70 Rocker Panel Mouldings

jatkinson · 12-06-2012, 06:38 PM

Looking for rocker mouldings. Mine are great but owner before me painted them mat black...

razrbak · 12-06-2012, 09:34 PM

These parts aren't reproduced and are crazy expensive for good originals. Why wouldn't you just have yours stripped and painted the correct color vs. trying to find another set of originals.

jatkinson · 12-07-2012, 11:06 AM

Thanks for the reply. I thought of having them stripped and repainted but I haven't had any luck finding the paint. If you have a paint code or know where I could get the paint that would be great! Thanks again

Quote:

Originally Posted by razrbak

These parts aren't reproduced and are crazy expensive for good originals. Why wouldn't you just have yours stripped and painted the correct color vs. trying to find another set of originals.

chpierce · 12-07-2012, 09:31 PM

I guess my first question has to be whether you're working on a Mach or a non-Mach. When you said painted, it made me think Mach, since the non-Mach ones are chromed, not painted.
The Mach rockers can be stripped and repainted fairly easily, if all that is wrong with yours is that they are painted, this would be the way to go.
If you're dealing with non-Mach chrome trim, they are beyond difficult to find. Best bet is again to restore what you have, if the only problem is paint. If they have dings, the dings can be taken out and the panels rechromed. If you don't want to go that far, the '68 moldings will fit up, but have different curves on the ends.
Funny story, my 'vert needed a set of '70 rockers (it had '68s on it when I bought it). I searched long and hard, even bought a couple of beat up examples. After a year and a half of searching, I found someone who had one NOS panel, and it wasn't cheap. We discussed careful shipping, and yes, I paid for insurance for the package.
The seller put it in a carboard tube, taped to a 1x6 board. When it arrived, the carboard tube and rocker panel was bent in half, and the 1x6 was broken in the middle. Yes, the shipper paid the insurance. Took me another year and a half of searching before I found another NOS piece, luckily a pair, and yes, I drove to pick them up.

Carl

slim · 12-07-2012, 11:00 PM

Ya try and find nice OE 68 Moldings!

By the way pretty sure the moldings are aluminum (the 64 1/2, 65, 66 and 67/68 are). The bright finish ones would be bright anodized. Black/painted ones would be anodized before paint for corrosion resistance. Don't do something like blasting to get the paint off, could be very hard on the aluminum IMO.

Slim

chpierce · 12-08-2012, 09:53 PM

I hear ya, Slim. The nice thing aboiut the '68 moldings, however, is that they're available in repro.
I'm not sure of the material on the '70s, seems heavier than aluminum. Most of the trim caps and such are flash chromed steel, I'll see if I can pull out the bent molding I received, and see if a magnet sticks.

Carl

slim · 12-09-2012, 10:11 AM

I also have a 70 Torino GT vert. The rocker moldings on it are also anodized aluminum. Seems odd that the 70 Mustang would be different material.

Could you explain the flash chromed steel trim caps? I'm a materials nut, never seen something like that on exterior trim!

Slim

By the way, love your 70 vert...especially the white interior! My 70 Torino vert is also an M code with shaker.

70qcode · 12-09-2012, 11:23 AM

Hi:

The paint for the 70 rocker panel mouldings is medium gray poly. The same lor is used on several other parts as well, such as grille, lower grille moulding, headlights surrounds, sport lamp surrounds etc. Mine too had been painted black, so I went at them with scotch brite to get them prepped for paint. Here's a link to a discussion of this topic from the 428CJ forum.

1970 Mach 1 rocker panels

jatkinson · 12-10-2012, 10:20 AM

Thanks for the replies. The car is a Mach 1. I'll get them pulled off and paint them . Thanks again

Blues Power · 12-10-2012, 12:49 PM

i just did mine last month.

i didnt have to take them off.

brushed on some chemical stripper from Lowes. used some very light steel wool and small wire brush.
hit it it again it came all clean. gave a good rinse then primed it and painted dark argent and just sand blocked the MACH 1 lettering with some 400 grit back the natural metal

miketyler · 12-10-2012, 05:20 PM

I did mine as well. I bought several cans of the NPD charcoal metallic. I gto to thinking about it and didn't think it would be tough enough for rocker application so I took a sample of that to paint store and had a two part product custom mixed. I have several cans of that left if anyone is interested. Was told the NPD color was custom matched to the inside of some parts off of a very low miles car.

chpierce · 12-10-2012, 08:17 PM

Both the trim rings for the dog dish hub caps and the backing plates for the sports appearance wheels are flash chromed. They formed and maybe polished them (I don't think they were that smooth from the factory, but could be), then flash chromed them to keep them pretty. Take a trim ring, hit it with some 600 grit, after a while you'll get through the chrome. To restore them, you have to take the chrome off to be able to work the dents and dings. Lotta work. A couple of other pieces seem to be flash chromed as well.
I checked the bent piece, magnet doesn't attract, so I'll go with aluminum.

Carl