The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk 1938 Grills and hood ornaments

Does anyone have any experience or advice on where to find a good reproducible grill and ornament. Looking for great quality. Thanks.

JWP38

I purchased a new hood ornament for my '40 from Bowtie Bits. Happy with quality and chrome work.

Most reproduction grills I've seen are either hotrod grills or unchromed. Here's one from The Filling Station.

It is NOT chrome plated. The chrome plated ones are somewhat more.

The chrome grills are more $. Here's one from Jim Carter:
1938 chrome grill

How are the chrome grills from [censored] Moffett? He is giving a life time warranty on chrome plating.

D ick Moffett repops a lot of stuff that others don't have but my experience with his stuff isn't the best. It then comes down to do you make do with a less than ideal part from him or do without. I chose to make do with the part. In my case it wasn't a grill but knob for my emergency brake extension lever. Shown Here It looks good in the picture but it has a lot of pits from air in the casting. My personal preference as to a grill is to re-chrome an OEM grill. Most repop parts are of lower quality than the OEM. It my cost more to re-chrome but you'll have a better product in the end.

I agree. The PO of my '38 coupe rechromed the original grill & I get compliments on it all the time. Steer clear of the billet grills. The ribs resemble flat straps and look stupid.

Check out these folks, been making quality shiney Chevy items for many years.

http://www.iandireproduction.com/

My problem is that I have reproduction grill, poor quality, no hood ornament or grill emblem. So unless I can find one somewhere, I am stuck with the alternative.

I see OEM grills on ebay fairly often. Most need some kind of repair or at least re-chroming.

The only grill I have seen, was from [censored] Moffets, I haven't heard much positive on the forums on them.

I usually see them when someone buys a parts car/truck and is parting it out. On occasion I see one that only needs re-chromed. In fact just the last few days I saw a bunch of 38 pickup parts listed. Don't know if a grill was among them or not. I search for 1938 Chevrolet - Parts and Accessories - Vintage Car and Truck Parts. There's a lot of modern accessories & rat rod parts to wade through but there are normally OEM parts as well.

Edit: Sending a PM with an ebay link to a 38 truck grill.

Tiny - Thanks for sending me the Ebay link, I have one that is complete, it is a reproduction from Argentina. It will need to be re-chromed. If I could find an original grill, I would purchase it instead.

I guess I don't understand. The grill in the link is an original. As you can see it'll need a bit of love but I've seen much worse. There may be more on ebay. Just look for someone selling 38 OEM truck parts and look at the rest of the items they have listed. If they don't have a grill listed send them a note asking if they will be listing one. Good luck.

I just purchased a hood ornament and grill emblem from [censored] Moffett. I got a very quick delivery and parts looked great. He doesn't seem to advertise, but he has a lot of inventory.