[loudchevy]

Final item of test fitting....PO must have bumped into a pipe bollard or post because there was a big dent in the hood (where the filler is) on the passenger side and it continued down into the grill. I have put in a lot of time and effort into trying to re-use the OG grille, but it was just too banged up to get straightened and cleaned up to put back on the C10 and I gave up.

I bought a new reproduction piece from LMC as I didn't want to break the bank for a NOS piece. My expectation wasn't very high for it fitting right out of box and it's being the same thickness of metal, and I was right. However, after a few hours of tweaking here and there, I had it fitting pretty well. I had pulled off the mounting brackets from the OG grill, cleaned, and painted them to re-use on this repo. Once I got the mounting backets bolted to the fenders, most of the rivet holes on the new grill matched up to the holes in the brackets which was a nice surprise. I'm pretty happy with the end result even though I didn't drop the extra 150 bucks for the grill stamped with "CHEVROLET". The repo has the black color offset around the light bezels which I actually like better than the OG as it breaks up the shiny aluminum mass. The old grill will now become garage wall art!