I have been looking for a 34 Ford Commercial grille for my pickup project and have found a lot of junk at high prices. This one popped up. The radiator cap hole has been filled in and so has the emblem area on the front. The bottom, as you can see has rusted through. How hard is it to fix that? I have basic skills with flat sheet metal and aluminum. Not sure about fixing this. Does anyone make a patch for this? New repops are well over $600, this one is $500. Your input is appreciated.
I fixed a very similar one using electrical conduit. It had the right contour and was easily bent to follow the grill. I'll send you a couple pictures when I get in the shop
Someone was making patches awhile ago. I bought a couple at the Portland Swap meet, Think the vendor was the Sacramento Vintage Ford Store. I have not welded them yet into my pickups shell yet. I just scoop up odd patches and parts for these pickups as its hard to find.
My '32 grille had similar rot, but quite a bit worse. I was able to fab up pieces to patch it all together, I didn't think it was too hard but that's what I do all the time. If you can find some thin wall mild steel tubing to cut up that has a similar radius, that'll be a good start on patch pieces. Conduit is good stuff but much of it is galvanized and you don't want to weld galvanized metal unless you can safely strip it first.
I bent a piece of pipe and grafted it in, it also stiffened up the bottom since it is now pipe instead of sheet metal, I can't find any pictures of the back side. Don't forget to drill a drain hole if you go this way. Mine was a replacement from an "incident", I had to rebuild and section a new one, that turned out to be pretty rusty on the bottom after it showed up. Stay away from cutting into the bars if possible, it was a challenge to get them welded back together straight.
I would agree with fit-blk, it's a lot of work if you start cutting into the bars. I just finished taking a 3" section out of my 34 grill and fixing a few thin spots at the bottom.
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