Group, A friend asked me about preparing a '69 Imperial for
paint and thought I would forward my suggestions on the club.
I am about to paint my LeBaron and I suggest that the following trim be
removed from any '60 Imprial before painting.
Remove headlight surrounds, 3 screws.
Remove side trim on doors, pry up from the bottom and they pop right off,
use a large flat putty knife.
trim at base of side glass, also pops right off, has wire clips.
right hand side mirror, two screws.
outter flight sweep ring, inner is pot metal and you will lose those pins
in a heartbeat.
!
Wheelwell trim, just screwed on, I found stainless screws at Ace that
were a perfect match so thats what I use to reinstall.
tail lights, its a real pain to have to paint around them, 3 nuts per
side.
Tap off the door edge guards with a block of wood, you may want to leave
them off in the end.
The most difficult thing I would insist on doing is removing the Imperial
script on the fenders. It can be tapped from the back and slowly pried
off. Your fender paint will be so much better if you can remove
these.
I would hope that these items would be removed at the very least, even
for a driver.
front and rear side trim is pretty easy to remove if you want to, screws
where accesible and pop clips (like on the doors) at the ends where they are
not accesible from the back. I HIGHLY reccomend that you remove the side
trim, it is not difficult and I guarentee it is all holding a whole lot of
dirt. This also gives you a chance to wirebrush and paint the
clips. It is better if the clips stay on the car. However, if your
painter is afraid they will cause drips in the paint then they are easily
removed by squeezing them from the back side.
The chrome on top of the fins is always clean underneath and takes a real
contortionist to get them off. If your arm is 3'6" long its no problem
getting to that front nut. I would leave on.
The trim on the side of the windshield just uncrews and the lower
windshield trim just pops off. I would remove these just to get the dirt
out and rust proof the clips at the base of the windshield
All trim on the hood is just held on by nuts. None of this i! s
difficult, even for a novice. I will help you along the way.
Nothing should go back on with anything other than clips, no adhesives!
Just not having to spray around all this stuff will produce a superior paint
job. Also this allows for much easier paint finishing, not to have to
color sand and buff around all this stuff. Also, no clear coat! I
guess you've seen the emails lately. I used Glasurit 22 Urethane Acrylic
22-1250 Jet Black. Its fantastic! Its a German paint I believe,
goes on like glass (less finishing labor). The paint alone was about
$600 to do my Crown. It's worth every penny.
Richard Burgess
'60 LeBaron
'60 Crown
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