I have a complete set of wide trim for my ’66 commander. Not year correct, but I think it will give the 4 door car a longer lower look.
I’ll use the same procedure on the aluminum rocker panel covers and the trim around the back window on the ’79 Chevy.
My plan is to sand the aluminum trim and paint with a black pinstripe. Hard to see but the bottom piece buffed up nicely, the middle one buffed up not so nice as the original aluminum anodizing was corroded. So this meant that I couldn’t easily buff to a nice finish. The top piece has been sanded.
I did the same with the trim on my formerly owned ’74 Dodge. In that case I painted the centre of the aluminum and cast trim sections first in a metal flake wheel silver and then the centre section in black and finished with clear coat.
I started with 600 grit, but it wasn’t enough to easily remove rust stains and left over masking tape glue. The 400 grit worked much better. Both papers are wet sanding type which I find better than regular paper for this type of work.
I also needed to use my body hammer and wooded blocks to take out any dings as I went along.
With all the trim sanded it was time to get the clips organized – the first photo in this post actually shows the trim after it has been sanded.
In my collection of parts for the ’66 I did have some new clips. Each clip has a rubber-like seal to fill the mounting hole so that water, mud, etc doesn’t flow out and down the outside of the fender – the front an back sections of the trim’s clips pass into the wheel wells.
I had lots of other used clips where the rubber seals were deteriorated. So I cut out some softer rubber about the same thickness and width of the originals, punched holes in them using a leather punch and slipped them in place. Should work OK I hope. I think I will add a bit of silicone to each also to help get a good seal.
I’m using nails to hold the trim strips up from the inside. This way I should be able to paint around the edges of each strip.
Next: Since I don’t have a warm painting area I’ll have to way for a warmish day to get the trim painted. I’ve ordered the 1/8″ black trim tape and hope to see it within a week.