Adventures In Chrome - Repro Taillights And Other Parts

Has anyone taken the Kaiser Willy's reproductions of the Hall tail lights apart and had them chromed? I'm guessing I'll never track down the actual real lights so I'm wondering if this might be a close analog.

Tail & Stop Light Assembly for Passenger Side Fits 55-69 CJ-3B, 5


I'm preparing my pile of Tux parts to get them rechromed at either Sherm's in Sacramento or ABC in Sparks. Some are decent - some are bad. Will report back here in hopes the info is useful to the other two local Tux build projects - Brian in Reno and Tim in South Lake.

On the Tuxedo Park hood badges - how would these be properly restored? Would one re-chrome the whole thing and then go back in and paint over the chrome with black enamel paint?

TBH the chrome on mine isn't too bad so I might think about cleaning the paint out and re-painting the black parts and see how they look.

 

Morning Grant. I bought a set of those Walck’s tail lights. They are nice, but do not have the Hall 701 stamping on them. The other thing is the red lens is not the bull’s eye cross hatch. But, I would use them till a set of the Tux ones come up.

For the hood emblems, use a soapy SOS pad and gently clean them. I bet they will shine up really nicely! Then like you mentioned, use black enamel paint with a very fine tip paint brush. Exactly what I did, turned out great! There’s a thread here on what was the best way to do the black paint, and the paint brush method worked the best.

 

Thanks! I searched a bunch for that thread and came up empty - probably searching the wrong keywords. If anyone can find it I'd be grateful.

 

Here's a couple related threads:

• tuxedo park emblems -- refurbishment
  
• chrome tuxedo park emblems

For reference, I found them by typing the following into Google: "site:earlycj5.com paint chrome brush"

 

Cheers @Fireball - I was searching using the search function on the site, and typing in “badges” not “emblems”

 

Grant, Your emblems/badges are way better than most. I'd just polish them with chrome polish as it doesn't scratch the chrome. I've quickly (not carefully) brush painted gloss black over the recessed areas, then quickly wiped off the excess with a clean cotton rag. Final detail cleaning with the same rag with a touch of brake cleaner. Turned out near perfect.
To replate your badges, you may need to go to a specialist chromer that deals with zinc/white metal. They drill out the pits, solder them up, and refinish, then re-plate. Yours aren't that bad at all.
I'll be interested to see how the reproduction Hall lights turn out. I have a few painted Hall lights, and may need to have them plated.
I may try your platers if their prices are realistic. I've gotten some quotes that I can't afford, like $150 each to plate a lower windshield hinge, and $275 for the 4-piece hood hinges.
-Donny

 

I have a set of these, in black. One is not installedyet, if you want to see any pictures of them

 

ABC Plating in Sparks gave me some figures for re-chroming. They said the bumpers would be $600 each, including straightening and removing waviness and deformation. For the other parts, they charge by the hour ($120) and said it would be around 1-2 hours for each set of parts:

• Hood latches & footman loops
• Hood hinges
• Windshield hinges, hood catch
• Side mirror arm and attachment
• Pax grab bar
• Windshield top bumpers

To solder the crack in the pot metal license plate light and re-chrome it would be $140, but it's badly pitted so some of the pits would remain unless they are drilled out and soldered as Donny suggested. The shop said I could save some $ and time if I did this prep work myself. Given how rare this particular part is I'd be pretty terrified to do this wrong and ruin it.

So....I bought some 3M Chrome polish from Amazon for $11.99 and we'll see how that goes for a while.

 

You could buy another cj5 for all that coin! Unless you were wanting a concourse restoration, I would do the buffing too!

 

You're not kidding!

Off topic from chrome - but Roy do you know of a method to restore/refurbish the glass tube part of the license plate light?

 

I know a lot will cringe, but I used warm vinegar water and a soapy SOS pad to clean the glass tube. I have never had the soapy SOS brand pads scratch any of my delicate chrome parts, as long as you don’t let the pad wear out and get dry. Keep lots of soapy suds as a lubricant.