RE: Grill issues, I think its time to follow the street rod crowd and use billet.

["Widiker, John D" <john.widiker@xxxxxxx>]

Caught one of my shop partners resting his hand on the grill brace on my
1970 AMX (Holy crap man don't do that!!!!), it prompted this exact
conversation about a week ago. We just bought another bender Saturday
for our strut brace / sway bar manufacturing projects and are going to
experiment with making a 1970 AMX grill out of metal (still considering
what material to use). We have a powder coater that will be coating it
if we decide not to polish. If nothing else it will be an educable
experience and something different. My opinion was that there weren't
enough cars left to come close to being a profitable offering, but that
it would be fun to do mine. If it turns out nice I'll post pics and if
someone was interested we might do more. 

~John

-----Original Message-----
From: route66rambler@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:route66rambler@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:24 PM
To: mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Grill issues, I think its time to follow the street rod
crowd and use billet.

On March 27, 2006 hal lynch wrote:

> I have been tip toe-ing around my 70 AMX front end for 20+ years in 
> mortal fear of leaning on the grill and cracking it.  Our brethren in 
> the street crowd have addressed this issue many years ago with the 
> creation of billet aluminum grilles, why not us AMC'ers?
> 

--------> Why not, indeed? Self-sufficiency is freedom.


> Taking a closer look at my 70 AMX grill I think that it could be 
> re-created in billet and think I might just start out the long process

> of figuring out how.  A couple questions for you experts.

----------> Not sure if I'm an expert, but I've cut one hell of a lot of
billet in my time, from Harleys to the International Space Station.  The
shapes of most of these grilles don't lend themselves well to precision
machining, i.e. many rows of blade-like constructions, mounting bosses
in awkward areas, etc. You're going to get different results than you
will with a finned valve cover, and it does a different type of job
after all. I think a more practical approach is to learn to cast them
from potmetal or aluminum, if you must have metal.  Many universities
have equipment for foundry work(sculpture and bells, for instance), and
may accept some sort of proposal. They don't necessarily have to turn a
profit on things sometimes. J.C. Whitney still sells those tubular
grilles for vans. Run some 3/32 aluminum sheet into a loop around the
outside, drill for the tubes, polish everything, and you've got
basically what Barris was doing in the 60's. Even ceramic is a
possibility(th!
 e kind of bisque stuff you see in old gas heaters). I'm trying to
develop a process using an arbor press and fixtures to reproduce parts
from fiberglass using molds under pressure. This would allow me to make
one-offs economically for the purposes of restoring or
mocking-up("cloning") rare pieces or whole cars and clips, quarters etc.
for the museum. After all, I'll probably never be able to afford one of
the "holy trinity" collector cars(AMX, S/CRambler, Machine). This would
also eliminate the huge development costs and necessary resulting huge
production runs, which is most of what disqualifies AMC enthusiasts from
the real goodies. Other pieces I've considered are the center piece and
the dashboard for Hornet/Gremlin, and interior plastic pieces like at
the rear and corners of hatchbacks and Pacer/Eagle/Gremlin models. Ford
truck restorers have a wide selection of "fake" plastic reproductons of
interior door panels as well as dash pad covers. These trucks are
regularly s!
 hown and win with these pieces in place. Comment is openly invited on
this particular subject, especially from others with manufacturing or
fabricating experience. Anyone who wishes may e-mail me or call at (602)
380-6552.
 mike

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