68Tom

OK, so this guy who is polishing & straightening my stainless trim was recommended to me as someone who did good work and was inexpensive. It needed most polishing than anything--only a couple dings. Now, while I understand there's more stainless trim on a '68 442/Cutlass than most cars, he's almost finished and charging me $500 for the polishing job.

I was a little taken aback by his amount and just kind of stuttered afterwards. Is this a reasonable amount or should I say something to him before paying? I'm generally terrible at this sort of stuff and just pay.

I guess in the end, I just wish I knew it would cost that much as I would have done it myself.

Bluevista

If it looks good when he's done that's a deal IMO. It depends on the finished product. It took me weeks to do the hundreds of feet of stainless for my Vista Cruiser.

68Tom

OK, perhaps it is. After all, there's all the fender, door & quarter trim, the drip rail trim, the front and rear window molding, and then the wheel well moldings.

I just don't think I was expecting a number like that as he was supposed to be "inexpensive". Was thinking more like $300 or so, but maybe I was just dreaming.

Ah, yet another expense I wasn't anticipating. I should be in bankruptcy by the end of next month.

ent72olds

That is pretty cheap Tom! Most guys I talk to want $75 a piece or charge $30 an hour...Like Allan said, if it looks good, you scored!

gearheads78

If the work is good that is a deal and a half. Its very easy to tie up 1500+ on really good stainless work. It is very labor intensive work. 30-40.00 per ft is what I have been quoted.

68Tom

Holy smokes. No kidding? Damn that stuff is expensive. I guess I should be grateful then! What an ingrate....

My442

The reason it is so expensive is that it is a 5-7 step process.

Lots of labor and skill.

Dangerous too.

bjtstarfire

Can you explain the danger part for me?

mike's88

Get one of those pieces grabbed by a buffing/polishing wheel, and you'll know what he means. Those trim pieces are kinda sharp on the inside edge, get one pulled through your fingers, means finger could be gone.

68Tom

Well, if anyone wants his info, PM me.

derek nesdoly

I try to get a WRITTEN estimate +/- 10%before starting....derek

rcorrigan5

Just a heads up - all that trim along the top ridge of the fender, door and into the quarter panel on each side is also flash chromed. I discovered this when I had a bad spot on the passenger side rear quarter trim. I had to have the flash chroming removed before the polisher would even consider working on it, and his work for that one piece alone was $110. After it was polished (to perfection, I might add), I took the piece back to be flash chromed. In the end, it was an outstanding match with the other pieces. The stainless polisher was a bit surprised that it was flash chromed - he's the one that discovered it, and the chromer agreed when he saw it. The polisher said that flash chroming of stainless parts was fairly normal for mid-60s cars (especially Chrysler products) but he thought that practice had ended by 1968.

gearheads78

all my 66 side moulding was flash chromed too

Jamesbo

Does he do repair also? I've got an extra set of 69 442 drop top rear quarter chrome that's broken/bent. It took me a year to find a replacement.

I keep hearing about guys who are like silver smiths who can straighten and repair, but every one I call has "Gone home to Glory"

Bluevista

Best if you wear heavy leather gloves when you buff and polish along with good eye or full face shield protection, no loose clothes or long hair hanging. I've seen more guys get yanked by hanging hooded sweatshirt tie strings than anything, car fan belts, drill motors, power saws. The machine should be on a heavy iron pedestal stand in the middle of an open area with plenty of room to work long pieces and lots of light. They can also be grabbed and fly so keep anything away that can be damaged away like the car. Thin or small pieces should be taped to a board to prevent them from being pulled up into the shaft and turned to pretzels, never push hard against the buff or try to use the sides. The thing that gets me are the shocks, the buffing creates an electrical charge that can really zap you, lightning bolts fly between the buffing wheel and the stainless sometimes. I get all my buffing and polishing supplies from Caswellplating, best selection and they know they're stuff. Motor and the iron pedestal stand I got at Sears years back.

http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/index.html

68Tom

So should I have these pieces flash chromed? How different is the look? And how much does it cost to have done?

rcorrigan5

From my personal perspective, I didn't see a whole lot of difference in appearance; the flash chrome finish is a little less shiny than the stainless finish, but the difference is not noteworthy. It didn't cost me anything to get the piece stripped or flash-chromed because I also had my bumpers re-done at the same chrome shop and the rep there just decided to do the flash for free. It's a matter of personal preference as whether or not to do the flash chroming. The only reason I discovered it was I rubbed right through the flash chrome on that quarter panel piece, and the only reason I had it flash-chromed again was because all the other pieces were that way already. Like I said before, even the polisher was surprised that those pieces were flash-chromed - he thought the practice of flash-chroming stainless steel had ended earlier than 1968. So, the decision is up to you! By the way, mine is a bench seat, too, but the tranny isn't nearly as exciting as yours!

68Tom

Thanks Randy. Well, I've spent about enough money on this project (and I'm still not done), so if the look is negligible, I'll just leave it as is. Although, I'm doing everything else pretty original on this car, including single-stage paint, so maybe I should check into it.

Ah, very cool. Another bench seat! I really like it as you never see them in cars anymore. My M-21 was just rebuilt. I also got the Hurst shifter rebuilt by Hurst. It looks incredible. When I'm back to work on the car this time, I'll take a photo of it and post it. People really should see how nice a job they do. It looks brand new circa '68 (or so I would think--I wasn't around then. haha)

68Tom

Wow, well I called a chromer in Phoenix that was recommended to me and the guy said they've never done flash chroming on stainless steel parts. That didn't leave me too confident.

I guess on one level, it seems a little silly to have spent all that money on polishing it only to have it dulled down.

rcorrigan5

It makes me wonder, with all the polishing they did on your stainless, if they even went through the flash chrome. I did a lot of rubbing on that one quarter piece before I "burnt" through, and that's how I eventually found out the pieces were flash chromed. And, the guy that polished the stainless wouldn't even touch it until the flash chrome was chemically removed. Also, I don't think I did a good job of explaining myself earlier. If all the flash chrome is removed, it should look pretty good. If all the flash chrome is still there, it should still look real good. You just don't want to mix the two because you can see a difference. You must be 20 years younger than me! I was 18 when the picture to the left was taken! No matter how you slice it, restoring one of these things costs money. In the end, it took nearly $35K, plus a lot of my time, to put my 4-4-2 back together again. Here's another shot of the bench seat interior.

68Tom

You know, that's a good question. My dad has seen it, and said it looks nice. One would think that the polisher would have noticed if it looked like it was burnt through or not. At least one would hope. At the end of the day, it's staying as it currently is. haha. I've well run out of cash already. This car is KILLING me. haha.

Well, I'm 37. But for some reason wish it was the 60's. That's pretty much all the music I like, cars, clothing, etc. I guess I'm an odd one. Although I do have a cell phone, computer, dvds, and an LCD tv. So I'm not completely living in the past. Do have vinyl records, tho....

Interior looks real nice. Is that all reproduction or is that the original covers and door panels?

rcorrigan5

Hi Tom, The door panels and front seat are reproduction. The dash, rear seat and panels are all original. At first, I could see a difference between the front panels and the rear panels when the top was down. It seems like that difference is becoming less and less noticeable as time progresses. Maybe that's true; maybe that's just my eyes!
I tried to keep everything as original as I could. For instance, I've foregone new disc brakes to keep the original drum brakes. I don't like the drum brakes (they just feel more clumbsy than disc brakes) but they came with the car. I even found a set of original drum brake GM wheels which I intend to have white line tires made for it so I can install the originally ordered wire wheel covers. I like the SSI wheels with the redlines so much more, but I know the car originally came with those wire wheel covers and white line tires.
It's neat seeing someone some 21 years younger than me having pretty much the same focus on cars and music of the 60s era that I do as well!

68Tom

Randy, from where did you get your covers and panels? I got mine from Legendary and I found them to be much closer to original than the PUI material. Also, not sure if you needed to get the plastic chrome backing plates for your armrests, but The Parts Place has the original ribbed '68 only kind.

Yep, mine's going to be all original too. Got the original drum brakes on there and am going with the Firestone Wide Oval redline tires as came on the car (although, as you said they could come with white-walls too.)

I was gonna ask you if you were ever going to put the wheel covers back on. It's funny, years ago I would have never picked dog dish hub caps or wheel covers, but I think because the majority of these cars always have the SSI or II wheels on them, I really like the covers because it's just so different. I decided to go with the dog dishes on mine.

While I'm working on my car, I like to listen to radio airchecks from the '60s. Really makes you feel like your back in time.

Bluevista

What car's trim parts were flash chromed? sort of curious to see what it looks like. There is clear lacquer on some of the trim that burns through and makes it look blotchy. It has to be stripped off before buffing and polishing too. When you wet sand you can see when it cuts through. I had a few NOS pieces that were cleared, had a very faint green tinge before I took it off.

68's still seem like new cars to me.
Did those tires have the twin white stripes or a single thin stripe like the redline tires? I have two of the original twin stripe ones from my car. The guy with that mint '72 Vista Cruiser that was for sale has a set with the twin stripes that he had cut in. Where do you have something like that done? There was a guy around here years ago that cut then colored in the redline stripes on tires with a device at cruise-ins and car shows, did them on the car.

68Tom

If I'm not mistaken, I believe the stainless trim that runs along the top of the fenders, doors and part of the rear quarter panel were all flash chromed. I haven't seen the work that's been done yet (I don't go back to AZ until early May), so I can't say for sure, how it looks. I can't see this guy not doing a good job, however.

Well, once I know my route plans, we can finialize and maybe meet up. And it'll confirm that a '68 is still new.

I believe both the redlines and whitewalls were single stripe. The whitewall, I believe, was thicker, however. I think both were Firestone Wide Ovals.

rcorrigan5

I got my door panels from Year One. I transferred the top metal piece from each old door panel to the new door panel rather than use the plastic replacements.

