I have always had trouble polishing door sill plates on old cars. Does anyone have helpful hints or know of a video that will help? I can't find much on you tube.

 

Looks like I am going to have to sand them to start with. They are just to bad to polish. The sad thing, there is so much electrolysis on the bottom side that I fear I will sand through and have some holes. I have 4 sets of them for 62 and none of them are that great, Most are eaten up from the electrolysis

 

I imagine these are anodized which make them impossible to "buff" to a high shine without first removing the anodize. Sanding will remove it, but the nooks and crannies will be very very difficult. I've heard spray on oven cleaner will remove anodize, but I've never attempted it. Pick the worst to experiment with and let us know how it turns out.

tc

 

If they are aluminum sodium hydroxide (oven cleaner) will eat them up pretty quickly. It doesn't like aluminum at all.

When I was involved in black oxide work, bluing, which is made mostly of sodium hydroxide I would sometimes get a piece of a gun part that was aluminum and low and behold the part would disappear out of the parts tray never to be seen again. Big parts would boil and sputter and were easily spotted but were etched and required a rebuff to salvage. Proceed with caution...... Tedd

 

and stay away from Purple Power product as well....it, too, will eat them up quickly.

 

The sill plates are not anodized.

 

Try a spray on "Mag wheel/aluminum wheel cleaner" and a tooth brush to see what they look like before trying to sand them.

 

Do you have a stationery buffer with cloth wheels and compound? One can be made easily with a motor off a swamp cooler or like motor and buffing supplies can be found from places like Brownell's or Midway. Sanding sometimes takes too much off the base material and the scratches are as hard to remove as the oxidation. Same principle as buffing out a bumper but much thinner..... Tedd

 

The polish/cleaner is definitely material dependant,
On all of the late 60s early 70s GM A bodies I've owned, I wash the sills with a nylon brush and Dawn, then use the cotton wadding polish (lNever Dull). Great results.
Heres a crappy picture of a sill that was cleaned n polished with Never Dull. Keep in mind I haven't touched these since 1986/87, Which gets me thinking its time again.

 

Ames performance offers new sillplates for 61 thru 63 Tempest for $44 per pair .
I checked the parts book and the Olds sill plate numbers ( 4833794 & 5 )cross over to Buick and Pontiac also
.http://www.amesperf.com/catalogs/T4.pdf page 14

 

I had thought about those but they are a little different than the originals and need the holes redrilled on the car. I am hopping to get an original set nice enough to restore. The electrolysis has pitting all of mine bad enough that it is going to be difficult to make a set look good. I still have time to find a good used set to restore but if I can't I will have to go with those new ones.

 

I have had good luck with steel wool followed by Mothers aluminum compound although mine had no holes or bad pitting on the outer surface. You could start with 150 grit sandpaper, then the steelwool for bad spots.

 

Don, what coarseness of steel wool did you use?

 

Mine cleaned up great with Neverdull like another posted earlier

 

I used 0000 fine, luckily my plates were pretty good and did not need sandpaper.

 

Thank you for the steel wool info, Don.

 

OK, I have resorted to sanding. Started with 400 then to 800 and then to 1000. I then polished it but looks like I need to go to maybe 2000 or more before it will be good enough. Even then, I did not get all the imperfections out of it with the 400. If I went any more I fear I would not have enough left to keep it from cracking. I am really tired of these already and not even half done with one side. I am picking a couple more of these up from oldspackrat so I am going to quit till I look at his. I sure hope his are better than the 10 I have to pick from.

 

Not sure what you are looking for here but these plates were never mirror gloss perfect from the factory, they had press marks and a slightly dull surface.

 

Just buy new ones. they are relatively inexpensive. Check The Parts Place and Inline tube.

 

Nobody makes them for the 62 f-85. There are some that are close but not the same.

 

They were not mirror but they were close. The ones on my wifes car have never been touched and nearly perfect, I would not even want to touch hers with polish. They are what I am looking for