Restoration questions

[carmangary]

Now that I am fixing up the Cutlass Cruiser I have some questions about some things that maybe some of you will know. Keep in mind that I am not shooting for show quality but I would at least like it to look good.

1) The grill and headlight bezels are in good shape but the chrome stuff is flaking off or gone. Has anyone tried using Chrome paint on those? I know it won't look like chrome but it might look alright.

2) How does that interior vinyl dye stuff work? Will it change a dark brown piece to red? Is it like cloth dye or is it more like paint?

3) I haven't been able to find any upper door panel replacements. What are my options? Is it something that can be reupholstered from an interior shop? Ideas? The interior window sweeps seem to be attached to them but mine is shot. Can you buy replacements and attach them to the panel or do they come with the panels??

4) Carpet - I see a lot of places that offer molded carpet. Who has the best?

5) Seat covers - same as above.

I will have more questions but these are on the top of my list.

Before this Cutlass Cruiser I restored a VW 69 Karmann Ghia and it was a lot easier to find parts which seems kind of odd to me. I figured there would be all kinds of repro parts for these Cutlass cars.

 

[robwkamm]

forget the chrome paint. looks like crap.. black them out or go silver. vynal paint is awesome. in gone from black to red ! and it looks red! crazy stuff. you can armor all etc. never comes off. dont know about seat covers. i have a full bucket seat /back seat set up for sale if you need them. needs covers. from a 84 h/o. 100$? manual seats. no shipping. also ive used ACC carpet seems to fit the best on the 1960s cars. never got one for a 80s.

 

[azmalibuwagon]

I'm going through some of the same things with my Malibu wagon right now, so I can help with a couple of these:

Interior - use SEM brand, and it will work great. one light coat followed by two regular coats should do it.

carpet - despite all the places and different prices, all of the molded carpet for these cars is made by ACC. (Maybe you can find some that isn't but I couldn't). So the differences are going to be price and, if you have problems, how cooperative will the company be about fixing it. At this point I have no recommendatitons on which company, but get the carpet with mass backing or it will wear out fast.

 

[Blake442]

1. That chrome spray paint looks like sh*t and doesn't hold up. Just look for nicer bezels online or in the junkyard.
2. Use the vinyl dye just like spray paint.
3. Upper door panels can be interchanged from any g-body 4-dr or wagon. You can certainly have them recovered. You can get new window sweeps from several vendors, and then attach them to your existing door panels.

 

[carmangary]

Went junking today...

I found some front upper door panels from a Malibu 4 door today. Wrong color and the pull handle is lower than on my cutlass cruiser but the sweeps are in good shape so I might see if I can transplant them onto my original door panels maybe.

I also got the rear door panels from the Malibu since they are in better shape than mine. I'll just need to dye them red instead of green.

There was an 84 Cutlass Supreme there with a almost perfect dash. One 1" hairline crack on te top and a mysterious 1/2" hole to the right of the steering wheel. But as I tried to remove a speaker panel and pressed on the dash it cracked and was very brittle. So, I left it there. Would an 84 dash work in my 79 anyway? They look the same from the front but I don't know if the back side is the same or not.

 

[FE3X CLONE]

You can have your chrome piece's "rechromed" by a place that specializes in chrome plating plastic. But its generally pretty expensive. I had a quote of $500-$600 to do a set of Olds grilles once.

This is an example (never delt with the company though)

http://www.cvvacuumplaters.com/car_candy.htm

I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I did a few tests with just chrome spray paint and it just ends up looking silver. Still doesn't look bad but you'd be better off just have it professionally painted with silver base/clear so that it would hold up better.

As far as interior dye, I've used both SEM brand and Dupli-color. Both work extremely well and cover well. I dyed by dark blue dash black and it looks brand new!

 

[just plain john]

I too have used the SEM dye (paint?) and was very happy with the results, However, I haven't done the upper door panels. They are not rigid at all, and I don't see how any sprayed on material could stick to it. Has anyone else done it? I was just going to buy new ones.