Hi all,

I got a call this weekend from a friend asking me to polish some stainless trim for him. He said it came off a 67 Barracuda set of bucket seats. My problem is, I don't think it's stainless trim. It appears to be chromed, and it has some rust on it. There are 15-20 pieces in the set and some of them are boogered up pretty bad. Are these available aftermarket anywhere?

Also, he gave me another piece, which looks like a convertible boot retainer that runs along the back seat somewhere. It is pretty toasted as well. It's about 3 feet long and is held in with several screws. It appears to be pot metal, and needs some serious TLC to make look good again. Is this available anywhere? If not, are there good used pieces out there?

Photos:









Thanks for any information you can provide.

The lost Buick guy,
Adam

Yes the big long piece with the screw holes is the boot retainer for a 'vert (dart/cuda 67-9) - it is extruded aluminum and can be pollished. Used ones are out there but they can be expensive (I would not let my spares go for less then $100) sometimes you can get deals but...

The seat trims are chrome plated steel (I think), they were very lightly coated. What I did although not great was to take them off the metal back and sides (which is difficult to do w/o distorting them; ground them down with 000 steel wole (sp?) and painted them with clear coat.

they do not look bad and hardly anyone would notice...

This is if they do not have too many rust spots, if they are bad look for something else.

They were used on '66 cudas as well along with 66-7 b bodies (but the top one is unique to the a-bodies.

The bottom trim (around the bottom plates) is slightly different 66 to 67.

Good luck..

Also don't strip the steel backs as there is nothing that (I know) reproduces the factory "paint".

Thanks for the response.

I spent some time last night "straightening" all the pieces and beating them back into submission

The aluminum piece is probably salvageable, and I will work on it to see if I can fill in the spots that have corroded. I was able to get it back into the shape it's supposed to be in.

Those seat trim pieces are rough. I really wish they were repopped. There are a couple spots that the rust has eaten the chrome away, but for the most part, I can make them look good.