Refurbishing Side Moldings 72 Chevy
 

WHats the trick to polishing the side moldings from a 72 chevy cheyenne? Ive tried a few different things with mixed results. What have you guys done that has worked for you? And what color is the black supposed to be? Gloss/Semi gloss/flat? Id really like to re-use my side moldings as they are nice and straight. I can immagine that the aftermarket moldings are not near as good of quality as the originals.

Re: Refurbishing Side Moldings 72 Chevy
 

Bump... anyone?

Re: Refurbishing Side Moldings 72 Chevy
 

I did more digging and found this page http://www.secondchancegarage.com/public/665.cfm

I tried the drain cleaner trick and sure enough it takes the annodize off. Does not seem to cut through the paint, but does well on the unpainted surface. The moldings polish up nice with some mothers Mag and Aluminum Polish. taping off and painting the lower moldings is a huge pain. the uppers will be even worse. Is there a better way? How about brushing the paint on?

Re: Refurbishing Side Moldings 72 Chevy
 

I just buffed mine out. Thanks for reminding me about painting them, not fun.

Re: Refurbishing Side Moldings 72 Chevy
 

you buff them before removing the annodize? What did you use if so? that is ultimately what i would like to do, clean up whats there without having to completely strip them.

Re: Refurbishing Side Moldings 72 Chevy
 

I'm currently working on this with my '72. The best way to get the anodizing off is using oven cleaner. I tried all sorts of things, including a buffing wheel with heavy grit polish, sanding by hand, wet sanding. The oven cleaner takes it off. Sprayed it very heavily.

I have a compressor and die grinder. Locally, could not find any sanding discs for the 3" die grinder above 220 grit. I searched online and came across this site:

http://www.onlineindustrialsupply.com/3solid.html

I ordered a box of 600, 800, 1000, 1200 and 1500 grit sanding discs. Before getting these, I was taking 800 grit sheets and cutting out circles then super gluing them to a sanding disc. The 800 grit worked well to smooth out the trim from the oven cleaner, but the sand paper would tear pretty quickly and it was a PITA to keep manually cutting out circles of sand paper and gluing them. I did more so to test how it would work.

A good buffer/grinder setup with a course wheel and polishing compound will easily take out 800 grit sanding and polish up nice.

We're going to start up on the process again tomorrow (Friday). It's been a low priority, but weather will be cooler (I'm not a big fan of hot weather) this weekend. If I can find my camera, I'll take some before/after pics.

Once we finish up polishing, we're going to tape off to paint the center section black, then follow up with a clear coat over each piece.