1966 442 - Assembly Resto
Like any 40 plus year old car the trim has usually been banged around by other car doors swinging into it. These moldings are the best we could fine. Some are the original ones that came on the car and others we replaced. First we cleaned them front and back, stripped the paint to the bare stainless then fitted to the car. We then polished the outer edges to a hi-lustre per the factory. The center section was originally painted from the factory so removing any large dents by straightening is needed.
As seen we marked the slight waves in the metal and we are ready to fill them with glaze.
After applying glaze we sanded them to a 320 grit finish and they were ready for primer and then we sanded with 400 grit before painting.
The same situation for the wheel trim molding, center sections.
The first coating is applied with zinc chromate for adhesion to the stainless which works equally well on aluminum trim.
After hi-build and dp-epoxy prime sealer we start masking them off one last time on the paint line.
We also polished the tail light lenses to a brilliant scratch free surface.
Outer edges of tail lights and chrome bezels are masked off for factory silver.
Just a bit on the outside like the G.M. Oldsmobile division did it.
De masked you can see what we did.
The bottom of the chrome bezels are painted silver too.
Moldings were prepped and mask off
Silver sprayed on the trim almost done.
"Voila" looking good.
We are fitting glass trim clips to bring the moldings level with the painted surface.
Nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Once all is done we peel the tape off.
The moldings are installed and she is coming around.
442 Emblems need to be painted after show plating.
Flow pencil makes the difference.
Looking good Bob!
The Original door handles were stripped to bare metal, then fitted, copper plated, sanded and fitted to the car once more, polished, then nickel and chrome plated for show. No Repro Junk on this car!
Rear panel molding looking good.
Spare tire jack assembly detail per original specs. Customer wants NO spatter paint !
New rubber on trunk edge.
Trunk mat lays down nice.
Red line looks good as the spare.
Head light rings need to be polished so we use the ford ham tool for control.
Front grille needs tweaking to straighten the edges.
Once mounted the grille looks great.
Kick panels were restored with new carpet and vinyl prepped and repainted.
The steering wheel was riddled with cracks specifically on the finger grab area on top of the little grooves making for a time consuming project.
Toward the very end we do a full alignment on our projects to make them run straight.
Emblems painted candy red then cleared as per original.
Bumper bolts are stainless capped and need polished.
Talk about blingggg! Bumpers are ready for install so lets do it.