Hi Jason,
I was going to refinish my original '73 Standard factory grille in the same factory colors, as my original colors and finishes were showing their age.
I did some extensive research, but could not seem to come up with paints for sale, that were sold purpose or specific to the original grille colors and finishes used in the factory back in the day. I did also take note that the original paints used in the factory were of a flat mono-metallic nature, and were sprayed on using very light, thin coats. On all the silvers that were sprayed on the original grille, the paint film builds were very, very thin. Also, there was no so called clear coat paints used or sprayed over the metallic colors back in those days.
Now here's where it gets complicated and tricky.
For starters, there are three different metallic silver colors involved, or that were used on the original grilles. One is a very light silver metallic that goes on the indicator bodies. The second is a medium grey metallic color that gets sprayed in the main grille insert areas, such as the inner wall of the chrome Mustang horse emblem cavity, and the third is a dark grey metallic color that gets sprayed on the main grille body areas. All three silver colors were a mat finish, and had a very minimal metallic sized flake effect to them in appearance. What adds to the difficulty of trying to refinish this grill back to factory spec, is that the very fine and narrow leading face edges of the egg carton grille shape, were coated with a lick of medium silver metallic. That is very, very, very hard to try and reproduce that again, and if attempted, would take forever and a day to try and reproduce that same look successfully. I tried experimenting by using a dagger lining brush to hand apply the silver metallic to the edge, and got a reasonable result, but not as good looking as the original finish. Also, that brushing process took a very long time to do small areas, and so, was very time consuming.
I was going to keep the original factory look, and refinish the entire grille back to a very close factory looking spec using the different silver metallic colored paints. I even went to the trouble to make up, and carefully eye color match the three different silvers to the original factory silvers that were on the original grille. I still have those paints - i never used them. If you decide to spray out the grill with the silver colors, you will have to end up doing what i did, and specially eye color match new colors from scratch, as you will not be able to go into a shop and just buy those colors straight off the shelf. If you need more tech advice on the silver colored paints, and any application tech advice in using them, let me know.
Having said all that, i myself realized that there was going to be an incredible amount of effort, labor and time involved refinishing the grill back to an accurate factory looking spec. That put me off, and i started then considering alternatives. What i ended up going for and settling on was a very good non original alternative that i think looks a million dollars, and is ten times easier to refinish than the old factory silver look.
I simply resprayed the entire grille in a quality brand, mat black acrylic auto lacquer paint. If you decide to go that way yourself, i strongly urge you to buy the paint from a can, and shoot the paint through a spray gun, and don't use rattle cans. Rattle cans will not give you the same great looking finish as a spray gun would. This color finish was in keeping with the look of the Mach 1 grille all black look as well. I was very happy with the end result, and i saved myself a lot of time, effort, energy and money in going that way.
I went to the trouble of writing up a post on the Forum about refinishing the grille, and it should tell the story to you very well as to what i did, and how i went about it. Notice that in my photos, you can see the fine leading face edges of the square egg carton section, have a fine coating of medium silver applied to them. Technically speaking, god knows how this finish was achieved , and mass produced successfully back in the day as it was. Very clever that and well done. A nice little quality touch indeed. Lastly, it's also well worth mentioning the fact that the new repro standard grilles that are sold today, come with a standard raw black plastic surface. From what i have said above, it must be clear that anyone who wants to buy one of these repro grilles, and refinish it back to a close original factory spec, will indeed have their work cut out for them in every way, as the refinish process is detailed, fiddly, very time consuming, difficult, and labor expensive, and paint material expensive as well. I myself, did not want to face the time and effort involved in refinishing the grille in this fashion, but the true concourse resto enthusiasts would maybe justify going to that degree of trouble, i don't know - but your average '73 owner would be thinking twice before diving in. Wouldn't it have been fantastic if you could buy the repro grille already accurately color painted and ready to install! But that would be dreaming.
Your reference:
http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-austin-vert-s-grille-makeover-project
Whatever you decide to do, i hope it ends up going well for you.
Cheers,
Greg.
[THUMBS UP SIGN] Regards Lars
