Well, I was inspired by Steve and Andrew to take this "mini" project on last week since the weather was crap again in Virginia. Like other E9 projects I get excited about and pursue too quickly, I was reminded about the constant need to improvise with most E9 repairs. I removed grille piece easily, per Steve instructions, but immediately thought about abandoning the project as each of my slates has been epoxied to the grill ring on the upper and lower sides. So they could not be removed without lots of scraping and potentially doing more damage overall. So I whipped out the 1.5" masking take I use for painting jobs and, with an exacto knife, began cutting small strips to cover the chrome areas. I also took the opportunity with some needle nose plyers to even out the spacing on the underside of the slats, but you should first wrap the tips of the plyers with masking tape so you don't scratch the slats too much when you are squeezing them or widening some in my case; this step was a big improvement for my grille as most of the slats on the back side were of varying width and evening them all out with the plyers makes the whole grille look newer, for sure. About 90 minutes of prep I was satisfied I had covered the chrome and began the first of three coats of the Krylov satin black painting in the basement. Well, it came out pretty well, actually, except for some small areas where paint bled through and got on the chrome, but those were easily removed with a plastic knife and gentle abrasion. What I'd do differently next time is to prep the black slats for paint before doing the masking job as I found traces of steel wool post paint.
