Paster

I'm making good progress on the side exhaust removal project on my 66 AO smith 390HP car. I've already installed the undercar exhaust, glassed on the front fender tabs that were cut off, and straightened out the rocker mount brackets. fortunately whoever installed the pipes bent them back rather than cutting them off. The last piece is the rocker moldings. Another forum member (Thanks Shark Racer!) pointed me at Sanford Metal Processing in Menlo Park.

I started with a set of rockers that were in fairly good shape, no dings or dents but they did have moderate pitting. Sanford stripped the Anodize and paint off the rocker panels and referred me to David Cantwell at Cantwell and Associates in San Bruno for polishing. Dave polished the rockers and removed the pits, and he even removed some of the marks left behind by the manufacturing extrusion process. Then, they went back to Sanford for chromic anodization.

The final step was painting. I masked the top, bottom and sides of the panel and sprayed with SEM trim paint. After each coat I used a block of wood wrapped with a t-shirt rag soaked in lacquer thinner to remove the black from the peaks while leaving the paint in the ridges. Here are the results.

Hopefully I will get to mount them this weekend. I still need to paint the lower fender tabs and I'm hoping I can get a good blend with the existing finish. San Leandro Color mixed up a spray can of Nassau Blue that matches pretty darn well. Only the very front edge of the fender tab is visible with the trim installed but I'm trying to be as detailed as possible.

-Michael

jrm5657

These look great. I will send you my set if you want to practice on another set!!! Seriously, 66 rockers are unavailable, and good or restored originals should command some good money. Business opportunity for you.

Shark Racer

Awesome news! Let me know if I can borrow the 66 for a while. A nassau blue midyear sounds like my dream car.

mattnSD

Wow, really looks great. The question is....was this affordable when you include the cost of the rockers? Cheaper to just wait for a set of NOS ones to pop up?

Shark Racer

Back when I did this, it was about 50% the cost of repro rockers for my 78 - and repro rockers were NOT an option due to terrible fitment.

Nowhere Man

NOS trim parts are a crap shoot. Later on the dies used to stamp the parts where wore out and the parts were not the best of quality. Then the people who have them generally had them for years moving them around and dragging them to swap meets and such and they get all dinged up from that.

Paster

Total cost was less than $350, and that figure even includes the can of SEM paint.