Greetings!

To begin,
My project driver has had a lot of little things to do.
All weekend projects. Take for instance, the inside polished
metal trim - door panel screws, and the metal seam cover on
the inner portion of front bucket seats. The previous owner,
for whatever reason, painted them black.

With some good original parts becoming harder to find -
although good replacement parts are available, why spend
the money and add to the landfill, why not re-furbish instead.

For the screws, I simply used my bench top brass wire wheel and
lightly stripped off the paint. This was simple and looks so much better.
I use brass because its a softer abrasive and puts a shine to the metal.

The seat trim.
This took a lot more effort and time (14 steps)
but in the end, it was well worth it.

Time: 3 hours.
Materials - Refer to the following:

A hose.
Never Dull.
Newspaper.
Paint thinner.
Rubber gloves.
SOS steel wool.
Grease Lightning.
(2) soft terry cloth towels.
(2) 320 fine steel wool pads.
320 3M washable sanding block.
A LOT OF ELBOW GREASE

See the attached pictures for the step by step procedure.

Step 1: Remove trim.
Step 2: Place on newspaper on ground.
Step 3: Using paint thinner, drag across painted surface
with 320 steel wool with ten firm back and forth strokes.
Let the paint thinner activate - for about 3 minutes.

Step 4: Start rubbing, using a lot of elbow grease.
Step 5: Hose off with cold water.
Step 6: Dry off. Not you, the part.

Step 7: Using an SOS pad with more paint thinner,
firmly rub back and forth using elbow grease until the
paint starts to thin.

Step 8: Hose off with cold water.
Step 9: Dry off.

Step 10: Using the 3M 320 wet sand block, apply step 4.

There was two coats of paint. The top black coat and another.
It appeared to be an ionized finish or a finish primer. Regardless,
I wanted a polish steel finish and by gosh, that's what I got.

After four rounds of steps 3 through 7, my hard work had paid off.
Once all the paint was off, rinse with cold water and dry off.

Step 11: Apply Never Dull to trim, rubbing back and forth with a lot
of elbow grease until the metal begins to darken. Let it stand for about
1 minute.

Step 12: Using a new 320 steel wool pad and a lot of elbow grease,
begin to apply step 4.

Step 13: Apply Never Dull once more, let it stand for 1 minute.
Step 14: Take a new soft cloth and polish the trim to a semi-brilliant shine.

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r191/Vdubs_01/1Removingpaintfromtrimusingpaintthi.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r191/Vdubs_01/2Rubbingpaintthinnerwithfinesteelwo.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r191/Vdubs_01/3SOSAfterpaintthinneruseSOSwithpain.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r191/Vdubs_01/4Wetsandusinggreaselighting.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r191/Vdubs_01/5Rinsewithwaterdryandapplyneverdull.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r191/Vdubs_01/6Finished.jpg

Nice job, Much better.

LK

Looks good! :thumbsup: I have cleaned up a lot of parts like that over the years, mostly because I'm too cheap to buy new ones. One of the more surprising results I have had was a radiator shroud for a Camaro. It was brush painted red, white and blue, with years of grime covering the whole thing. I was actually ready to throw it away, but decided to try some paint stripper on it. The paint came off without damaging the plastic, and after some scrubbing with a stiff brush and a coat of Armor All, it looked like new. Have done several gauge lenses too, making cheap (or even free) gauge clusters look like new. IMO, it's always worth a try before you resort to new parts.

Yeah, and there's no substitute for the fit of the original parts!

Nice job :beers: