1968 4 Speed Console Questions
March 5th, 2019, 03:21 PM
#1
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Location: Rosemount, MN
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1968 4 Speed Console Questions
Can you rechromed the 4 speed top plates?
Would mine be good enough shape do a rechromed if it can be done? It does have some pitting.
Another question I have - was the chrome around the outside edge painted silver for any of the years. Mine was when I first got it and I removed the sliver paint. I’m working on a 1968 Cutlass and I know the deck lid trim was chrome but the center of it was painted silver. Wondering if the console may have been done the same way. I thought that they were all chrome. Any ideas on where to get the chrome work done? Has anyone had theirs rechromed. Any help or knowledge would be appreciated.
Would mine be good enough shape do a rechromed if it can be done? It does have some pitting.
Another question I have - was the chrome around the outside edge painted silver for any of the years. Mine was when I first got it and I removed the sliver paint. I’m working on a 1968 Cutlass and I know the deck lid trim was chrome but the center of it was painted silver. Wondering if the console may have been done the same way. I thought that they were all chrome. Any ideas on where to get the chrome work done? Has anyone had theirs rechromed. Any help or knowledge would be appreciated.
March 5th, 2019, 04:06 PM
#2
Old(s) Fart
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Northern VA
Posts: 47,259
Pitted pot metal is VERY expensive to rechrome, so be sitting down when you get a quote. The plater has to strip the old chrome, hand grind out every pit, then plate the part with copper. Once that is done, every pit is hand filled with solder and ground and sanded down to fill the pit. At that point the part is again copper plated, followed by the normal nickel and chrome to finish. This is extremely labor intensive, and if the pits are in the grained area, it is nearly impossible to repair without losing the texture. It is also very time consuming to smooth the ribbed area. I had a similar problem with the grained trunklid trim for my 66 442. I eventually just had them grind the grained area flat. I will paint that section with black wrinkle paint.
March 6th, 2019, 10:39 AM
#5
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Compared to a lot of those 4 spd top plates, yours is in really nice condition. 4 spd consoles with chrome like that are very hard to find. Yes, it would probably be considered a pretty good rechrome candidate but it would still be expensive to do if you wanted a quality job.
As lemoldsnut suggests, you might be surprised how nice it looks with cleaning/polishing the exposed chrome areas and stripping and painting the ribbed parts. I'd do that first since it costs virtually nothing to do yourself. Of course you'd want to deal with the console plastic as well. Again, easy enough to do yourself. Why not give it a shot since the cost is cheap. If some imperfections in the exposed chrome really continue to bug you then you can always have it rechromed later.
As lemoldsnut suggests, you might be surprised how nice it looks with cleaning/polishing the exposed chrome areas and stripping and painting the ribbed parts. I'd do that first since it costs virtually nothing to do yourself. Of course you'd want to deal with the console plastic as well. Again, easy enough to do yourself. Why not give it a shot since the cost is cheap. If some imperfections in the exposed chrome really continue to bug you then you can always have it rechromed later.
March 6th, 2019, 05:43 PM
#6
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Join Date: Aug 2018
Location: Rosemount, MN
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Thanks for the replies everyone. It does sound expensive to get it rechromed. I will paint the black as suggested and it will look much nicer. Maybe someday one of the repop companies will maker a decent repop. It seems you can buy just about every other part for the console but the top plate.
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