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Old 08-23-2022, 7:08pm   #1
SJW
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Default '63 grille mounting

Hey, guys.

The body shop that put the new front clip on this car prior to my ownership did a half-assed job of many things. All in all, it looks pretty good, and I intend to keep it a "driver," but I have been unwinding a lot of the stuff they did wrong It's been a long list, and I'm not done yet.

Here's a question for you guys, probably for Frank in particular: How should the grille be mounted in this car? Whoever installed this one surely didn't do it correctly. There were no U-nuts used. They instead simply threaded the screws into the fiberglass tabs. I've corrected that screw-up, but have deep doubts that the attachments at the upper fiberglass tabs were done the way these cars left St Louis.

It looks as though the grille opening in the nose of the body is too large vertically for a proper fit of the grille. What appear to be home-made "extender" tabs fabricated from sheet metal were used to bridge the distance. Below are photos of the upper and lower attachments as they are presently. Do any of you guys have photos or info about how this should be done? I see nothing in the AIM that suggests the presence of these gap-spanning pieces.

I should add that this front clip is a press-molded piece from Sermersheim (Lee Bumb), and appears to be a quality item.

TIA, as always.

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SJW
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Old 08-24-2022, 6:05pm   #2
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That is certainly not factory...those extensions are either because the grill is not placed in the opening properly or the opening is perhaps too wide. The bottom of the grill looks about right so my money is on an overly wide opening, not sure what you could do about that tho... Do the bottoms of the headlight buckets make a nice line with the center of the surround ? (see second picture)

And do the nose support rods behind the glass in front of the hood near the headlight motors look normal ?
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Old 08-25-2022, 6:17pm   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frankie the Fink View Post
That is certainly not factory...those extensions are either because the grill is not placed in the opening properly or the opening is perhaps too wide. The bottom of the grill looks about right so my money is on an overly wide opening, not sure what you could do about that tho... Do the bottoms of the headlight buckets make a nice line with the center of the surround ? (see second picture)

And do the nose support rods behind the glass in front of the hood near the headlight motors look normal ?
Thanks for confirming what I was nearly certain was true, Frank. The lower edges of the buckets do align pretty well with the center of the nose. I'll post a photo below. Please excuse the not-yet-great alignment of the right-hand bumper. It's a new repro, and I'm still fussing with it to get that right. It's sitting better than the used bumper the body shop put on the car, but still not satisfactory.

I haven't spotted anything that seems badly out of whack with the support rods, and I spent quite a bit of time working in that area, as both bucket motors were roached when I got the car -- one of them having also had its mounting so badly ****ed up that I was appalled when I saw what that body shop had done. The collision this car had been in prior to my acquiring it had apparently sheared the mounting bolt, and the butcher who "fixed" it tried twice to drill a new hole (both of which were mis-located), so he gave up and swung to bracket to the side and trapped it under a large fender washer because the bolt no longer aligned with the slot in the support bracket. I ended up scoring a pair of take-off motors that were also roaches, from a CF member who was converting to the Detroit Speed setup, and was able to make two functional motors from the four I had to work with. I'll post a couple of photos below of that hack job on the mounting, too.

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SJW
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Old 08-26-2022, 9:41am   #4
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Ugh - I see what you're dealing with and BTW those two holes between the motors in the one picture that provide access to the hood emblem nuts is a dead giveaway of front end work, if the edges are sharp its a repro header bar as originals have a curved lip around the circumference. The lower part of the headlight buckets and surround don't look bad IMO.

Also these are the suppor rods I was talking about (first pic); if you held a gun to my head I'd say your chin valence may be too low creating a larger grill gap. If you went to a lot of effort you could raise the fiberglass grill mounting tabs on the bottom some to try to center the grill vertically more, dom't know if it'd be worth the trouble though.
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Old 08-26-2022, 9:44am   #5
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Also - sometimes you can use a washer or two betwwen that bumper bracket in the center between the bracket and chassis, under the car, at the rear bolt to goose the inboard end of the bumper a tad higher. I had to on my car.
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Old 08-26-2022, 3:10pm   #6
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Thanks, Frank. I'll try shimming the rear end of that bracket downward. I've already shimmed the bumper forward at the middle bracket, and that helped a bit. It's now as good as it's going to get by loosening all of the bolts and moving the bumper to the limits of its travel on the various mounting holes and slots. I might end up needing to slot the holes in the outboard bracket, and possibly the one in the fender also.

