been looking closely at some original production cuda grilles and would like peoples opinions on what they believe is correct.
1-they were painted in med/dark textured argent the same as base challenger grilles?(see pic)
2-the argent was painted first directly over the plastic with no primer?
3-the marker housings were in place prior to painting of the grille?(see pic)
4-the backouts were done after the argent and also the rear top of the grille that is visible when hood is open?
if anyone has original paint front grilles please let me know what they think on this-my opinion is also that replacement grilles and nos ones were painted differently than production line grilles
all the best
frank

pic of where housing was in during the painting of the grille. all my housings have textured argent and black on them-if they were installed afer painting of the grille why have they got oversprays on them?
all the best
frank

They were painted medium dark argent, but the black out was done first. grill was sprayed seperate from the head light bezels. no primer painted over the plastic.

www.tommythechryco.ca

bumping this back to the top-it`s a bit more involved than what people think-i don`t believe the black was done first apart from service replacement grilles which are all the nos ones that are around. someone show me a pic of a grille with no med/dark argent on the faces of the blackouts under the black on the horizontal bars where the redlines are.(see pic) i believe the argent was painted first with the housings in and then the grille was masked off for the blackouts-i need to get to the bottom of this as there are some grilles that need restoring correctly.
all the best
frank

I would like to know what color med dark argent is.Is it the same color as the 71 ralley center caps?My 70 grill looks like light argent with silver metalflake sprayed over it.Years ago I bought a paint kit from Frank Badalson for a 70 Cuda grill,and it had 3 pint cans of lacquer.The first can(step 1)was to paint the grill with a dark argent color,about the same as the 71 center caps.The second step 2,was a clear with silver metalflake,and third was just clear dusted over it to seal the flake.It came out very nice,but looked to dark in my opinion.Can anyone chime in on a better idea?

Maybe Mike Ross (HEMICUDA) will chime in, as he would know about this...

There were only two factory textured argent colors "Light" and "Dark". No such thing as "medium"


So, where did the term "medium" come from? Simple.

AFAIK There were various vendors for the parts painted with argent over the years, each was given the spec formula numbers and mixed and painted the parts they then delivered to Chrysler. Due to the variables in vendors mixing techniques, and batch variables, shade variances between the various parts (and batches of the same parts) were inevidable. Not to mention people using older parts to do color matches over the years that the color has changed due to age or UV exposure (typically lightening them).

Franks process was most likely developed by him to reproduce the target color, it is not how the factory did it.

I stand corrected, but more specifically, do have any prints like that relating to a grille?

still need more input on this-to me it could be a build date procedure change? seems i now want to look at the diecast marker housings more so than the grille. anyone with original marker housings which have textured argent and black overspray please show me some pics. if anyone has a grille from a production car with a marker outline like the one pictured please let me see. i`ve had some pm about this from a moparts member and i totally beleive him that the markers were not in during painting of the grille...for nov 69. the original grille of my nov 15th 440-6 was painted argent from the front then masked out and painted black from the rear and front with no housings in place. we have a dec and jan grille here and they look different in that marker area. the clip that holds the markers were in on this grille-it had black on the corners of it. why would they put clips on before painting if they didn`t want to bolt something in place. why have i got about six marker housings all with textured aregent and black on them-even under the gasket? if anyone has pics...please.
thanx
frank.