I had to take a few steps back on the build again. I was looking over the doors, fenders and bedsides and I just wasn't happy with the radius of the body lines. None of them matched. So, the best thing to do was to mock everything up again so the lines could be worked out better. But this post isn't necessarily about that. I want to back up to June of this year, right as the cab went on the rotisserie. The front end was mocked up to check the fitment of the grille. I never mentioned it because I wasn't happy with the outcome. The grille was the first NOS purchase I ever made. I'm guessing I bought that thing back in 2015 on EBAY. I basically bought it and placed it directly into storage. When we mocked it up, the fitment wasn't bad. What was bad though, was the black paint for the outlines and the lettering. The letters were all shifted downward and weren't 100% inside the embossment. The outlines around the headlights had the same issue and the LH side was sprayed very thin. For this build, I just couldn't accept this quality.
I kicked around the idea of touching it up or even repainting the black. But this kind of defeats the purpose of using NOS. So, I set out to find another grille shell to buy. I found somebody local that had a few of them. They were willing to trade with me plus cash. I picked through their stash and a few of them had the same issue as mine. I did manage to find one that was beautiful. Or so I thought. I got it home and started polishing it up. It was then that I discovered a decent size dent on the crossbar, right by where the parking light mounts. I tried to gently push the bend out, but it really wouldn't budge. I stuck a flat edge across the surface to show the depth of the dent. Too much for me...
These last few months, I have been trying to locate another NOS grille shell. There weren't any for sale and there haven't been any for sale for months. I sent a message to somebody on Facebook from a 10 month old post. I'm glad I took that chance. I was able to buy the grille and pick it up in Tennessee. It is absolutely gorgeous too with zero imperfections. So, since everything was getting mocked up again, this was a great time to check the grille fitment with everything installed around it. Using NOS center and outer braces I bought on EBAY years ago, things lined up really well. The gaps couldn't look any better. Now, time to work on these body lines.
