Re-galvanizing Vantage Grill?

[keiltyben]

Hi All

Has anyone had their V8V grill re-galvanized? I've had enough of it always looking milky, faded and dirty and would like to get the look of a new grill again. If anyone has, could you please let me know of any companies with experience of doing this?

Cheers

[BiggaJ]

I wouldn't have thought the grill was galvanised from the get go. It's aluminium hence, you just need to remove it and give it a good polish.

If you want to change the appearance then I'm sure wherever you are located there will be companies capable of dipping, powder coating etc.

Just do a Google search for companies and then give them a ring. That's what I did before deciding to replace mine with a carbon version.

[keiltyben]

Oh I didn't know it's aluminum. So do you remove the slats individually to polish? Presumably they pull out with enough of a tug.

[BiggaJ]

keiltyben said:

Oh I didn't know it's aluminum. So do you remove the slats individually to polish? Presumably they pull out with enough of a tug.

Unless your vertical plastic pieces holding the slats in place are broken, you dont want to be removing the slats without first removing the complete unit which can be done via a series of screws holding it all in place. Once out take photo of the assembly to make sure you put them back in the right place.

The slats should be fairly easy to pries out then use something like Autosol and maybe a polishing pad on a drill/dremel for those tougher spots. Mine came up looking great.

[john ryan]

The slats are anodised. If you polish through the coating, you will be polishing every week. Suggest you speak to a plater about re-anodising if the damage is severe.

[Nigel_O]

john ryan said:

The slats are anodised. If you polish through the coating, you will be polishing every week. Suggest you speak to a plater about re-anodising if the damage is severe.

Agreed - using an aluminium polish won’t help, as you’ll just be attacking the anodised surface, not the actual aluminium.

I wrote about mine towards the bottom of my Reader’s Cars thread here:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

In the end, I decided that cleaning was never going to get the results I wanted, so I bought a new grille

[BiggaJ]

It's funny, I cleaned mine up great, put them back on the car and they lasted quite a while before I decided to go with the V12 Carbon grill. I sold mine on eBay several months ago, still looking great.

Of course getting them cleaned and re anodised would be the best option but to get them clean and see how it goes, it's still more cost effective to whip them off and give them a little elbow grease.

[tom-4hcey]

I removed my grill and the plastic spacers then sent them away to Peter at badger anodising. He had the slats stripped, polished then re anodised. I am contemplating changing my bright finish to a satin black one at some point so mine may become available. Mine is the 6 slat and it’s on a 2013 vantage S

[keiltyben]

Hi Tom, thanks for posting. Out of interest how much did it cost you?

[LLaPGoCh]

Link to when I also had mine redone by Badger;

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=17...

Would highly recommend

[tom-4hcey]

I paid £200