Bodywork Basics

Avoid rechroming by tarting up and preserving your brightwork

Rejuvenate you classic’s chrome bumpers at home.

Tatty chrome bumpers are par for the course on classics that have enjoyed long and happy lives or suffered periods of being laid-up in less than perfect conditions. If you have to ask how much a straightening and rechroming job costs, you probably can’t afford it. Fortunately, though, you can substantially improve what you’ve got with a little effort. The results may not satisfy judges at Pebble Beach, but the casual observer wouldn’t notice that anything was amiss.

We’ve delved into the Practical Classics Museum of Bumpers and found some tired examples to demonstrate on. It turns out that chrome looks a bit underwhelming when photographed on a bench, away from the car. In each case, though, we’ve successfully taken something semi-derelict and made it perfectly presentable.

You’ll have to remove the bumpers from your car to perform some tasks. Nuts and bolts are likely to be rusted solid. Try to avoid snapping the bolts built into overriders and rounding-off the square holes that engage with coach bolts. Use a nut splitter – or use an angle-grinder or grinding stone in a drill to grind rusty nuts down to the threads, then split them gently with a chisel and unscrew them as normal.

Chrome plating naturally has cracks, crazes and patterns in it – it’s done to increase corrosion resistance. These get more prominent as it ages. Don’t try to

scrub these away: you won’t shift them.