The Ebay grille bar showed up today. Great news there were no cracks or stripped threads in the mounting bosses. As expected the chrome was blistering everywhere, and especially on the lower surfaces:
Here’s a better shot of the blisters on top:
The bottom was much worse:
And this was the worst of it:
This is the back of the center attachment. The main backing plate is centered by the blade and slot at the top. Removing the center bolt releases the die cast emblem. I was very fortunate when all three ¼-20 bolts came right out with very little effort. They could have just as easily been frozen solid and broken off:
Here’s the center emblem unbolted from the mounting plate. Alignment is assured by the locating pin in the emblem and alignment hole in the plate:
The inner bezel recess is about ¾” deep and fortunately there are no attachment holes for the center emblem, making it easy to do just about any custom installation that can be dreamed up with very little effort. The shot shows the back side of the backing plate and center emblem resting against the face of the bar:
And here’s the main bar after about an hour and a half with some 320 grit on a D/A sander. The only ding in the whole thing is this small rock hit on the driver side. A dab of JB Weld or body filler will correct the problem:
Next step is having all the parts blasting with glass beads for a uniform texture after which the main bar and retaining plate will be coated with epoxy primer. UPOL 2K hi fill primer will follow along with block sanding. The final finish will be the same Rustoleum gloss white covering the grille, bumper, and guards.