34 Bob Drake Grill racking

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Ed Solari

Senior Member
have Drake grille from early (2005) production run...in box and form packing since purchase … no damage to box or form. Swapped OEM driver grill in my dry fit to do a final check with Drake. The Driver side fit perfect, the passenger side the upper curved corner just above belt line the grill is 3/4 inch more forward that hood. If you look at the eye hole that fits around radiator opening on top you see a seam where it attaches to the front of grill. Projecting the seam with straight edge it intercepts the upper corner on driver Drake and OEM and passenger on OEM. On Drake passenger it projects to the edge of the hood at the corner like it should but of course 3/4 inch rear of the Drake grill hood corner.


Is there a known racking issue with older Drake...if so what is the fix??? Any other ideas ...I simply do not want to start bending this tough structure without some idea what I a doing. I called Drake and they claim they have never had a complaint.


Thank you!!!!
Ed Solari
 
Ed Solari said:
have Drake grille from early (2005).
Is there a known racking issue with older Drake grill? I called Drake and they claim they have never had a complaint.
Ed Solari
Click to expand...


Never a complaint, huh? That infamous reply from the BD folks must be trademark-protected by now, and likely even has a dedicated part number. Really sad about your grill. I know they got "mucho dinero" for those things. DD
 
Known issue. Castings of that type will warp from internal stress or from being removed from the die.



Drake does a pretty good job of qc and rejects/repairs that issue almost all of the time...


Try them again to see if they will do an exchange (unlikely given the time) or you could attempt to untwist it your self (give a strong chance of breaking as the metal has had plenty of time to normalize in that shape).
 
As coopman states, you are not going to get any help from Drake. It's always "never had a complaint about.....". You might have to bolt it up and "tweak" it and see how it lines up. I had a similar problem with a reproduction Deuce shell and finally bit the bullet and purchased an original.
 
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