Facelift for Mighty Mouse

[difrangia]

About a month ago I took the bumpers with front bumper guards, the headlight rings, and a straight grille to the chrome guy in Tulsa. I picked up everything but the grille about a week ago. He wanted a little more time to work out an abundance of surface pitting. I got the grille a couple days ago. Christmas comes early this year for the little truk. I;ll post some photos of the face when I get everything back on her.

 

BEFORE RE-CHROME

 

 

AFTER RE-CHROME

 

 

[Charlie69]

That is beautiful!!!  The chrome and the NL.

[difrangia]

I got the bumpers, grille, & headlight rings temporarily hung back on the Sport Truck & thought a pic would be in order. The parklight rings and lenses are NOS that came with Mighty Mouse when I acquired him. I'm now on the lockout for a nice hood and hood chrome strip. It's not so visible in the photo, but the hood looks like a sack-of-rocks and the chrome strip is not feasibly fixable.

 

[wayno]

It looks good, it looks like your having a lot better luck with the chrome platers than I do. :lol:

Did you get a photo of the back?

Did you have the taillight bezels plated also?

 

I had the piece of metal below the taillight bezels chrome plated also.

 

[difrangia]

No, Wayno, I haven't done anything with the tail lights yet. I don't have a close-up of the rear lights at hand right now. They are in pretty good condition for now, plating wise, anyway. One has a crack in the reflector area. I'll get around to the rear lights later. When I pull the engine for rebuild in a few months, I'll probably take the door window frames for re-chrome and replace the chanels and scrapers.

 

Is the silver NL in your post the red-black one that you acquired from Mike at some point prior to paint, or do you have meor than one? Are those Aussie lenses?

 

The grille ran me about $250 or a little less. It was done with the bumpers and headlight rings. First time that I used the guy, but he came with recommendations from a friend.

 

Steve

[JoeCool]

Beautiful truck!

[wayno]

The window frames are not chrome plated, they are stainless steel and just need polished, and any repairs done by someone that knows what they are doing.

I have not been able to find any stock squeegees for the doors, I have found something from Chevs of the 40s, but it is for the inside of some 40s chevy wagon door that I found that had the profile needed, but it is part of a bigger piece and the squeegee needs to be cut out of it and then the rest thrown away, it is not shaped like the stock offset "T", but is shaped like an "L", but it works and looks decent.

It seems like that 50 percent of the reflectors I have seen have cracks in them.

I found that the roadster channel felt works the best for our 320s, the problem is that the roadster felt is for 2 doors on the roadsters, but it is only enough to do one 320 door, so you need to order 2 sets to do one 320.

I have 3 320s, one L320, one NL320(bought from Mike), and one U320(the silver one).

No, Wayno, I haven't done anything with the tail lights yet. I don't have a close-up of the rear lights at hand right now. They are in pretty good condition for now, plating wise, anyway. One has a crack in the reflector area. I'll get around to the rear lights later. When I pull the engine for rebuild in a few months, I'll probably take the door window frames for re-chrome and replace the chanels and scrapers.

 

Is the silver NL in your post the red-black one that you acquired from Mike at some point prior to paint, or do you have meor than one? Are those Aussie lenses?

 

The grille ran me about $250 or a little less. It was done with the bumpers and headlight rings. First time that I used the guy, but he came with recommendations from a friend.

 

Steve

[difrangia]

Ah, Wayno, That's why I saw the tail lights as Aussie. They're on a U320. Rarest of the Rare, pretty much, right up there with the V320. I'd sure like to see some pics of the Ute. Seems like I also saw a Ford Festiva around your stable. I've a lot of respect for the Festy. Another one of my daily drivers is a '89 carb-Festy. One of the best values in automobiles that I've experienced.

 

I'll have to look at the door window frames in a different light if they're stainless. A previous owner 'prick' drilled and threaded two holes up high on the vent window divider bar to mount mirrors that are gonna need welding and smoothing. Also about six holes in the upper-front door area and worse still, a couple in each door stainless trim. I believe that I've located a craftsman in Arkansas through a local restorer/rod builder who can fix the stainless. There must have been half a dozen different door mirrors on this little truck over the years.

 

I've been taking my time and trying to straighten out some of the previous owner's sins against this sweetie since the first of the year. The engine is in dire need of a rebuild and I've been babying her around on nice days, driving to work a couple of miles and what-not, and working my way toward a winter rebuild. Engine-room cleanup, new hard brake lines, some wiring updates, and miscellaneous other little cosmetics will happen during the engine work. I'll post some photos.

 

Steve

[wayno]

This is what the U320 looked like when I took it to Canby.

 

 

It has the rear chrome bumper now, along with the front bumper and grill, all of which had to be cut or bent to fit, i'm not having a lot of luck with chrome guys.

 

I have no Fords, nor Chevys or Dodges, I have Datsuns, an MGTD, and a Mini.

I had to buy the Aussie taillight bezels, as the bezels that came with the U320 were the American style.

[difrangia]

Damn, that little darlin' takes my breath away. Thanks for the photos, Wayno. I have used a couple of platers in Tulsa and Oklahoma City over the past seven years or so and have had very good work done. Only bad experience was that the OKC shop sends their straighten & polish out and they polished through a fairly rare white-metal (pot-metal casting or whatever) bumper end for a 58 BMW 600 Limousine. The chrome work was always top-knotch.

 

Not too far from the OKC shop is a Jet-Hot/HPC shop that I'll be visiting when I re-do the engine and engine room on the 'Sport Truck' later this year. The high-temp aluminum/ceramic coating on our 61 FIAT 500D engine parts looks great after about ten years of intermittent use.

 

Steve

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

Wayno, where the hell did you find the U320? I love it!

[wayno]

Wayno, where the hell did you find the U320? I love it!

It was in North Carolina. :)

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

I bet you paid dearly for it. I know it's a disease we all have, but WoW! I would love to have a ute.

[difrangia]

Yeah, Wayno, your little U is a beast. Looks like maybe a 62 grille? I can envision one of the big heart wrenching decisions for me would have to be deciding between a U320 Ute and a V320 wagon. Fantasy, of course.

 

The mid-60's Fairlady based Silvia (approximately 500 made) is another jewel at the top of my list.

 

[finney]

that u320 is sweet.