72 TA : New Project

[njsteve]

I tried my hand at buffing the aluminum trim and it worked out rather well. I used an old electric motor bolted to a couple of pieces of plywood. I bolted them to the work table but far enough out that I have room to work. I used the basic Eastwood kit and started with the Tripoli compound and then wiped the piece down with mineral spirits and finished it with the white rouge compound. After that I wiped it down again with mineral spirits and then hand polished it with Simichrome chrome polish. I then wiped it down again and sprayed some Boeshield metal protectant on it to keep the luster for a while.

Here is the setup:



And after some initial buffing (on the left side of the piece)



Here is the polished right side piece, compared to the unpolished left side:





It took about 30 minutes to do the one piece with the wheel changes and cleaning between stages. So that's one down and 7 to go!

[Nova Jed]

After seeing this post, I have a good notion to try and restore the trim from around my door frames on my Nova. Would a company be able to restore them easily if I had stripped off all of the old anodizing?

[Verne_Frantz]

Steve,
Do you have any plans for a protective treatment of some sort after the aluminum moldings are polished up? Bare polished aluminum will require frequent upkeep, just like aluminum wheels.

Verne

[Mr70]

That Simichrome is really good stuff.

[njsteve]

[ QUOTE ]
Steve,
Do you have any plans for a protective treatment of some sort after the aluminum moldings are polished up? Bare polished aluminum will require frequent upkeep, just like aluminum wheels.

Verne

[/ QUOTE ]

From what I have read, that Boeshield stuff soaks into the metal and keeps it nice, shiny and protected for about 6 months. If it tarnishes after about 6 months, you can then wipe it down with some mineral spirits and give a quick polishing with the Simichrome and recoat it with the Boeshield again.

[njsteve]

Here's a link to the Boeshield website. Sears sells it as do a lot of boat dealers. It runs about $14 a spray can.
http://www.boeshield.com/

[njsteve]

Started to work on stripping the rear spoilers today and noticed a couple things.

1) The original rear spoiler decal section wraps under the center section of the spoiler by about a 1/2 inch. It is also a much different blue color than the later (what I assume is a) GM replacement decal that was on the car. Note the color differences. The original decal remnants are more of a turquoise color with much smaller and finer black dot-matrix pattern that the replacement decal that is on the topside. The original spoiler decal was 18-1/16" wide, from outer pinstripe edge to edge and was also more accurately positioned: 12-14/16" from the passenger end and 12-13/16" from the driver's end. The replacement decal was 18" wide and about a 4/16" to the right side of the car.









And here was where it aligned up with the original trunk lid:

[njsteve]

The second thing I noticed was that I have two different spoiler end caps on my car: a long end cap and a short end cap. The shorty with the white underside is the original 70-73 endcap (PN 480159) and the black undersided, longer tipped, end cap is a replacement from a 74 to 78 T/A (PN 493688). At least it's easier to trim the longer one to match the shorter one. Thankfully that's a lot simpler than trying to make the shorter one grow to match the later longer, end cap.

[firstgenaddict]

So Steve... the current replacement decals... are they correct? Or if not what are you planning on doing? Do you have NOS ones?