Sharktooth grille repair
Hello all,
Here is some information and progress pics of my sharktooth grill and is a continuation of the gille in the "71 Duster sharktooth grill?" tread from 8-3-2008:
I have found that the best cement to use to fix broken areas and to
even recreate missing areas is PVC cement. It melts the plastic nicely and welds it back together. I even recreated a corner and rebuilt and reinforced the stock lower headlight bezel-mounting holes. I did add some thin brass drilled with holes and used epoxy to attach the brass.
As you can see from the pics, masking off each fin is a tedious task, but will be well worth it when it's done and will look more like what the factory intended. The closest paint match looks like the mopar argent silver from Eastwood Auto, and for the black I will use the Rustoleum for Plastic gloss black. This black isn't too glossy and closely matches the original paint on the top of the turn signal bezel. Most areas have seen so much weathering that you would think that the original paint was a flat black. But on top of the turn signal bezel where it stayed out of the weather, it is a gloss black.
To repair the broken corners of my turn signal bezels, I made a pattern from the non-broken one, and then traced this line onto the backside of the paper to make a guide for the missing holes on my broken one. I then used my pin vise and micro drills to make some holes into the plastic to run a reinforcement wire in the shape of the missing hole (midway between the inner and outer edges) super glued into place. Then using the pattern I drew, I shaped some masking tape to make a mould of the screw hole and filled it with epoxy.
Once dry, I cut and sanded the shape you can see in the pictures.
Only a true Mopar enthusiast would go to this much trouble masking off repairing etc...
Or maybe I'm just... TWISTED! :twisted:
Hello all,
Here is some information and progress pics of my sharktooth grill and is a continuation of the gille in the "71 Duster sharktooth grill?" tread from 8-3-2008:
I have found that the best cement to use to fix broken areas and to
even recreate missing areas is PVC cement. It melts the plastic nicely and welds it back together. I even recreated a corner and rebuilt and reinforced the stock lower headlight bezel-mounting holes. I did add some thin brass drilled with holes and used epoxy to attach the brass.
As you can see from the pics, masking off each fin is a tedious task, but will be well worth it when it's done and will look more like what the factory intended. The closest paint match looks like the mopar argent silver from Eastwood Auto, and for the black I will use the Rustoleum for Plastic gloss black. This black isn't too glossy and closely matches the original paint on the top of the turn signal bezel. Most areas have seen so much weathering that you would think that the original paint was a flat black. But on top of the turn signal bezel where it stayed out of the weather, it is a gloss black.
To repair the broken corners of my turn signal bezels, I made a pattern from the non-broken one, and then traced this line onto the backside of the paper to make a guide for the missing holes on my broken one. I then used my pin vise and micro drills to make some holes into the plastic to run a reinforcement wire in the shape of the missing hole (midway between the inner and outer edges) super glued into place. Then using the pattern I drew, I shaped some masking tape to make a mould of the screw hole and filled it with epoxy.
Once dry, I cut and sanded the shape you can see in the pictures.
Only a true Mopar enthusiast would go to this much trouble masking off repairing etc...
Or maybe I'm just... TWISTED! :twisted: