Sunday, November 15, 2015

Trim Reboot

A well-meaning PO had removed the lower boot trim on the car at some juncture in order to repaint.  Unfortunately he or she didn't understand how soft the metal is, which resulted in some damage.


Nothing earth-shattering, mind you, but still of concern.  Both sides had been bashed in the same way, which lent a certain symmetry to the car but little in the way of correctness.

My lucky day arrived when a package from Germany was deposited at my front door by DHL, who actually delivered it on time and without fuss.


New trim pieces.  Lovely.

Getting the old trim off is quite easy as long as you do it carefully. My yellow plastic all-purpose trim tool works very well.


No hammer required, just palm-power.

Once the trim was removed I took the time to notice a couple of paint layers underneath. First was a flat black, which I  have found everywhere on the car. Whether this was a rat-rod paint job or primer to go under the current gold color, I can't say. 


There's even a bit of original Tampico under there!

I replaced, on the flange that holds the trim, the clips that had remained in the old piece, fixing them in the same relative positions. 

It was an easy matter to attach the new trim without any special tool by pushing it into place.


Much better.

As always, a new item tends to show more sharply the defects in the original pieces next to it.



For the other side, the process was repeated except that the photo below was shot within the enclosed garage as Seattle s experiencing a November monsoon.