Restoring Dart side trim...??

Google Aluminum & Stainless Steel Polishing or pick up Jeff Lily's book on trim restoration. I've been fooling around practicing polishing trim and if your good at details and have patience, you can do it. I just did an extra grill shell for a `68 Barracuda and I got some VERY encouraging results.

As for stripping the anodizing, use either a solution of Lye in warm water, or use Easy-Off oven cleaner. Let it set for a few minutes and the trim will turn a milky-whiteish color when the anodizing is removed. Wash thoroughly with warm water and make sure you wear GLOVES & GOGGLES. Then I use some small trim and body work hammers to bump out the dents. Small chunks of hard wood ground down into useful shapes for your application are great cheap tools too, just tap carefully so they don't splinter too quickly. Deep dents/gouges require tapping out and sanding the high points in the metal like body work to get it level. Then polish in progressively finer grits sandpaper up to 600 (or finer...) sandpaper. Then you can start with the metal polishing rouge and a high-speed buffer. I've been using a hand-held air tool for polishing with a small kit I bought from Eastwood. The correct way is with a free standing bench polisher with long arbor shafts so you can get good reach. For really small or tight areas your going to need a small flex-shaft type of polishing head similar to a Dremel tool. Once polished, you can use a product such as Zoop, which is almost $100.... or you might be able to clear-coat it. Best yet is finding a place to anodize to permenently seal the finish, or your going to be keeping up with raw aluminum to maintain and keep polished, which is not a big deal, just more work.

For what an out fit like All-Trim charges for trim repair, I figure I can invest a couple of hundred dollars for the tools and try myself. A good Baldor buffer will cost about $300.... one from Sears about $100. You need at least 3/4 HP and speed of about 3,400 RPM. The various polishing rouge's and buffer wheels in the correct materials about another $75.

Again, these are very broad strokes leaving a million details out, but it CAN be done at home. And the results I got doing a half-assed job was fantastic. I'll snap a few pictures of what I've done and post after work. This forum might be helpful too:

http://forum.caswellplating.com/

Go for it!!!!!!!!!!!