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Originally Posted by e015475
Looks pretty original to me.
A good chrome shop can straighten some pretty bad dents and repair is usually quoted in their price. In my opinion, the major difference in chrome shops is the quality of their metal prep work. Before you replace anything have the metal guy at the chrome shop tell you if it is repairable.
If you need new slats I would harvest them from another original grill to mix and match till I had one the chrome plater could use. They are riveted together and I just used small nuts and bolts to put it back together. I paid $200 for a pretty straight original grill to use as a donor. I would only use repop grill parts as a last resort
I did most of my own metalwork before sending it to the plater, mostly because I wanted to learn how to do it, but the plater would have done it for me. It is a GMC grill but you get the idea.
Polished the bare steel so I could see all the imperfections
Finished slats back from the plater ready to assemble
The finished grill
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You just have to be SURE they are a good chrome shop! I was at a swap meet a few weeks at the Goodguys in Pleasanton Ca. and there were a few chrome shops with spaces and piles of bumpers and such. One of them had a grille assy like that wrapped up in clear plastic and a price tag on it of $300 or something like that. I thought the price was great and was considering planning on getting one from them, if not that minute, in the future. I was talking to them, getting their card and as I am doing this I realized that the grille bars were CRAP I mean CRAP. What I thought was wrinkles in the plastic wrap were wrinkles in the METAL!
It was HOOOORIBLE!
So you have to be careful who you bring it to!
Brian