Grille color on a X44?

[KevinW]

Thanks Kevin for posting that pic...Did you find any signs of it being mask off on the back side to keep from getting on the argent? I would guess the amount of overspray would vary as well?

I don't recall looking for that kinda evidence but the back was not painted with silver, only from the front, so the back edges did not have silver.  It appeared to be painted on a rack facing front and the body color being painted to cover the outside edges that show. That is where the overspray came from. There was little overspray on the bottom of the grill.

[Mark]

Original grilles were cast in both silver and black plastic, the body color was applied to the proper base colored grille.  There were 4 different grilles, black and silver non RS grilles, and black and silver RS grilles.  The grill sections were never painted on grilles from the factory.  GM eventually dropped the silver cast grilles from their service parts and only retained the 2 black ones, so after that point all SS, and Z28 standard grilles and RS grilles going on Black cars had to have the center sections painted silver, along with the body color around the perimeter.

Don't know what kind of rack the grilles were on when they got painted, but there had to be a center mask that fit over the grille sections to keep overspray off the grilles.  No one masked each grill with tape.

[KevinW]

Mark, I did notice the center of my grill was silver as opposed to the plastic grey look of the grill.  I would have thought the factory painted the silver (no mask), then masked the center and sprayed the body? 

[Mark]

That would defeat the purpose of havine silver and black cast parts.  It all comes down to labor in an assembly line, if you have to paint the center of the grille silver wait for it to dry then mask and paint the surround, later theres a lot of wasted man hours, plus there would be no reason to have a silver and a black cast grille in your parts bins.  if you just had a mask that fit into the headlight bucket openings and covered the grille area all you have to do is put the mask on, spray the surround and move on to the next.  These guys on the line had just over a minute to mask and paint a grille at Norwood as that's the speed the cars were passing thru your station.  They needed 912 of these grilles painted every day of the week.

[KevinW]

Hmm, then it must have been painted later in its life.

[firstgenaddict]

Thanks Kevin for posting that pic...Did you find any signs of it being mask off on the back side to keep from getting on the argent? I would guess the amount of overspray would vary as well?

I don't recall looking for that kinda evidence but the back was not painted with silver, only from the front, so the back edges did not have silver.  It appeared to be painted on a rack facing front and the body color being painted to cover the outside edges that show. That is where the overspray came from. There was little overspray on the bottom of the grill.

You are correct they were molded in grey plastic and painted silver, probably before they were shipped to the assembly plants... here is an original RS grille in DETAIL... These pictures were taken of the same grille the same day with the same camera.







If you have a piece of original silver grille and cut into it... there is no metallic in the grey, even if cut sanded and polished there is no evidence of any metallic in the molded plastic.
That leaves 2 possibilities either they were painted argent before they were shipped to assm, or maybe there was a deviation on what Mark was saying in that some type of an argent release film was sprayed in the mold when they were cast (this is my imagination thinking about how else a coating could be applied during a molding process, I have no idea if it is even possible in a production environment.)

[m22mike]

What you guys said, molded in gray plastic. Have cut into a few for repairs.

Mike

[rsr]

 I got a chance to work on a nos grill that was made from the gray plastic and it has had a light coat of silver sprayed on the center section because when wiped with lacquer thinner it was coming off as expected on my rag. The owner of the grill paid 1400.00 and it came with 2 bottom tabs broke off and complete break above the LH head light. I had always thought the centers were not painted and that was the reason for being cast in silver/gray plastic but now I can only go by the evidence I have seen on this 1 grill....?

[KevinW]

Glad you guys confirmed that I was not imagining the silver paint on the center of the grill!