Hello everyone. I am trying to finally turn my 72 Skylark into something a bit nicer than just "driver quality" and I have always wondered what to do with the headlight bezels on my 72. There is some minor pitting in the polished part of the pot metal but is that all it is --polished or is it chromed in some way? Because it has a painted portion also , I am wondering what to do with these things short of pay crazy dollars for an NOS set. If it is polished ,then I should be able to fix it but if it is chrome--I have no idea. Any thoughts? Thanks George in DC
The bezels are chromed. If you wanted to restore them as original, they would have to be rechromed. This would involve filling the pitted areas and rechrome which is fairly pricey - about $250 ea.
But then what about the painted portion? Do you just get the whole thing done and then paint over the chrome? 250 a piece is less than I have seen the NOS bezels going for though. George in DC
George, I have never done a set for a 72, but the whole bezel gets rechromed and certain areas get painted.
Yes---that's what the factory did. Crazy!!---all the nice chrome only to leave a small exposed lip/leading edge around each headlight area:spank: Oh yeah, there's also the vertical portion next to the grille that's left exposed chrome. Your other option is to try and find the nicest used pieces possible and do the repainting yourself. Again....the condition of that lip is all that matters...any pitting bubbling under the painted portions can be drilled out and filled with body filler or epoxy and smoothed out. Unfortunately, most good used pieces will have some scuffing and/or "sandblasting" on that leading edge from years of driving. Still, it's probably worth a shot to see if anyone has real nice used ones. Get them to give you a GOOD DESCRIPTION...don't rely on pictures as it's real hard to tell the condition of chrome via pictures. Finally, you have to wonder if there's a chrome pinstripe tape made in the same width as that lip/leading edge and how that might look on a set of nicely repainted bezels. Easy enough to try as you wouldn't do any damage to the bezel putting on and taking off some pinstripe tape. Too bad someone doesn't stamp out some stainless steel "caps" or rings that you could glue onto the leading edge of the bezel. Stainless can be polished to look just about like chrome. Sort of like a dashboard cap. It would make a whole slew of otherwise knarly looking bezels useable again.
It seems like they are just pot metal but I guess I will send mine off to a chrome shop to see what they say. It seems like it might be tougher to get the paint to stick to the chrome after its done also. I am interested to see what the chrome looks like under the paint that's on mine. Maybe I will post some pics of the project. George in DC
