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I have read conflicting answers on which lines on the eggcrate louvers should be un-painted. Which areas should be unpainted with the chrome showing...verticle or horizontal or both?
it's hard to tell from the picture which lines arer supposed to be unpainted. From what I understand, only the horizontal lines are un-painted/chrome. Is that correct?
Only the horizontal edging on the tan colored louver on the above post is chromed. A 1970 louver does not have a vertical raised edge, it only has horizontal raised edging. It truly does not make an enclosed square, like the black louver design, which has a raised edge on all four sides of each square. Giving a horizontal and vertical raised edge that is chrome.
I have read conflicting answers on which lines on the eggcrate louvers should be un-painted. Which areas should be unpainted with the chrome showing...verticle or horizontal or both?
I'll try to show a picture of mine if I can get photo bucket to work today.
Also if you have a NCRS judging guide for a 68-72 or know someone that has one it has a explanation of both types in the manual as well.
I have a early 70 in the 1600s and my inside fins if thats the right way to call them are smooth/flat and dont have the vertical lip on them.
Hope I havent confused you more?
[QUOTE=ctrain22;1565808146]I have read conflicting answers on which lines on the eggcrate louvers should be un-painted. Which areas should be unpainted with the chrome showing...verticle or horizontal or both?[/QUOTE
Here is my louver and its not the right pic I wanted. Although it's the first ime I was able to transfer a pic from photobucket.
I used paint stripper today along with a plastic putty knife.
It worked somewhat, but the paint is really on there. I'm wondering,
would a brass wire wheel be safe enough on chrome?
I'm sure it would remove the paint. If so, the only thing small
enough to work would be my dremmel and I wonder if the small brass
wire wheels are even available for the dremmel.
I did the following with all my trim interior pieces before I repainted them black, console plate, heater control bezel and fiber optic plate. I used masking tape and put it over the chrome areas, and using and xacto knife I trimmed them to comply to the chrome edges, very easy to do because all edges have a raised ridge. I then very lightly dusted it with a sandblaster, just enough to rough the chrome finish up where paint goes. The problem I was having was paint wasn't sticking to the chrome, and a GM Tech told me that originally the parts were baked for the paint to adhere.
After painting black or whatever color you want, remove the tape, and with the edge of the xacto knife, you can drag it to remove any areas on the chrome with overspray or a bad tape job.
If you don't want to do that, paint stripper should strip it, tape off the areas that remain chrome, get a self etching primer and then paint. Don't try to remove the chrome if you go the sandblasting route, just "dust" it to give it some bite so the paint will hold to it.
I used paint stripper today along with a plastic putty knife.
It worked somewhat, but the paint is really on there. I'm wondering,
would a brass wire wheel be safe enough on chrome?
I'm sure it would remove the paint. If so, the only thing small
enough to work would be my dremmel and I wonder if the small brass
wire wheels are even available for the dremmel.
Your thoughts.
I am tempted to try this on mine, but I don't know what condition the chrome might be under the paint. Kind of torn right now on whether to give it a try and hope for the best, or leave it like it is. I have nice paint on the car, so I'm not sure I want to have anything repainted if the chrome under the paint isn't perfect.
I wouldn't use a brass wire wheel on the chrome. A metal polish would be more gentle. I have been using a dremmel polishing bit with metal polish to clean up the chrome parts of my front grilles and it works very well. There was some overspray on the center section and the polishing removed it with little effort.
I decided to take off some of the paint that was covering the chrome and it was looking good. I just used a single-side razor blade and it was pretty easy to take the paint off of all the chrome. I used a Dremmel to polish it up after the paint was removed.
Frogday your louver really looks nice. Your louver really shows the work you put into making it perfect.
I have not removed the paint from my 70's louvers after I painted the car. I planned on using the same Dupont 101 white polishing compound I used on the other painted surfaces but will continue more so with the compound to remove paint to see the chrome.
Last edited by 70ZZ3 96LT4; Oct 17, 2008 at 11:56 PM.
As mentioned, the '70 louvers have just a flat (or somewhat rounded) outer surface that is left with chrome finsh. The '71/72 louvers have a 'stepped' outer edge which is still all painted body color except for the [most] outer surface. I have seen some '71/72 'eggcrates' with the stepped edge and outer surface left chrome, but I don't believe that they left the factory that way.