I've been looking for a better grille, since mine has several dents and two cracks in the center. Prices are through the roof on good ones, but I found a grille & headlight rings for $90 locally. They had some issues, but for the price I had to buy them. I decided to use them to learn how to repair & refinish, and if it turns out OK, I'll put it on the car. Before, then after stripping the anodizing with Easy Off Heavy Duty oven cleaner, some hammer and dollying & filing. Next comes a ton of sanding & polishing, clear coat and repainting the black highlights:
looks like mine before I 'went to work' on it. Tabs were broken off-had to do some work to put on new tabs.
Looking forward to seeing the progress on this. I've dabbled in restoring trim and found out that it is going to take me a lot of practice to just get mediocre at it!
The lower bracket had been bent into a 'U' shape instead of being flat, and I wanted to straighten it out without breaking it off. I had heard of annealing aluminum, but had never done it, so Google & YouTube to the rescue. It's pretty simple if you haven't done it before: a) apply some soot to the area; I used a candle since I don't have an acetylene torch. b) heat the area with a propane or MAPP torch until the soot is mostly gone. This magically indicates when the aluminum is just hot enough, but not enough to melt- aluminum doesn't go cherry red like steel. c) quench the area with cold water; I used a spray bottle. d) bend the piece as needed. The aluminum bent really easily with no cracking at all. Then just let it cool down and you're done. Here are photos from start to finish: