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How to restore a 71-72 Roadrunner / Satellite Grille

phatdak18

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I recently decided to restore/refinish my grille and headlight bezels on my 72 plymouth roadrunner. After doing a little research, i really didnt find much on how everybody else is doing this or what materials they are using.

After some preliminary tests and trials, i have found some success and decided to share everything with those who are also looking to freshen up those old plastic grilles.



First ill start by including the list of materials/chemicals i used....Easy Off oven cleaner, Soda Blaster, Liquid Dish soap, Adhesion Promoter, Denatured Alcohol, SEM Trim Black paint, Plastic Epoxy Resin sandpaper and scotchbrite pads.
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Heres what my grille and bezels looked like before. Who ever owned this car before me had sprayed painted these pieces and they looked like crap. And the cheap rattle can paint job was starting to flake off.
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A good friend of mine actually recommended i try Easy Off oven cleaner first to remove the old spray paint. I was hesistant at first and approached this phase very carefully because i wasent sure how harsh the chemical was. Turns out the Easy Off worked great! I coated the pieces and placed them in a garbage bag and tied it closed. The first soak lasted for about 4 hours. I used a firm toothbrush to agitate the paint a little. Then rinse with water. Here you can see the factory silver paint showing through what was under the black spray paint. This must have been from a satellite i imagine.
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I repeated this process again. The second soak lasted about 6 hours. This second round nearly removed all the black spray paint completely. However, the silver paint underneath seemed to be unphased. Note the right bezel is silver, which i believe belonged to a satellite. The left bezel was black though, my guess is that this was from a roadrunner. And the center grille section appears to have been painted silver, because the shade is different and also it was coming off at a different rate as the other pieces. My guess is that it started out as a roadrunner grille that somebody painted silver to put into a satellite, but then painted black again when it was made into a roadrunner clone.
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I repeated the process again with very little results. It seems the oven cleaner is just no match for the factory finish. Realizing i needed something a little more aggresive, and not really wanting to use a harsher chemical, i turned my attention to soda blasting. Ive had years of expierence with sand blasting, but never tried the soda before. I figured it was worth a shot
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Ive got to say, i was impressed! The soda blasting worked excellent. Keep in mind, this process DOES have the potential to damage the plastic. So keep the pressure down around 60psi and keep the nozzel roughly 6-10 inches away from the part, and always keep it moving never staying on 1 spot for too long. I bought my soda from harbor freight and it was labled as "medium" regaurding the courseness. After i soda blasted everything, i used a RED (fine) scotchbrite pad to sand down the entire piece. Then i wash the part using what i call a hot cleaning method. I put about 5 gallons of VERY hot water into a tub and add liquid dishwashing soap (like dawn). I scrubbed the parts thoroghly in the water using the scuff pad and let them air dry only. Here are the results
Right Headlight Bezel
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Left Headlight Bezel
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Now the center grill needed some additional attention. Whoever owned this car before me was clearly missing ALL of the brackets that attach this grille to the bumper itself. So they must have thought it was a better idea to drill 3 holes along the bottom edge and ZIP TIE it to the bumper! :head_smack: To repair this, i used epoxy resin to fill in the holes. Once cured i gradually sanded them down, stopping at 400grit. (Sorry i forgot to take pictures of the repaired damage)
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But the prep work isnt quite done yet. I went ahead and dry scuffed all the pieces again, but this time using a GREY (very fine)scotchbrite pad. Followed by another HOT cleaning session and let air dry. I recommend you use extra caution when handling the parts and avoid touching the raw plastic with bare hands. Wear disposable gloves to prevent oils on your hands from getting onto your work pieces. I then used a paint gun to spray the pieces with denatured alcohol. This proved to be very effective vs. trying to wipe the piece and get into all those nooks and crannys. After the alcohol evaporates off, i used an adhesion promoter made by Bulldog, this was just to ensure the paint would have a better chance of biting into the plastic. Follow the directions on the can.

