Good night everyone! Today i recovered the data of my broken smarthphone so i have the grill's restoration process photos and i thought to share them with you, cool people.
Maybe this could be helpful for those who has the same problem that i had, and is having trouble finding this important piece which almost represent the whole "face" of the truck.
First with the help of friend who is industrial designer and specializes in 3D printing solutions, i made some tests to find wich kind of plastic i was dealing with.
For that i had to cut a piece of the grill. We determine that it was ABS or some variety of it (it disolves in acetone, it doesn't float in water and makes an orange flame with really black smoke when you burn it).
As you can see, the lower lip was broken and twisted everywhere... So i cut it off with a dremel tool. 004.jpg005.jpg
It had cracks everywhere. This are just some of them. 007.jpg006.jpg
I sanded all the cracks and cutted al the uneven surfices with the dremel. 008.jpg
Then i started soldering all the cracks and filling the smaller missing sections by melting ABS filament with a flat soldering iron.
Since this is the same, or at least, a very similar material which the one that the grill was fabricated, it fixes really easy and gains great strength, keeping the same flexibility of the rest of the grill, avoiding future breakages.
When done filling, dry sanded (400 grit), wet sanded (600 grit) to finish. 008.jpg009.jpg010.jpg011.jpg
My friend copied, designed and printed the brackets and the lower lip that i'd cutted in the beginning. He did an awesome job.
Since acetone disolves this plastic you can use as glue for presenting important parts before start welding. Once done, weld and sand. 018.jpgIMG_20180704_003557911.jpg019.jpg020.jpg
Maybe i should done the hole by measuring it in the truck instead of copying the original one... but the truck is 80 km (50 miles) from here so... I decided to take my chances... If it doesn't match i'll correct it later.
All in one piece, with no cracks and all sanded. 027.jpg
Primer and wet sanded with a 1500 grit sandpaper: 028.jpg029.jpg
Painted with one coat of rust oleum trim and bumper matt black, re sanded and painted another coat. 030.jpg031.jpg032.jpg
Well that's all, i hope you guys enjoyed it and find some of this info helpful.
Leave you a pic of my daily drive that i found in the phone IMG_20180423_170151710.jpg
I'll be updating as long as this thing moves along.
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