Restoring upper interior panels

[Terry Curry]

I'm repainting all the interior panels on my 1967 Shelby from Black to parchment which is original to the car (PO painted everything black) so my question after doing some research on this site and the internet, I'm coming up empty on what people do for the upper panels that has the venting/grills. Are you removing the grills and restoring them and using the Easyoff and cleaning separately or restoring with the vents installed and just taping off around the metal? If you removing them, best way to re-install the vents onto the interior panel? I believe the aftermarket ones are plastic so I don't want to go down that path if I don't have to.

1967 GT 500 #504 - Moss Green with Parchment interior

Thank you in advanced.

Terry

[64cobra]

Hi Terry-

I have a set of nice fiberglass panels on ebay right now that are only at $0.01 😊

If they go cheap might be a nice backup to yours if they get damaged taking out the metal vent piece. 

Search seller: mblackmd

[J_Speegle]

Believe allot of guys are using epoxy at the original attaching points to retain the grills to the panels once you have stripped, repainted the panels and restored the grills

[Bob Gaines]

Believe allot of guys are using epoxy at the original attaching points to retain the grills to the panels once you have stripped, repainted the panels and restored the grills

In the past you had to buy the repro grill and panel assembly to get metal grills.You will have to verify with one of the vendors if that is still the case. I haven't done any myself for a few years.  Don't ask me why they only sell plastic grills separately. The repro panels are not good but the metal grills are nice . Rechroming is typically not a viable option as the price is high (maybe 800.00 or more for a pair )and the quality of the rechrome may be compromised by a pitted core. Regardless of the core it can be a crap shoot on how good the chrome  turns out being diecast .   You install the grills using epoxy over the factory posts like Jeff described.

[roddster]

  Just pointing out to NOT sand the fiberglass patina off of the visible side of these upper panels.

[Terry Curry]

Thank you all for the info. I'm getting down to the end of putting this car back together and the info I glean from this site helps tremendously. I will have more questions I'm sure in the near future. Again, thank you.