Finally time for paint! I decided to use SEM trim black, which is a laquer based product. I have found this product to be great on other exterior parts in the past and its easy to work with. It has just the right amount of sheen in my opinion, comparable to a satin finish (more sheen than just flat). Here are the results...
Right Headlight Bezel
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Center Grille
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Left Headlight Bezel
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Well thats about it. I have 35+ hours of work into this project, but i couldnt be happier with the way it turned out. These pieces look like brand new and i cant wait to get them on the Roadrunner. I hope that what ive learned can possibly help someone else with their project. Let me know what you guys think. ENJOY!
 
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A splendid result from all of that work. Thanks for the details regarding your refurbishment. I've got some black paint to remove from my '70 grill so I'll follow your lead.

-=Photon440=-
 
As an alternative brake fluid will remove rattle can paint and not hurt the plastic. You just have to be creative and find something to soak the piece in the brake fluid.
 
Nice write up. That will definitely help once my son & I start work on the '72. Thanks for posting.
 
As an alternative brake fluid will remove rattle can paint and not hurt the plastic. You just have to be creative and find something to soak the piece in the brake fluid.

I concur. I stripped multiple layers of paint off a dashboard bezel with DOT 3 and it came up great.
 
As an alternative brake fluid will remove rattle can paint and not hurt the plastic. You just have to be creative and find something to soak the piece in the brake fluid.
Will old fluid work?

I have a ton of that laying around. :)
 
I'm glad to see this post. I actually bought a hand held blaster to try the soda thing. I like that idea as some of the other choices leave fish eye hazards on the grill. I'm getting ready to do a 69 GTX grille. Actually I have 2 so I can practice on the driver one before doing the keeper. Beats the 800$ alternative!
 
BTW what's the differance between the soada blaster & sand blaster? I have the sand blaster and if it's as simple as changing nozzles maybe I'll do that.
 
Just like you might assume, the difference is in the name....1 uses sand media and the other uses baking soda media. There are conversion kits out there that change your sand blaster into a soda setup. pretty sure all it is is a nozzel and different valve. i know harbor freight sells one.

But in my opinion, its best to keep the 2 separate. Same reason why i didnt soda blast my plastic parts inside my sand blast cabinet...i do not wanna risk any cross contamination or exposure. If any bits of sand media were to be introduced into this process, i can almost guarantee damage to the plastics will occur.
 
thats a nice job i see going on
i had a faded but perfect other wise grille to start with
i did some hand sanding and
used paints from totally auto
the black part of the grille i bearly misted just
to take the haze in the plastic away

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wow! great job flypaper. looks like brand new again. what did you use for the argent silver color??
 
i used spray bombs from totally auto, they were a pita
i got a few bad cans and had to go thru the hassle (twice)
of returning them.

i have another 71 grille to do and i think i will be
getting paint from Roger Gibson and use my gun next time.

http://www.rogergibsonautorestoration.com/catalog.htm
 
I wanna hear from you guys.....What price would you put on these grille pieces? In a restored form or unrestored, what are they worth?

I ask because i have entertained the idea of possibly restoring some for resale. With this in mind, i kept my eyes open at the NATS for good used pieces to work with. HOWEVER, appearently the grilles and bezels there must have been made of pure gold, where as mine are plastic hahaha.

People were asking on average $75 for just 1 headlight bezel....AND THEY WERE ALL IN NEED OF REPAIR!!! MOST beyond repair. broken tabs/fins everywhere. warpped plactics. cracks galore. WTF is wrong with people!? even when id try to deal, everybody help firm. So im curious, what do you guys think this items are really worth!? because i must be wayyy off
 
prices have gone up on them over the past few yrs
the supply is drying up
when i bought a couple of them a few yrs ago
i paid 125 for all 3 pieces
now they go for about 200-250
restored, you have to figure about double that, but
people are cheap, so i think it would take some time
to find a buyer willing to pay that much.
 
I think its rediculous what people were asking for these broken pieces. Id say 75-100 would be fair for a good condition DECENT/REPAIRABLE set of 3....but upwards of 250+ for some junk (most of which CANNOT be fixed easily) no way.

Although sure $400 sounds like a good number to put on a fully restored NICE set....good luck finding anybody willing to buy at that price. Ive restored several of these sets now, and on average im putting about 40hours of labor into them. Not even counting materials, you figure 100 for the used pieces - if it sold for 400, id be making less than minimum wage to restore them for resale. Really doesnt seem worth it now does it?
 
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