How to? Polish / restore aluminum trim

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bighammer

bighammer

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I have a set of wheel lip moldings that are 43 years old...

They need restored, mostly just dull, oxidized, small scratches, some undercoating...

So should I go after them with 600 grit? Any chemical do's / donts? I'm not looking for perfection, just want to clean em up to look good. My car came with them originally, but they were all gone by the time I got the car so I picked up a set here in the parts section.

Thanks

Mark
 
bighammer said:
I have a set of wheel lip moldings that are 43 years old...

They need restored, mostly just dull, oxidized, small scratches, some undercoating...

So should I go after them with 600 grit? Any chemical do's / donts? I'm not looking for perfection, just want to clean em up to look good. My car came with them originally, but they were all gone by the time I got the car so I picked up a set here in the parts section.

Thanks

Mark
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depending on what they are made of . stainless you can start at 6-800 and go up from there I usually go (if not scarred up too bad) 320,600 1000,1500 them polish with rough rouge and final polish. but that just me . I heve seen 220-600-1000-rough pollish and finish that some people do and it looks great. I'm worried about scratches not being sanded out leaving a blurred look.

if it's aluminum trim ya gotta get the anodizing off first before you sand it down.
people use a lot of different chemicals to remove it.
Eastwood makes a commercial stripper that works @29.99
original yellow cap Easy Off oven cleaner works (I use that @7.99 a can it beats the heck out of Eastwoods 30 dollar stuff IMO, it looks to be the same chemicals in it as oven cleaner)just spray let sit and come back in an 1/2 hour or so and check. if not done respray and let sit again.
purple power also is supposed to work good (haven't tried it so I can't verify)
super clean works also, but it's slow (which is good if you forget it for a couple of days) I have done that rushing around to go to the car show and flat forgot about it for a weekend.
and of course an anodizing shop can remove it .


after that just use tools available in the shop to remove dents and nicks
sanding on a pretty good piece I start @ 400 but if it's got deep scratches I'll go lower grit and work up just like stainless.

my bezels were beat up with holes in them and they still need a little finish work but did come back pretty good!

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Thanks for the tips. BTW, mine are aluminum, no real dents, but dull, hazy, and some scratches. Thanks for the informative posts.
 
MileHighDart said:
Dang 66Dvert ,, those look fantastic, you want to do my bezels ? lol
Click to expand...
if I charged by the hour even I couldn't afford my work, I spent some serious time on the one bezel since it was ripped apart in a couple of places and had extra holes drilled into it to mount it on the car. they did come out nice though. Now all I have to do is find another grill for my 66 dart. (darn tree came down on my outside work area and demolished the work area and grill. luckily I had taken in my 70 challenger trim and stuff the day before so none of the really Expensive stuff got ruined. other than my good Baldor buffing motor that is $&%#^ broke the shaft clean off on one side.
 
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