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?

[njsteve]

That's a very good question. I don't have an answer at the moment. I've never had much luck at using NOS decals. The sticky sides don't seem to hold up after 35 years or so. At least not the Mopar decals I've played with.