The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop 1953 Chevy 3100 grille assembly & installation questions

While I was removing my front fenders for rework, I decided to repaint my grille too (1953) 3100. Now I'm ready to re assemble my grille, but I failed to take pics from before. So I have a few questions. Is it best to assemble the grille to the base plate to begin with, or is it better to assemble the grille slats to the upright pieces, and add the base later. I'm wishing that I could remember how I did it the first time, or how I disassembled it, but I can't. I did find and print out some info from past posts, which has helped a little. Any additional tips will help. Also, while I still have the fenders off, what is the easiest order of re installation? i.e. fender, grille, fender, or fender, fender, grille, or grille, fender, fender? It's sad to have to ask, because I've done all of this before, but I'm thinking that age has taken a toll.

Mike
When I reassembled my grille, I bolted the five uprights to the back bars first, then added the front bars. When I assembled the front clip, like you, I don't recall what went on first, but it may have been grille last. But the lower splash apron was one of the first things that went on as it bolts to the radiator support. I do recall getting a few of the lower splash apron to grille screws lined up was a bit difficult as my lower splash apron needed some pretty serious straightening and might not have been spot on. The hood latch plate went on last. Here's some pics.

Thanks a bunch. The info and pics will both help a lot. I'll tackle it tomorrow morning.

I beleive I installed the grille after the fenders but it was a challenge to get it in place. I am not sure that doing one fender after the grille would help very much.

I beleive similar to Kevin I installed the back bars to the uprights first, then installed the front bars but it does get pretty tight so I may have installed the lowest back bar, then it's front bar, then the second back bar, etc. I beleive the first time I had the bar sequence wrong and needed to take it apart to get the order correct. The bars are not all the same but the differences are not large enough to make the sequence obvious (at least to me).

EVERYTHING related to assembling the front clip is a challenge. LOL!

I didn't have issues with assembling the front bars to the back bars and uprights. My grille was a composite of two different grilles, as some of the original bars were too far gone to repair. As far as the sequence of the bars, the lower has the depression in the middle for the hand crank and the rest are keyed with notches on the back side matching front and back bars.

The attached pics shows the notches on the bars. For some reason, the lowest bar has one notch, followed by 4 notches, then 3, then 2 notches. The top bar is unique, as it doesn't have a back bar, and has holes along the back edge that the hood latch plate bolt to. The next one down is also different, having mounting holes for the parking lights.

I need jump in for a minute, so I need to grind off the rivets and reassemble with the appropriate size hardware? and follow the instructions listed above. This will save me from asking the question in a separate post.

Shade Baby

If you need to paint the grille, then yes, you need to disassemble it to prep and paint. If it were assembled it would be a giant pain to get painted correctly. If you look at the photos I posted above, you can see that the outer vertical supports were painted body color, and the inner vertical supports were painted Waldorf White (Rustoleum Canvas White available in rattle cans is an excellent match) along with the inner bars. The outer bars were either painted body color or chrome plated. The usual vendors sell bolt kits for the grille, with domed head bolts (like carriage bolts but without the square below the head.)

Gotcha and thanks Kevin

Shade Baby