Fitting reproduction grills is tedious, especially with perfect fresh paint. Prior to the finish, I did test fit them, but I’m not certain it necessarily made it any easier. The grills absolutely require some delicate Dremel tool surgery to seat properly. With masking tape and patience ... mostly patience, it came out very nice.

 

Great job Ken, how’s the rest of your 71 looking?

 

That's real nice.

 

It’s coming along nicely. I’m finishing up the final touches on the body and bright work now. I hope to have everything buttoned up in the next 2-3 weeks so that I can have the new convertible top installed.

 

Thanks!

 

That’s a great workspace, plenty of room for more! Look forward to following the progress on your convertible, beautiful car.

 

Nice job!!! I gave up on mine and sent them back. What did you have to dremel to get them to fit?

 

@Hoffman2099- First, you need to nip off the excess of the aluminum trim ring mounting studs. Originals have tabs that are bent over, but the reproductions have studs with small speed or push nuts. I used a cutoff wheel to cut these back to slightly over the top of the speed nut. Out of the box, they are too long and won’t slip into the notches on the stone shield. Next you need to reduce the molded tab that’s on the inboard upper corner of both grills. Ideally, this slips into the groove that’s molded into the corresponding area on the stone shield. After thoroughly tapping to protect my new paint, I trimmed, test fit, trimmed a little more, etc. It probably took an hour or two to carefully massage the grills into place.