My '68 Charger grille -- beware, its a restoMOD

[Cop Magnet]

I have a thread on the whole car going on pro-touring.com. However, I thought I'd post just the grille portion here as I have two left thumbs and it is one of the only things I could do myself.

http://www.pro-touring.com/threads/115318-My-69-Charger-with-AME-full-frame-IRS-and-Viper-twin-turbo-power

I took a different direction for how I resto-modded the grille. There are some new approaches I took to fixing up the plastic, welding plastic pieces together, using wire mesh for structural support, and increasing the surface area between bonded parts for adhesion. I think any of you could use these techniques in a number of ways. I haven't seen some of these written about elsewhere. Hope this helps someone.

[Cop Magnet]

This is what the mounting tabs are supposed to look like. A clip goes through the end and the metal part of the grille screws through these to hold the plastic part in place. I suppose this is to allow the grille to flex a little and not crack where it's mounted. In my case, most of the mounting tabs were cracked or broken right off. I'll show you how I repaired them.



This is the key:





I used JB Weld epoxy-based plastic putty for the repairs.
Quick tip, if you've worked with too much material and it starts to harden before you've used what you've prepped, you can microwave it for a few seconds and gain some extra time.









If you really want to get crazy with strength, you could throw a washer in between the mesh and plastic as a through point for the screw. I didn't do that, however.





File the inside part down so your retaining clip can still slide over.



Grinding and sanding the outer part down. This will get drilled through at the original mounting point for the retaining clip.



Quick jump ahead to the finished product. Obviously, the inner part doesn't show, so I wasn't concerned with extra material.

[Cop Magnet]

So on to the repair of the "horns" on the grill. This part fills in the space between the grill and front bumper. This is what is should look like. I didn't have either side to mock up a part from, so I bought an otherwise useless piece except it did have this horn in perfect shape. Note the little cut out on the lower horizontal. The bumper mount fits under there, I believe.



I made a mirror image piece using mesh and JB Plastic.







I used a lot of measurements and eyeballing it.

















Jumping ahead one more time, this is the finished piece after paint:

[Cop Magnet]

On to the Charger script on the grille.

Mine was in terrible shape.





I bought a reproduction piece that was, well, less than factory perfect.





Just didn't look good. Maybe I'm a perfectionist. So be it.



I sanded down the edges where there was a lot of casting flash. Then paint.





I'm not sure what I will do with the little logo that goes up with the pop up headlight door. I have a friend who teaches CNC at our local community college. I've been talking to him about machining both the Charger script and perhaps a small SRT-10 logo for the door.

[Cop Magnet]

On to the frame and light modifications:

This is the kit I bought to use. BMW halo headlights with HID conversion and LED conversion for the ring light. These fit 89-94 BMW E34/E32 5 and 7 series. The original trim ring is at the top for reference--although the lights are listed as the same size, the new ones are slightly larger and of course deeper.





































Look how nice the end horns turned out. Given that I had no original reference to work from, I think it turned out pretty awesome. I will motorize the doors once I get the car nearer to completion and can figure out how best to mount the motors. That's it for now.

[Lennard]

Awesome work and that grille is going to look bad ass!

[comet_666]

Wow! Great write up!

[Ryan]

Great job!

I'm assuming the factory headlight bezels don't fit anymore (the plastic part that matches the grill not the metal ring) ??

[johnnycharger]

Welcome to the site!
that is an excellent write up!

[Mopar Nut]

Well done!

There's a headlight motorized kit, if you didn't have the motors yet.

[TexasStroker]

Very nice...looking forward to seeing how you like the headlights.

[Bob T]

Welcome, excellent grill write up and good pics, thanks a lot 
Mine has a few cracks at one side and I've had the whole assembly out before to realign it and do a headlight upgrade but I'm not to keen to pull it down at the moment

Interested also to see how the headlights turn out, the halo ring will look pretty sharp.

[PlainfieldCharger]

Great JoB!! and persistence in making it be what you want!! Great job on building those horn pieces...

[el dub]

Way to document your work. That's going to help a lot of people. 

[Ghoste]

Its better than some of the tech articles in magazines.

[Cop Magnet]

Great job!

I'm assuming the factory headlight bezels don't fit anymore (the plastic part that matches the grill not the metal ring) ??

You know, I never had those. But you are right, they wouldn't fit. I'd be happy with some black ABS or even leaving them exposed.

[Cop Magnet]

Well done!

There's a headlight motorized kit, if you didn't have the motors yet.

Man, all I do is research! I've heard about the kit. Not sure I want to pony up more $. I think I can make my own, I just need to wait for the car to come together a little more before I can see where and how they'll work.

Thanks for all the positive comments from everyone! I don't post here much but I did discover the grille restoration database so I knew this was the place. I have a full thread at pro-touring.com that overlaps a lot of this stuff, but since it's not a Chevy...

[TexasStroker]

I believe 1 or 2 members have built their own electric headlight setups in the last 2 years or so.

Charger Specialties is a great place to deal with though.

[twodko]

What Ghoste said! Simply impressive, outstanding work. Take the week
off with pay. Beer, pizza and 70 virgins coming your way. 

[Cop Magnet]

What Ghoste said! Simply impressive, outstanding work. Take the week
off with pay. Beer, pizza and 70 virgins coming your way. 

Ha! I'll gladly give up the virgins for 70 dead ISIS low life's.
Thanks again for all the positive comments! Obviously I'm kind of a perfectionist and have too much free time.

[twodko]

Roger that........I spades!

[Skull-1]

Sweet job!

[Jaysick]

  Oh I like this A LOT!  Nice work!

[twenty mike mike]

Thank you for posting.  You convinced me to buy a new one for my '69 from Classic.

[Silver R/T]

Nice resto!!!