What is the best way to polish up a dull grill on a 66 Riviera? What products should I use, and what is the best way to get inbetween each of the fins?
Only the front edge of the fins should be chrome. The upper part of the fins is painted silver and I think the lower part is flat black (that's the way it is on 67 Rivs but mine was painted flat black on both sides). Under the painted areas, the chrome is dull from the factory.
That's a royal PITA job. I took mine off the car and removed all the attached parts. Then using a scrub brush and cleanser I cleaned it as good as I could. Then I painted the whole thing, (with black lacquer trim paint, don't use enamel or urethane) and immediately used a rag wet with lacquer thinner to wipe off the paint from the chrome where it's supposed to show. Worked great so far, the paint stuck well to the original paint and it looks great. It just takes a lot of patience. :bglasses:
Thanks for the ideas. I picked up some stuff called "Blue Magic". http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/bluemagic.php I used it on a small part of the grill to see how it would turn out. It cleaned up the dull metal really well, and where its supposed to have a chrome - like shine, it came out with a really nice mirror shine. I am going to take the grill off as Joe suggested and clean it with soap and water, then use the Blue Magic on the entire grill. The bottom bolt for the grill that sits by the battery is corroded pretty bad. The nut is missing alot of its metal, but the grill stud seems to be intact. I sprayed it with some Mystery Oil, and am letting it soak overnight before I attempt to remove the nut. I just do not want to break the stud off. All of the other nuts and studs are fine.
Don't know if you know of PB Blaster-it's for loosening rust on old bolts, etc. Any decent auto shop uses this stuff, because it's the best.
I used 3m thin masking tape to cover the front edge of the grill when I painted mine. It was just the right size. Found it a UAP/NAPA store. S.
