[ZeGermanHam]

A little update on my progress over the past few weekends. I got my grills out of the shed to take a look at them again and determine if they could be reused, or if new ones would need to be purchased. Here's one of them for reference. Someone had painted them fully black rather than silver & black. The paint was flaking off in many places, and they also had lots of red paint overspray from whoever painted the car from Cameo Ivory to red.



As one might expect, all but a few of the mounting tabs were broken off...


My solution was to cut away the cracked plastic and bend up some 1" wide strips of aluminum, then JB Weld them into place and drill new holes.


One of the attachment points for the parking lights was also cracked, so I again cut away the broken material and glued in some aluminum, then drilled a new hole.



Then came sanding and cleaning. I took a tube cleaning brush to clean each individual square of the grill face.


The anodized trim was a little beat up. Nothing super major, but it had some medium scratches and some slight bends that I was able to get out.


The GTO emblem was not pitted, but the paint was ratty, so I stripped and repainted it by hand.



No photos were taken of my fastidious masking job, but here is the final result in all its glory. They came out looking like a million bucks (to my eye, anyway). The I stripped the anodized trim with Easy-Off oven cleaner and polished them nicely on the buffing wheel. The black painted portion of the grills was done with Krylon spray paint, and the silver part is Eastwood Brake Gray, which has actual stainless steel flakes in it and is typically used for painting brake reservoirs and calipers. Looks excellent on the grills.





Also received another shipment of parts from Ames. This time, interior stuff. I got the 2nd to last pair of bucket seat covers they had in stock, which I was grateful for, since they are now experiencing 6-12 month waits on upholstery. Also picked up a headliner, sail panels, carpet, and various other items to redo the interior. Gotta say, these Legendary seat covers look fantastic. So much nicer than all the reproduction stuff I used to see in GTOs 15-20 years ago.



Lastly, I decided this afternoon that I wanted to test my horns to see if they actually work, since they were never wired up when I used to drive the car in the '90s. Who knows the last time they actually were used. Could've been 35+ years ago. Hooked 'em up to a spare battery and tried the high & low tones. High tone sounds good. Low tone sounds a little buzzy. See for yourself: https://youtu.be/a0VC53dnrCo