Yeah, that upper support is definitely aftermarket. I think the hood is probably original, but the nose has been replaced. I do suspect you're right that the fiberglass below the grille is lower than it should be, thus the taller opening. Fortunately, it really doesn't show unless one's eyes get to or below the bumper level. And this car will never be judged as long as I own it. I'm not into that scene. It's just a decent driver.

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Old 08-27-2022, 6:38am   #7
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I'd live with the grill 98% of people won't know the difference. Getting the bumpers straight is a journey, I screwed with mine for hours and finally settled for a close as I could get which is prob better than the factory. (see my avatar pic).

Just be careful, you can crack the fiberglass if you over tiighten tnings and the outer bumper braces don't always meet the body flush and create a pressure point. You prob don't care but the 63 one year only bumper braces are thicker than other years; most cars have this wrong...and, again, nobodly will know.
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Old 08-27-2022, 10:38am   #8
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Thanks for the additional advice Frank. There might eventually come a day when I'll see about messing with the grille, but if it happens, it won't be soon. It only bothers me in principle, that a body shop would do such shoddy work reassembling a car as that shop did with this one.

The fit of the bumper is a different situation. It's positioning is now about half-way between where it was and where it ideally should be. For at least the short term, I'm going to leave it alone until I've attended to a variety of other items, but I'll get around to fussing with it again one of these days. Your point about cracking fiberglass is noted. In fact, the 'glass was cracked by the body shop where the fender is sandwiched between the bumper and brace. The fussing I've done with the fit of the bumper has allowed those cracks to close up, and they are no longer visible (they were below the bumper, and thus not noticeable under normal circumstances anyway). The used bumper the shop installed on this car appeared to have been somewhat tweaked, and it's mounting surface at that fender interface wasn't co-planar with the fender, which led to the cracks when the bolt was tightened. This, plus the rust on the underside of that used bumper, is what led me to try a new, made in USA repro bumper from Paragon.

I had read a while ago that the rear bumper brackets were thicker on '63s, but was not aware that such is also the case with the front bumpers. I'll have to research and measure to figure out whether the brackets that are on the front of this car now are the thick or the thin pieces. Do you happen to know the thicknesses of the four front brackets?

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Old 08-27-2022, 11:07am   #9
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Photos below of the bumper/fender interface, as the body shop delivered this car back to the previous owner. And a photo of the underside of the used bumper they installed.

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SJW
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Old 08-27-2022, 1:13pm   #10
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Don't recall the thickness 100% but I'm gonna say 63 is 3/8" and later years are 1/4"
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Old 08-27-2022, 2:02pm   #11
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SJW, that grille opening is weird....almost looks like you could sneak an extra grille bar in at the top and even up the gap. Like FTF said, I would live with it. Nobody will notice it unless you point it out to them.
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Old 08-27-2022, 6:19pm   #12
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Agreed, Jeff. It'll probably remain as it is for as long as I own the car.

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Old 08-28-2022, 9:16am   #13
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Vendors make "paint protectors to go under those flat metal squares where the bumpers meet the paint at the bolt hole.... I took some rubber tool box drawer liner and cut my own, they let you tighten up the bumper bolts just a tad more wtihout damage, protect the paint and are basically invisible. If you wanted something even thinner wifey's flexible plastic cutting boards from Bed, Bath & Beyond woerk perfectly. (The factory configuration had no such protection BTW)
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Old 08-28-2022, 11:07am   #14
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Thanks for the tip, Frank. I cut one from an old inner tube, and placed it between the new bumper and the fender.

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