Goodmark Cuda grille

[heminut]

I bought a new Goodmark grille for my Cuda and thought I would do a review with some pics of the install. I'll start with a pic of the grille just out of the box (sorry for the quality). It's dark gray ABS plastic and has a tag that says it was made in Taiwan. It is the complete grille assembly with the headlight buckets and the 4 chrome trim pieces. It seems to be pretty well made. Jeg's and Summit list them for about $675 plus shipping and tax but I shopped around and found the grille at getallparts.com for $657 total with shipping and tax. I'll update this post with pics as I move along with painting and installing the grille.

 

[Deathproofcuda]

Awesome! Thank you Sir! I've been sitting on the fence about buying one of these for some time now, so am very interested to follow along and see what your thoughts are.

 

[heminut]

I got the grille painted and learned something along the way. Probably learned it when I painted the original grille that's in the car and then forgot it. I painted the black center sections and intended to then mask them off and paint the main part of the grille. Well,it's pretty much impossible to mask that center part so I ended up painting the argent and then masking off the main part of the grille to repaint the inside sections black. I used a dark textured argent (took about a can and a half for 3 good coats) for the main part of the grill that I got from these folks;
MOPAR Textured Dark Argent - Gray
The center section I painted with Rustoleum 2X black satin from Ace Hardware. It's the same stuff I used on my original grille and it has held up well over the years. BTW, I was leery of painting on that smooth shiny surface so I got a couple of 120 grit sanding pads and scuffed the grille and headlight buckets before painting.

On to the chrome trim that came with the grille. The two long pieces are identical and either one can be used on the top or bottom. They just snapped on with hand pressure. The trim pieces that go on the headlight buckets are different, there is a left and a right and when you lay the trim on the headlight bucket it is obvious if you have the right piece or not. A couple of the corners didn't have a sharp enough bend to suit me and I bent them to a better profile with hand and thumb pressure. It was fairly easy to get a good fit and then, like the long pieces, they just pushed on with hand pressure.

So far I'm really happy with this grille. I plan on taking the old grille out next week and putting the new one in. I'll report back on the fit when I get it in. I'm waiting on the red grille bars to come in so I can put them on before installing the grille in the car.

 

[Xcudame]

Very good tech! We will follow with interest!

 

[Cuda Hunter]

Thanks for the review.
Especially interested in the actual fit on the car and if the trim pieces stay in place after driving at 70 mph.

 

[KlsCuda]

Looks forward to hearing about the fitment. I'm thinking about replacing mine.

 

[heminut]

Thanks for the review.
Especially interested in the actual fit on the car and if the trim pieces stay in place after driving at 70 mph.

I have no doubt the trim pieces are secure, even though I said "hand pressure" to install them, that was pushing pretty hard one tab at a time. The fit is really snug. That being said, I will gladly take on your challenge and test them out at well over 70 mph!

 

[heminut]

Got the grille in yesterday. There are two little slider parts on each side of the grille that the screws for the tabs on the headlight buckets go into, and new ones came with the grille. They were really snug in the slots they go into in the ends of the grille and I had to clean all the paint off in that little area where they slide to get them to fit. Also, The chrome trim for the headlight buckets have lips on the inside of the trim edges where they snap into the tabs. The lips go clear to the ends of the trim pieces and the trim can't slip over the stepped ends of the long top and bottom trim pieces on the main grille. I took a Dremel tool with a 1/8" carbide rotary file bit and removed those lips on the 1/2" of trim that sticks out past the edge of the headlight bucket. If you don't remove those lips the ends of the trim won't slip over the stepped down ends of the long trim pieces where they overlap. This doesn't show when they are installed.

The fit in the car was great! The edges of the headlight buckets fit almost right up to the step in the main grill, as you can see in the pics. I don't know if the factory grilles shrink over the years or if they are just sloppy from the factory, but my factory grille and headlight buckets had a considerable gap between the edge of the buckets and the step in the main part of the grille, almost 1/2" on one side and about 1/4" on the other side.

I'm very satisfied with the overall quality and fit of this Goodmark grille!

 

[KlsCuda]

Looks great! Thanks for such a detailed explanation/review.

I've been thinking about grabbing one and this is super helpful.

 

[larry4406]

Nice!

Can you change the thread title to 1970 Cuda Grille? Might help the next guy and aid searches.

 

[Xcudame]

@heminut about how many hours do you figure for the modifications (paint removal and Dremel out the lip)? So people know what they're getting into. Certainly looks very nice! Great job!

 

[heminut]

@heminut about how many hours do you figure for the modifications (paint removal and Dremel out the lip)? So people know what they're getting into. Certainly looks very nice! Great job!

All of that only took about an hour and a half. I just scraped the paint off with the blade tip of a pocket knife, hi tech stuff right there! I did the lip removal with the trim still on the headlight buckets but others might want to mark the trim pieces and take them off the buckets to work on them, a Dremel tool can easily get away from you if you aren't careful! I've been using them in gunsmithing for 40 years so I have a lot of experience controlling them.

 

[Xcudame]

That's not bad at all. Even sheet metal parts from AMD need more work time than that! Nice new grille and pretty painless to install.