I don't know where the front seat cover came from. My sister had the new seat cover installed in the 1980s when she was going to restore the car. Instead, the whole project sat idle until 2003 when the car (rolling body with frame and all other parts in boxes, engine on a stand and transmission in the basement) came to my shop.

For some reason in the distant past (1980s when I was stationed in Southern California and had access to a multitude of Pick-n-Pull junkyards that had these cars then), I looked for and extracted two real nice plastic armrest backing plates (all 3 tabs intact on the back of each one) and now those are the backing plates behind the armrests on my car. The same thing happened with the SSI wheels - back then I could get them for $10/ea (with the center cap) and, if you paid an extra dollar, they would remove the old tire for you. I found all 5 SSIs for the '68 and I even found one disc brake SSI for my '69 so it would have a complete set of 5 as well.

The only parts I understand that are flash-chromed on the '68 are the trim pieces along the top ridge of the fenders, doors, and back into the quarters. The stainless polisher I used is highly regarded around here, and he claimed those parts were definitely flash-chromed. When I showed the quarter piece to the chromer when I had the flash-chrome removed, he also agreed that the piece was flash-chromed. They might both have been wrong, but they are both well respected in their fields and I have a tendancy to believe them; i.e., that the pieces are flash-chromed.

The white line tire and the white wall tire are two different things. First, it's just a single white line. The white line is 5/16" wide, as I recall, on a white line tire. The white wall is wider. I have an original Uniroyal Laredo 7.75-14 spare tire and wheel from a '68 Cutlass and its white wall is 5/8" wide.

As I recall, the width of the stripe on a red stripe tire is 3/8", and it is also just a single stripe.

When I got the redline tires made for the 442s and my '70 GTO, I went to Diamond Back Classics, www.dbtires.com. They advertise regularly in Hemmings and their ad usually appears on the back inside cover - usually a full page ad. They are out of South Carolina, I believe. They've always been good to me. And this is an area where I divert somewhat from original. I like yesterday's look (white line, red line) but I want it to be on today's technology. They will take a new, modern-day radial tire and put a red stripe or a white stripe on it for you. It's somewhat costly, but you do get what you pay for.

The picture to the left is somewhat misleading on what originally came on my car. Here's the story. The car originally came with white line tires and wire wheel covers on drum brake wheels. When my dad bought the car, he had just purchased a set of Dunlop red line tires for his '67 Cougar. He wanted them on the 442 when he bought it, so they removed the white line tires from the 442 and installed my dad's new red line tires from the Cougar. As well, dad was on his way to installing chrome-reverse wheels so he wasn't particularly interested in the wire wheel covers. The Olds dealership kept the wire wheel covers and installed the P01 hubcaps that you see in the picture.

Several years ago, I bought a set of original wire wheel covers on ebay - they are real nice. And, lately, I found and bought a set of 5 original 1968 GM drum brake steel wheels. I'll end up with two sets of tires and wheels for the '68 442, but I want to have a set of 5 white line tires made that I'll mount on the steel wheels and then put on the car with the wire wheel covers so the car will appear as ordered. I do like the SSIs and redlines much more than the original set-up, but it will be nice from time-to-time to have the original look.

The neat thing about this car is that we have the original window sticker (posted below) so we know exactly what it came with. As well, I grew up in a small coastal Oregon town (North Bend/Coos Bay) and when the wife of the owner of the Olds dealership in town (Murphy Motors) drove around in this car, everyone knew it. And when my dad bought this car, Mrs. Murphy started driving around town in a beautiful '69 442 convertible, red with a white top and interior. I even got to drive her new car once (kind of on the sly, but an indication of how small this area was back then). That's the first time I ever saw a car with an AM-FM radio (all I knew up to then was AM) and, the ultimate of car accessories, air conditioning! Only rich people had air conditioning! I always used to think in my younger years that I will know when I really make it in this world. In my mind, that would be when I would one day own a car with air conditioning! And now, I believe you would have to special-order a car to get it without A/C! My, how the world changes.

I've rambled on way too long. I'll post this and get out of everyone's way!

Best Regards, Randy C.

68Tom

Ah, how times have changed. I recently spent $60 at one of the tire chains to have my tires removed from my rims so I could get the rims powdercoated. And it would have been more if they had to dispose of the tires. Good stuff.

That's great you not only know the history of your car, firsthand, you also have the window sticker.

Yeah, I'm guessing Year One carries PUI interior stuff. The PUI dimples on the '68 interior aren't deep enough. I actually ordered the same panels (I think from Year One) and was so unimpressed with them that I sent them back. I then ordered from Legendary and am quite happy with the material and look. So, if you're still not pleased with the ones you have, at least you know where you can get them.

I decided to go with the original bias-ply. I really want the feel of the car as how it came from the factory in '68. Driving with them across country too! Should be an adventure.

Tom

ijasond

I learned to do my own polishing after I spent $1300 on the trim for a customer's Monte Carlo. My guy charges $8 per inch/foot(meaning that a 3 inch wide molding is $24 per foot). I made one trip to harbor freight, spent about $100, practiced a lot and ended up with some nice looking stuff. I'm working on learning aluminum now, it's much more difficult.