I'am thinking of stripping the anodizing off my headlight bezels and polishing them, then clear coating them. It may be alot of work, you might say I could just buy "good" ones, but the fact is that all the anodizing on all the trim/bezels is ugly and I'am on a budget. What about repairing small dings/dents on these?Anyone had any luck? I also have a good grill and would like to repaint it silver. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Did a search but could'nt find much info on these subjects. Thank you much, Jamie
Highland...isn't that near Big Bear? I think I drove through that area at Christmas on a trip to the mountain. Sorry, off topic
If you are not happy with the look of the bezels, then do what you want, it is your car. Taking the dings out is a slow process in which I use small hammers, dowels, files and sandpaper. Use the diamond clear that Easwood sells. The real job is in the buffing of the metal when done, prior to clearcoating, makes all the difference in the world. On the grill, I would use a mid coat adhesion promotor to enable paint adhesion due to the fact that you just cant sand them good enough. Oh yeah, on the bezels, when done polishing, use Meguiers #7 on it prior to clear coating. That stuff is paint safe and will allow you to avoid having fisheyes and adhesion problems. Dan dna
Dan thanks for the advice, I was just wondering if anyone has had success. It sounds like you have, thank you sir. Scooper, Yes! I'am in San Bernardino now (just a town over) but Highland is about 45min's or so from big bear. Beautiful country up there. Jamie
I've also toyed with the idea of powdercoating the bezels. Has anyone else tried this? I had an aluminum intake powdercoated clear and it turned out nice. Haven't run it on the engine yet, so I'm not sure how it will hold up. Just a thought. Later
Jamie; I stripped and polished my headlight doors about 5yrs ago, and they still look ok. I didn't clear coat them, but I have to polish them up every now and then. Just be real carefull if you are painting them black, like a Grabber look. Use good tape, or the paint will get under it, and it will look terrible. Good luck!
yes i have also done this... i did it with steel wool and alum polish. been like that since 1990... they need some polishing every now and then like any other part of the car.
Was my asssumption correct about the anodizing? I ask this cuz I would like to use that nasty aircraft stripper to strip em down to start the polishing process. Hell, I might even get everything ceramic coated if I can get all the pieces straight enough. I've had a couple buddys that have powder coated componets clear like valve covers and such and the clear dosn't seem to be turning yellow yet, Its been about a year or so. I think the stuff is pretty bullet proof. Gonna experiment today, I'll let you all know. Btw thanks for all the good input, I can always count on you guys. Jamie
There's a place close to here that re-anodizes stuff.Here's how it works-you have to strip off any paint on the part.Then they strip it to bare aluminum.Then you polish it as much as possible.Then they anodize it,sealing the part so it doesn't get dulled by weathering.Ok for me,I can take the stuff there & pickup and drop off,but it'd be a shipping pain to send/get back/send/get back.I haven't tried them yet,guy said it was like $90-95 per "load".Obviously,whatever you can get into one of their crates is a load. I've got some mav headlight & tailight bezels and basically all the trim on my '67 Galaxie is anodized,If I can get time to pull the Galaxie stuff I may try them out & see how the stuff turns out.
well tried the paint stripper, and thats a big negative. surprizing because if anything earns the label bad a** s**t in a can this is it. Did'nt even phase it. So I got the anodizing off with 80 grit, 320, 220, 1000, never dull, and finally the mothers billet pollish (which works well btw), and finally got it to shine. And I did mange to get a couple of nice size dent out. Thanks for all the input guys.
Slow Down, Jamie! Go to the local supermarket and get yourself a can of Easy Off oven Cleaner. VERY IMPORTANT: get the yellow can of regular stuff, not the lemon scented or orange or whatever-basic yellow. Get some rubber gloves-oven cleaning type-and some steel wool. Wash any dirt off of the rings and spray the Easy off on. The anodized coating will start to turn white in a few minutes. Try 8-10 minutes, rub them with the steel wool and rinse. Warning-this will eat into concrete and leave a white mark so be careful-kills grass too. If it does not all come off, respray and try again. As for buffing, do a search for metal buffing to learn about aluminum buffing. Dents I am not good at. Buffing I have done quite a bit of. You need a electric buffer to do this. Eastwood Diamond Clear is a good product to prolong the buffed shine. It will dull it down a bit to a satin look, but it will stay shiny longer than leaving it bare. By the way, I have used the crystallized stripper designed and sold by buffing suppliers, Easy Off is easier and works just as well. Good luck.
littleredtoy speaks the truth easy off is the ticket for taking that annodizing off .Did the other bezel and hood trim and it turned out 100 times better than it looked before. Still took a little elbow grease...shot it with easy off ( took a few passes) hit it with green scotch brite, wet sanded with 1000 grit ( could of used another sanding with 2000 wet) polished with never dull, then with mothers billet polish. Worked bitchin. Thanks again, awesome tip littleredtoy!
