My original fog light grills have seen better days. I replaced the light lenses and wanted to clean up the look a little. I stole a set of grills off of someone's car that's been sitting for a number of years. Right away I noticed these felt lighter. Carefully removing the poorly sprayed black paint I nicked a few spots. These seem to be plastic where the ones I took off my car feel more like metal. My car is a '70 while these new to me grills are off a '73.

What are your thoughts?

I had a 70 with metal ones and the later ones are almost always plastic.

I had a set of metal ones on my 6 and they where pitted and had a greenish tint. Spent so mome time on trying to clean up and they where pitted. Just get a set of plastic ones from 914 rubber

Bob B

I probably should go that route. I just don't like the way the new ones sit proud of the bumper though.

Here's the new to me parts that I'm tediously stripping.

Are they metal? If not were they painted black or is that black plastic?
Just curious.

I'm thinking these are plastic. Someone painted over the chrome. The chrome one in the photo is after carefully scraping off the black paint. My original grills have broken bars and appear to be some sort of pop metal.

Try a water based paint remover on your old ones and then some polishing compound to get the chrome back to a bright finish. Or get the new ones from 914 rubber like these, and make adjustments to the plastic so it does not stick out. It would seem that if you grind down the 4 nipples it would sit lower.

Bob B
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If the plastic ones are the ones that were painted over, if will de difficult to get the paint off without damaging the "chrome".
It's actually a vacuumized metal coating sealed with a clear coat. If you go through the clear it will dull the aluminum.

early 69 build metal, then jan 70 on plastic

on the other hand we have over 500 sets of plastic chrome on the shelf and they fit fine, may not be worth stripping