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Any ideas how to fix a busted 73 grill......

bandit67

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Guys, I hate to chunk an OEM grill that is useable if it can be "repaired"....any ideas of what material I could attempt a repair with. I do not have a salvage yard close by to select a piece of plastic from another busted grill of some sort.....any thoughts....

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I’ve used Plast-Aid (EBay) for repairing plastic grills before with great success. For that missing section I would add masking tape to the grill to form the missing piece. The piece that you’re missing is small in comparison with what I’ve repaired in the past.
 
Not sure if you have cash on hand but there are a few for sale on feebay. If you're patient and artistic with a dremel, get a piece of fake(its actually plastic) wood at Home Depot and make a new piece for that gap. As mcodecuda stated, get some Plast-aid to glue it in and then use fine emery paper to sand down the seams.
 
on my Dad's mercedes 1975 W116 grill I used a chunk of an old fan shroud to cut it to shape making several pieces. Then used a wire welder to blend those pieces to the original grill, sanded it then paint.
 
Not sure if you have cash on hand but there are a few for sale on feebay. If you're patient and artistic with a dremel, get a piece of fake(its actually plastic) wood at Home Depot and make a new piece for that gap. As mcodecuda stated, get some Plast-aid to glue it in and then use fine emery paper to sand down the seams.
Plast-Aid is a powder that you mix with an activator to form a slurry. It is not a glue. It cures quickly and becomes hard. I usually V the area of the repair to make a stronger bond and then use either a medium cut file or a Dremel to shape the final repair. I could fix that grill in about 2 hours or less from start to finish which is another reason why I like about it plus it’s stronger than the original plastic.
 
I on the other hand had one that was simply cracked on the frame portion of the headlight/grille (not the grille).
I tried every kind of glue including JB Weld which for other items I'd had great success with. After it is on the car and the car driven it re-cracked. One big bump and - gone.
I ended up purchasing another and gave up.
I'd be interested to see how you fare with the suggestions. I still have 2 that are in rough shape. :popcorn:
 
The only way I have had success with grills is to plastic weld abs plastic back in to the missing area, and finish with bondo. You can buy the welder at harbor freight, basically a soldering iron, and abs plastic in sheets or rods on ebag. You can heat pieces of wire and screen for reinforcement. I have melted abs chips in acetone to make a slurry to paint on to finish out the backside. Lots of work, be careful using shroud material as it is not the same plastic, it is a softer slicker plastic, body shop supply selks that rod and abs. It all depends how much time and effort you have.
 
The grills are AbS so you need to use abs to repair , or something that is going to stick to abs.

nice thing abs is easy to work with. I just recently fixed up my 68 charger grill. for some of the bigger pieces I got a piece of 2"abs tube . Cut it in half, then take a heat gun and heat it up on the garage floor. Using the end of a screw driver slowly pushed down on it as I heated it up and flatten it out. When almost flat I took a piece of 3/4 mdf , keeping it hot but not enough melt it. Then I pushed down on it with the mdf and held for a few seconds . It's surprising how flat it comes out. You now have a niece piece of flat abs to work with .

You can then use multiple methods . plastic welder with abs filler is probably the best. But you can simply melt together with a soldering iron as well. Or you can make a slurry of shaved abs pieces and mix with acetone. Make a sort of glue , apply and let dry works pretty well actually !
 
be careful using shroud material as it is not the same plastic, it is a softer slicker plastic,

true... is a diff kind of plastic... but so far so good it worked for me. It was what I had in hands ( broken fan shroud ) and the thickness was pretty much the same than the grill sections. Sure the Mercedes grill could not be that critic to use diff plastic because did need small pieces.

Just need to restore a 4 squares plastic section and then painted ( not my grill on pic but for those who doesn't know the grill ), so just need to make a cross shaped piece to fit into a hole. It came out really nice

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As mentioned I welded the plastic into the original grill plastic with a soldering gun then actually used a file to get shaped the angles into the welding joints
 
here is a good glue mixture to use if you can find a piece to fill the gap, it works great

  1. ..make a paste from abs shavings and acetone to a consistency of toothpaste.
  2. ..bevel adjoining edges and fill.
  3. ..it will chemically fuse your pieces, then can be sanded and painted.
  4. ..about 80% as strong as original after a week
 
I used a wood burner (looks like a soldering iron) and some old plastic arm rest pieces to repair a 73 Cuda grille once. I bought the plastic welder from HF but found the wood burner better, however I do like the plastic sticks that come with the welder. You need to Vee out the edges of the 2 pieces and then use the wood burner to "move" plastic across the Vee from both to get them to combine and "weld". I have had some success doing this as well as some failures. The biggest issue I have found is getting the plastic to bond and stick which means you have to have compatible materials and that can be a bit of a challenge.
 
Good info, thanks. I was not aware of the Plastex stuff and that may work. Have not used melted abs either as a patch /repair but am looking into that also. Time to get something fixed, my bumpers are back....
 
I too have been following this topic with interest. As you can see in my attached photo, I have 3 passenger side grilles needing repair. The bottom one has a chunk missing on the side of the outer headlight. The top one is missing one bar and the center grille is missing 3 bars. I was thinking of using bar pieces from the bottom (SE?) grille to repair the other two. I hadn't heard of Plastex either but I could use it as the glue to put the bars in the top two grilles. Is sacrificing the one grille to save the other two the way to go? Thanks for your ideas and suggestions.
Terry

Grilles Psgr Side1.jpg
 
Well Terry , back in the day we would do that, bust up one to fix another. I would turn a car over just to dump the motor out. But your 50 year old pieces get more valuable each year. While they are repoping these , many prefer original if possible. So, I think all yours are repairable and would be of some value. I try to fix the easiest one first....and that will tell you whats needed for the other ones. Heck, if you don t want to fix it, just buy the Dodge emblem use on 71 -72s front grills and attach it over the busted spot....would be unique any way.....
 
JB Weld works good as an adhesive and patch.

It's also close to the same color.
 
McMaster Carr sells ABS plastic in bars and sheets of different thicknesses. They sell it by the foot and it's a reasonable price. I thought about buying some in the correct thickness and repairing them. I have 3 grille sets with no broken pieces so these are spares to my spares. I really appreciate the input. I'll let you know how it turns out. This is a fill in winter project.
Terry
 
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