I've been toying with the idea of fitting a 65 grille to my 76 CBII. So, I ordered a repro from Mustangs Unlimited and took my dremel to it. The fit is a little off, so I made a cardboard patter of the curved ends, then traced it on the grill for the cut lines. I made a plywood buck from the same template and formed the flange on the grille to the shape of the opening. All I have left is to solder the ends of the flange along the lap and mesh edges, then mount some turn signals. Haven't quite figured out what to use for turn signals, but was thinking of some small amber LED lenses. Here's a pic of my unfinished experiment:
I love the idea man.. you should start your own little business of making them.. You can start with my 74 !
welder4956, I took an old 65 grille (I found it beside a dumpster) and done the same thing... however after I took the braces off around the edges the grille lost its sturdiness and would probably buckle with the wind pressure. Not knowing how to TIG weld, I'm having difficulty making it look less wavy. Anyhow, I'm now looking at using the 67-68 grilles. They make a 67-68 billet grille, but I'd have to be darn sure that it would fit before I laid down the big bucks for that one.
The grill looks good with just the Snake in the center. What about mounting some turn signals in the bumper for a different look and to keep the grill clean? You would have your pick of turn signals from just about any yard.
I've had that thought too after seeing how it looks on Dave Wilson's car. I've got a '85 T-bird with over 200,000 miles that is pretty much only good for parts now that has some turn signal lamps mounted in the front bumper. I may transplant them to the CBII to see how it looks.
There was a II at the 40th Anniversary show in Nashville that had a tube grille painted black. Doesn't look too hard to make one. Billet aluminum or stainless would look nice.
If you can tell from the photo, I left the vertical braces on the back where the corral bolts on the 65, and didn't remove the flange around the edges. I cut them mesh away from the flange to the shape of the grille opening and trimmed the excess off the flange so it could be wrapped around the edge of the mesh. It's too thin to even TIG weld, so I'm going to try to solder a piece of scrap first to make sure I can attach the reshaped flange on the sides that were trimmed. I'll take another photo after I take it back out for soldering.
You would have to fabricate one from flat metal bars stacked together with spacers in between and the bars welded to a couple of braces on the back. Then remove the spacers and shape the grille to the opening by tracing an outline of the opening on the bars and trimming them to fit with a grinder and shaping the curves on a belt sander. Then tack weld some mounting brackets to bolt to existing grille mounting points. Requires TIG welding skills, finesse with a grinder/belt sander and much patience. Here's a link that shows one way of doing it: http://allshops.org/cgi-bin/community/communityalbums.cgi?action=openalbum&albumid=9980097721172 The other option is to pay someone to make one for you. It would likely cost a few hundred bucks for a custom made billet grille. Search the net for "custom billet grille" to see what companies may be able to do the work.
