to work on the actual grill. I'm using plane old JB Weld for the repairs. I used small pieces of aluminum for supports where needed and held the joints together using binder clips.



Once everything cures I will file and sand them smooth. For the missing piece, I have some donor parts that I will graft in. That repair will be next once these butt joint and chip repairs are done.

Then it will be time to clean, prep and paint. I am going with the argent color scheme. Stay tuned!

 

nice to see some progress in here!

 

Thanks, buddy. It was fun working on it today. Gonna make a better effort to get at it more often.

 

I am extrememly interested to find out how the JB Weld holds up for you. Did you build it slightly thicker and overlap it onto the horizontal surfaces as well? Tough to not leave a lump there, right?

My grill is also cracked in similar fashion, some of it made worse or created cause my toopid arse had it towed home with the center grill support removed, and now needs to be restored as well. I surely knew better than to do that too because I'd seen and already felt the affects from lost bolts and removed center section supports many times through the years.

What amazes me is the weight of the entire assemebly on such a little car. With braces and supports and all the rest. Figure I can save about 2 lbs just by going to aluminum screws and fasteners on the front of my car. lol If I could remake this thing in some type of lightweight composite?.. I'd go for it just to lose the nose weight and help weight transfer/bias and all that. Unfortunately, it's a fairly complex unit in comparison to the simpler Pinto style used on the Mavericks and the authenticity would be killed away very quickly in my composite challenged and more feeble fabrication hands.

I will however fabricate a new radiator support and framing/bracing system for the entire front end sheetmetal, bumper, and grill support areas. Anything out in the front of the wheels is major bookoo important to my overall build strategy. Hell, I'd probably even put my engine in back too if it'd fit back there.

Oh.. almost forgot the btw.. your car will look awesome with the matching argent tail and front end completing either ends of those stripes! You have one of my all-time favorite color schemes and I've always thought a color matched early Comet GT grill would really pull the whole car altogether like it was a factory option. Only the purists would even be able to pick it out as an add on. And then there's my vision of 15" torque thrust style wheels with matching argent painted centers setting all the rest off even more.

Good luck with the build and repairs.

 

Thanks!

On my test pieces, the jb weld held up great. I could even flex the repair areas and it shows no signs of failure. But, time will tell. On the visible surfaces I sanded the repairs smooth, but plan to leave the hidden areas less finished in order to leave as much material as possible. And thanks for the compliments!

 

Pm me if you need a very good replacement grill off a 1974 comet.

 

Thanks, but I already have a couple spares. I'm sure someone can use it, though.

 

Ok, . I will post a lot of parts for sale or try and help the younger generation with there projects.

 

Well, my repairs came out great! Nice and strong. Time will tell if they will last or not. Today I filed and sanded down the previous grill repairs. They make not look to nice now, but they are pretty smooth to the touch. Once everything is the same color, I think they will look great.




The next repair is the major graft portion. I first filed the joints smooth so that my graft piece could be massaged into place. You may notice that the piece I am grafting in is slightly different. It has a recessed rear portion. That is because this piece came from the lower section of the donor grill. I did not have the correct top section, so this will have to do. I will fill it in later once the repair is set. A lot of test fit - file - test fit - file iterations later, I had the piece ready to set in place.







I then tore down the marker light sets that I will use in this grill. I polished up my bezels. These had been re-chromed about 17 years ago. There are some blemishes now, but they will do just fine to get the car back together. Going to paint the brackets satin black and the fixtures silver or something.

The next steps will be to file and sand the graft repair and then back fill the recess so that it is smooth across the top. I also received my SEM Color Coat chips in the mail, so I will start to choose the two-tone argent and grey colors. Also, my two NOS lenses showed up today. They look pretty good!

It was a fun day for sure!

 

Marine Tex is another product that works well for things like that.

 

Really appreciate your tech tip. It shows what you can do with a little bit of sanding an painting.

 

Another round of grill repairs. These are the first cures of the grafted in piece. I forgot to take pictures of them once they were filed and smoothed down. I need to fill-in the recessed portion next, but I decided to put that off until this weekend since it will require a little more prep time.




I then moved on to repairing the busted off alignment studs. I used a 1/4" diameter by 1/2" long nylon spacer as the new stud. They are slightly larger than the factory stud, but I can always enlarge the gravel pan grommet a little bit to ease with fitment. I prepped the pads and epoxied them down. Once these cure, I may choose to drill down through them into the grill and run a #4 stainless steel pan head screw in for added strength. I'm not sure of that yet. I will make that call in a couple days once the JB Weld has cured.



I cleaned, primed and painted the turn signal housings. The brackets were painted a few days ago. I then assembled everything with new gaskets and my NOS lenses. I will be ordering new harness boots for the wires coming out of the back of the housings. The original stuff was cracked and faded. I have found some motorcycle harness boots that I think will do nicely. I will post pics of those once they come in.


I also matched/picked out the SEM Color Coat colors that I will use to re-paint the grill. I will order those tonight and get the other paint prep products coming.


The rest of the day I spend rebuilding, cleaning and oiling my hand ratchets. I was tired of reaching for one only to have it free spin or flip directions on me while I was working. A little WD-40, rebuild kits and drops of Kendall household oil later, my ratchets are all smooth and happy.

 

Nice work. I had thought of using model glue on one once when my cardboard pieces got wet and fell out. Then I found a new grill at a dealership.. That was like 30 years ago lol..

 

Well, if I had found a new grill in a dealership 30 years ago, I would not be spending this kind of time fixing this one up!

I'll be back at it this weekend, hopefully getting some color on it.

 

Finished up the grill supports today. I did end up drilling and running a 1" #4 stainless steel pan head screw down through the nylon spacers. The JB Weld did not bond well to the nylon. Once I put the screws in, the supports got super strong. I'm more than happy with them.


Next I moved on to filling in the recess on the grafted peice. A quick sanding and tape wall, then I mixed up some epoxy and filled it in.



I then straightened out a bent stainless steel slat. Once it looked straight, I hand polished all 3 slats. They came out pretty good. Kind of a shiny stainless steel gray. I may end up taking them to the polishing wheel in order to get that shiny polished look. I will wait to see how they look on the painted grill.



I will be back in the shop tomorrow to file and sand down the massive fill in section. My paint supplies have not arrived yet, tracking number puts them here Monday. Oh well, plenty of other stuff to do.