[Healeys] Lower grille mounting brackets

[Andy Thorp]

I'm trying to fit up an early (wavy) grille and have run into a few problems
for which I'd appreciate some advice from the experienced folk.

1) The lower lip trim doesn't fit very well over the rivets which hold the
three lower grille brackets on. The bulged out stems of the installed rivets
are too big for the finisher trim to comfortably go over. Were they originally
riveted on? How else were the grille brackets attached to the shroud?

2) How was the lower lip finisher installed without A) damaging it and B)
scratching the paint. It seems that either the ends have to be trimmed short
so it can be installed (like many restored pics online) or it has to be bent
and distorted to force it to fit. Neither way seems very satisfactory.

Part of the original problem is that the grille opening was too narrow
vertically and had a rather flat area in the middle instead of the original
curved ellipse. I have cut about a 1/2" wide slot section out of the shroud
below the lower lip and pushed the lip downwards which has improved the shape
of the opening but I can't figure out how to get both ends of the trim
installed as they have to go over the lip which has a smaller radius inside
the opening than the trim.

3) I'd like to find either the angle of the grille panel or the measurement
horizontally from the top of the grille opening to the bottom.
http://tinyurl.com/lrfyapp It seems that there are quite a few restored cars
with near vertical grilles and it doesn't look quite right. An unrestored Mk2
here has 132mm horizontally between the top and bottom of the grille opening,
whereas the earlier (1957) problem-child shroud has only 110mm and that is
after I have pulled the bottom lip forward about 30mm.

Measurements of a later grille:
http://tinyurl.com/mhu7367

Can somebody with a known good/original early shroud measure the distance
using a ruler and a spirit level to find vertical please?


Thank you,
Andy.