1973 RS/LT/Z28 4spd - Gold/Parchment Restoration

[firstgenaddict]

Been working on the dash and restoring the gauge cluster..

[firstgenaddict]

Polishing the Aluminum Trim and stainless tail light rings
AFTER REMOVING THE ANODIZING

[BCreekDave]

Nice work for sure. If you can fix the stock lens its the way to go. I've heard, no experience, that the OER lens are bad. I used a headlight restore polish and it worked well as a followup to the sanding.
What are you going to do to protect the polished aluminum? Shoot with clear coat and polish?
Did you rechrome the gauge bezel or silver it?

[BCreekDave]

How's your clock? I had to rebuild mine a replace the electrical contacts with some silver ones I got on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tattoo-mach...item4d74032e5b

Glued them on with this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/MG-Chemical...item1a4f4d6e8f

[firstgenaddict]

The AL TRIM:
Thinking about having the Aluminum clear anodized.
Was thinking about anodizing them myself, however the sticks for the doors and over the front and rear glass are 3-1/2 - 4 feet so it would take a fairly large tank to anodize. CLEAR is pretty simple, the question is the amount of current and whether a rectifier would be required or would a battery charger supply enough current?


The Lenses,
I used dripping water along with palmolive and
1. Wet sand 1500 on the worst scratched lenses
2. Wet sand all with 2000 until the scratches were all the same...
3. Wet sand with soap 3000 trizak until consistent
4. hand polish with soft cotton cloth balled up using fine cut Meguires
5. hand polish with NEW cotton cloth using with swirl remover

My printed circuit board was DELAMINATING so after removing it.
1. I got out a sheet of parchment paper (NOT WAXED PAPER) and
2. an old clothes iron, set it to the lowest and worked up until somewhere around 180 deg.
3. Put a hand towel on the granite counter and
4. laid the circuit board down over the towel
5. laid the parchment over the plastic circuit board

and then IRONED it back together...

It took a while as I worked slowly with as low a setting on heat as would make it stick back together rather than risk melting it. (the first time it was only 125-130 deg and it was not hot enough.)

[mockingbird812]

Nice innovation!!

[big gear head]

That's awesome. Pretty smart!!!

[firstgenaddict]

I flattened the original dash pad using a 3 foot stick of 1" square tubing.
Clamping the dash pad sandwiched between the edge of the granite counter top and the stick of tubing.
Heating the dash pad structure using (3) 300 watt halogen lamps. I used heavy aluminum foil over the dash pad edge which rolls over the front to keep it from heating up too much and used the lamps pointed inside the dash pad upside down on the counter. It doesn't take too long to heat it up if they are 5" from lens face to surface which is about 7-8" from the actual bulb. -- if you have it clamped taught and are heating it you will feel the clamps noticeably looser.
Which you can then tighten a little at a time until it is flat across the front.

FWIW this works with a 69 dash pad as well... HOWEVER the 69 front lip is not anywhere close to as sturdy or thick as the second gen front lip and many times is already chipped cracked or missing pieces.



ANODIZING
HEAVY DUTY oven cleaner removes anodizing so you can polish aluminum trim if anyone did not know... otherwise it streaks when polishing and appears to have a residue on parts. if needs to looks really dull like the part shown on the left above when you start polishing or sanding scratches out or it will not be easy to polish evenly.

[BCreekDave]

For me the straightening was the easy part. I used a hot air gun, a 4 foot level on the undersides and a series woodworking bar clamps to slowly flatten it. My problem was the shrinkage of the original cover. This can be seen in your second photo down in post 71. The leading edge where it curls around is uneven. I heated and stretched and heated and stretched and finally got mine to wrap around somewhat to satisfaction. Not perfect, but close. Did you get yours better than the photo in 71?

[firstgenaddict]

Originally Posted by BCreekDave

Did you rechrome the gauge bezel or silver it?

The originals are vacuum metalized... like a plastic potato chip bag then it is blacked out.
I use silver leaf put the glue down then burnish silver leaf onto the surface.

I couldn't get the wood grain off without fear of damaging it or I may have sent it out to have it metalized.



As an aside the original 69 tire pressure decals are not on foil or on paper they are on vacuum metalized paper - which appears to be wet strength metalized paper. It was originally developed for beer bottle labels thus it has wet strength in the paper.