The Impala Project

rusted off spring

spring rivet removed

The removable parts on these headlight pots are the adjusting screws, andthe plastic inserts, the stainless headlight ring, the headlight casing, and the tension spring. The tension springs are rarely in good condition. They’re subject to direct exposure to rain, snow, and road grime. Any finish on them has been rusted off decades ago leaving the tension springs in rough shape. I managed to save only a few.

Drilling out the rivet is no big deal. A 11/64″ bit will eat the mushroomed shoulder off and you won’t risk damaging the rivet hole since the rivet hole is exactly 11/64″. The rivet is a 5/32 blind aluminum rivet. This same rivet can be found in quite a few place on the 64 Impala grill section. It’s also used to hold the vertical supports to the backside of the headlight pots, the grill to the tie bar, and the small vertical grill supports to the grill and tie bar. I haven’t managed to find the correct replacements yet, but I will.

headlight spring installed

headlight springs

Since my only objective at this point is to put the best parts back together in one assembly I don’t need to be anal about fasteners yet. Here I used a #8 bevel head machine screw to hold the spring in place. The important part of this exercise is that I’ll have all these parts fastened together so I won’t lose them. We all know how parts disappear when we finally need them a couple of years later.

headlights installed

64 impala grill complete

Now the grill section for my 64 Impala is in one piece using the best used parts I can find. Since I have 3 other assemblies, none of which are in great shape, I can use them for practice when I want to develop my metal and trim working skills. I don’t want to learn on my best parts. I can afford to ruin the others.

64 Impala tie bar

Here’s a challenge. It just so happens that the nicest tie bar in all these 64 Impala grill sections I’ve taken apart has some rusty old machine screws holding the grill in place. Good luck undoing those.
The cutting torch is not an option here.

Up to this point I’ve been using the torch to cut off rusty bolts. It’s fast and easy. The problem here is the high risk in damaging both the tie bar and the grill. The melting point for aluminum is really low compared to steel. Since this grill tie bar is only stamped out of what looks like 16 guage sheet metal there is a a chance that I would blow a hole thru it, or it would become warped from the high heat of the cutting torch.

rusty nut behind tie bar

I could use the dremel and a cut off wheel but that would mean hacking away at the backside of the machine screw and nut. It wouldn’t be pretty and I’d surely break a half dozen or so cutoff wheels in the process. Expensive.

center drilled screw head

So I decided to use something more industrial. My Snap-on hand held grinder. This thing has been around a long time, probably 30 years now. My father bought it when I was a teenager and used it in the transmission business. I ground the heads of the screws down on the grill side so that they were flattened enough to center punch and drill out. Since these screw heads had a built in shoulder washer, the risk in damaging the grill from slipping off the screw head while grinding was rather low. I used a very light pressure to minimize the risk.

screw head drilled out

rusty screw removed

Above you see the head ground down and center drilled with a 1/8″ bit. Next I used a 1/2″ bit to drill out the head. The drill bit ate away enough of a divet to weaken the screw head’s attachment to the shaft. By grabbing the rusty nut on the backside with a pair of pliers, it just snapped of with very little effort.

This meant I didn’t need to do anything to pry on the head of the screw and risk scratching the grill surface.

tie bar removed

Wholla! The 64 Impala grill tie bar is off and in good shape. Now I can take all the best parts I’ve piled up from disassembling all these grills and put one good grill together.

My first priority was to use the least rusty parts. None of them are perfect, some were bent as well. If the nicest part was bent I spent the time needed to

behind grill section

64 Impala grill assembled

straighten it. From this collection of parts I was able to assemble a fairly nice 64 Impala grill section. I’ll set this aside, for use on my car and figure out what to do with the pile of less than perfect parts. Even if they aren’t good enough to refinish, a lot of the clips, screws and other fasteners might prove to be worth harvesting.

It seems like 64 Impala grill-o-rama around here the last couple of weekends. With 5 grills to take apart and sort out the parts, I’ve developed quite a pile of both good and bad parts.

The 4th 64 Impala grill

I think it’s easy to conclude that you can’t be too quick to rule out a car as being a good parts car, no matter what condition it’s in when you first look at it. I’ve run into some real surprises while stripping these grill sections. Who would imagine that one of the rustiest 64 Impala junk yard cars I’ve ever seen had some of the nicest used parts on the grill section.

rusted headlamp bracket bolts

bolt removal headlamp bracket

64 Impala headlamp bracket

Here’s a good example. This headlight pot was so rusty around the outside edges the nuts on the bolt holding the headlamp bracket were almost none existent, I had to grind the bolts off. Yet the headlamp bracket was one of the nicest ones I found. It has a fair amount of surface rust, but no pitting to speak of. This will make for a grill part that doesn’t require a whole lot of surface preparation to look good once it’s painted.

Exactly what I’m looking for.

64 impala grill parts

So now I have one really nice grill to work with (far left), and 2 others that aren’t far behind. The one on the far right here has seen better days, and it came off of the car I stripped in Raliegh last year which had the nicest front bumper filler panel. Go figure. I’ll likely relegate this one to the scrap pile unless I’m felling bored and really ambitious one day and decide to try welding it. Not a bad idea really. I may as well practice on something with the least amount of risk. If I screw it up, there’s not much loss in tossing it or cutting it up for welding filler material. The piles of parts are sorted too. Nice ones on the left and not so nice ones on the right.

I still haven’t taken the grill section off my 64 Impala yet. I’ll save that one for the documentation in the disassembly guide I’m planning. For anyone unfamiliar with stripping the 64 Impala, I can offer some guidance on the subject since I’ve already stripped 2 just last year.