Men, What am I looking at here. This is the truck lid trim. The entire car all the way around has beautiful highly finished trim. What am I looking at here? Is this a shitty chrome job? Is it chrome? Can I clean it down to the bare metal and highly buff / polish the base? There are no Chrome shops here in Colorado according to metal folks here in Colorado Springs. One metal shop said the trim piece looked like Pot metal? Regardless, looking for some advice / tips what I'm looking at, where I can get it redone or how I can do it myself. Strange how the top half is smooth shine and bottom looks like someone sprayed over a rusted piece of metal. Help?

 

As it came from the factory, that pot metal part had a "wrinkle" texture on the lower part where the letters are located. The whole piece was plated, but the wrinkled part was then painted black (with the paint removed from the letters so they stood out. Unfortunately, that pot metal pits easily, which is what you are seeing. In fact, your piece may have been replated once already. Since it is impossible to correctly fill the pits and preserve the wrinkle finish, this is why your part looks so bad. Unfortunately, no one reproduces these parts and unpitted originals are virtually nonexistent (and priced accordingly if you do find a good one). On my 66, I had the plating company grind the wrinkle finish flat, which let them at least fill the pits. Paint that now flat area with black wrinkle paint and that's unfortunately about the best you can do. Good luck.

 

Now the difference between a Cutlass part and a 442 part is the black paint.

I wonder if blasting the surface would help?

 

Th wrinkle paint works pretty well if done correctly. Once the surface is as badly damaged as the one in the photo there is no saving it. The corrosion is much worse than what is on the surface.

 

Thanks everyone for the responses. It's been education for me, specifically in the fact no one will touch it for restoration in Colorado. There are numerous places across the US that will restore it with Chrome. Mine appears to be "pot rotted" pretty good. I've sent pics to a few places for quotes and I'm waiting on them now. These can be fixed but be cautious, most place will just coat with copper then chrome it. Copper will not prevent the rapid oxidation of the pot metal. Pits need to be drilled / scraped / etc out of the piece and refilled. There is a site I found thats called muggy weld. Hope any of this helps. By chance, anyone already have one they're willing to sell. Would prefer the piece with black shown above.

 

That part is available used by many parts sellers on here and elsewhere in far better shape than the one you have. As mentioned above the same part is used on the Cutlass and 442 with the only difference being the black paint.

 

I have one of these with a very nice lower, textured area (one light ding that can be pushed out and it's very small) BUT....there are a few bubbles in the die cast smooth upper portion ON THE BACKSIDE and some of these are "working" their way through to the front of the smooth surface but only on the BOTTOM HALF of the smooth strip.

"As is" it would be a pretty darn nice driver piece and you don't see the few beginnings of the bubbling on the smooth outside strip unless you are up very close to the car. The textured lower area would need the black highlighting but the chrome down there is very nice.

The mounting studs on mine are nice and intact...not broken off, etc.

I see the OP posted a "Parts Wanted" ad for one of these.

To me, as a rechrome candidate, the piece I have is much less of a challenge to redo into a super nice piece because the repairs needed are in the SMOOTH upper strip which means the bubbling can be drilled/cleaned out, filled (Muggy Weld or solder) and smoothed back out prior to rechroming. SO....no worries about losing the texturing, etc with the repairs.

PM me if you have any questions and good luck with your search. I can send pics, count the bubbles on the backside, etc.

 

These ARE plentiful. I have 3 or 4 myself.

 

If you decide to get one replated look at the NCRS(.org) and Vintage pre-post war car guys. Several vendors specialize in pot metal restoration. It ain't cheap due to the intense labor processes to get it show quality correct.

 

Koda, shoot me some pics and prices.