Technical Stainless repair-are these salvageable?

I spent about 2 hours last night reading old threads on straightening out stainless pieces, and actually ordered a recommended book from one of those threads. All the threads dealt with straightening out hubcaps and trim- small pieces with dents and dings mostly.
My headlight bezels are smashed! They’re a lot bigger than the stainless pieces I saw saved though. I figured I have nothing to lose by trying. I imagine it would make it a lot easier drilling those rivets out and working on the pieces individually that make up the bezels.
I do have little body work experience in my past, but never tried my hand at stainless.
Anyone got an idea how to at least start to rough in those oval shaped openings?
Finding these in any better shape has been a waste of time so far, so I gotta try.
Thanks

 

Well, good question! Shows what I know. They are very light

 

seems the old headlight doors I have to play with are usually aluminum, which is softer, but likewise gets stretched even further out of shape!

I guess you need to see how badly stretched they are....making some wood pieces to help you form them back to shape might help?

 

I think you’re correct. No corrosion on them anywhere. Ugh

 

Just a driver. In my avatar. Not a clean car either, but it’s straight and solid, so these really bring it down a level visually.

 

I remember in body shop we could heat body panels then quench to shrink them. IF I’m remembering correctly. I suppose that doesn’t work on aluminum?

 

I don't think heat shrinking works on aluminum. But I think there's a pretty good chance to get those back to usable shape with some careful, slow work.

 

Those are aluminum (no shrinking) and you can get them back. Go slow, make some wood bucks and you might have to make some tools also. It all depends whats your time worth to you, if you choose to find replacements I still would try to work on those to add to your skill set.

 

Aluminum work hardens very quickly and will crack. read up on annealing and working aluminum before you start banging on them. I doubt you will get them perfect, but you should be able to make them presentable. annealing with a torch will softens the material and make it more workable. you may have to reanneal it as you go.

 

A real s**** (like you eat your Wheaties with) is a usefull tool to use on stuff like this. I used one working against a piece of conveyor belt rubber to push out a ding in a stainless headlight ring. Pushing and sliding the bottom of the bowl of the s**** over the high spot, not pounding on it.

Gary

 

I like to use a block of soft wood and this plastic thing, it's a door shim from one of those auto lock-out kits, makes a great tool to pound on with the hammer, much more forgiving than metal tools. Definitely drill the rivets out, and work at it slowly. The last area to get bent in, should be the first area you try to push out. Cutting up pieces of wood, like dowels or thick paint sticks, also are good for hammering.

Take your time, I bet you can improve on those greatly, without heat and without having to strip the anodizing off of them. They won't be perfect, but you can improve them for sure, I've worked out stuff looking like that and gotten pretty good results. Stainless works much differently, so the advice you got for stainless stuff may not apply.

 

Yes, salvageable. GO SLOW.

 

1oldtimer has the right idea. Ford used pretty soft aluminum for this stuff, avoid metal-to-metal contact (pad the metal parts of your tools) so you don't mar the part and work it back into shape slowly. Do dis***emble into their component parts. Don't worry too much about cracking, generally that will only occur at sharp bends. I would try very hard to not damage the anodizing as re-doing that is as expensive as chrome. You can bring back some of the shine and remove smaller flaws with hand-applied rubbing compound.

And here's a better set.... 1962 Mercury Meteor Headlight Bezels | eBay
Not all that cheap, but given the rarity not horribly expensive either. Mercury stuff can be very hard to find. One side still needs work, but you'd have a spare in reserve. You might try contacting the seller and making an offer, be prepared for a counteroffer.

 

I would look for better ones on eBay. Like it was mentioned, aluminum work-hardens and already has a lot of stress in those kinks.

I just saw the ones Steve found, looks like a slam-dunk.

 

I saw those ones. Actually he lowered the price, was $270 shipped a week ago. One looks good, the other puts me in the same boat, needs straitening. That’s what motivated me to try to fix what I have if possible.

 

Work a day or two on the ones you have, then you'll find the value of spending so much money on something even a little bit better!

 

I’ll have to see.
That’s just a lot of money for me right now. If both were straight I’d probably get them.
Thanks for the input everyone.

 

Well, if the seller has lowered the price once, he may be willing to lower it some more for an actual buyer. Yeah, those are rare parts but then again, there's not a ton of Meteor owners out there either. I spent two years searching for three pieces of aluminum trim for the leading edge of my '60 Ford Sunliner hood (competing with the Starliner crowd). I saw just two (the same piece) in all that time, one was only slightly better than what I had, the other was much worse. I ended up buying a 'restored' set (not perfect, but acceptable) for $400 and was happy to get 'em... and I've kept the 'bad' parts as spares for 'just in case'. I was able to find NOS for the three remaining pieces for the grill opening (for some reason being more common) but that was another $400. This old car stuff isn't cheap...

The better the parts you start with, the better the results. Keep in mind that even if you get the parts arrow-straight, they'll still look 'repaired' because the anodizing will crack every place you work. Re-anodizing is as expensive as chrome, and stripping then polishing will also be obvious, plus the considerable additional labor needed. I did that once, that would be my last choice. I'd make a real effort to get the eBay doors, biting the bullet on price if need be. You may never see another set as good.... or at all.

 

On the eBay set, you're really only getting one good replacement unit, the other one is pretty mangled up. For the right price it'd be worth it, but that seems pretty steep to me.

That eBay seller does have a pretty entertaining Youtube show though, worth a watch, lots of auction action on there.

I'd see how good you can get your current ones before I'd plunk that kind of money down on replacements which also are going to need work.

 

I looked at the eBay link, to my eyes it looks like two different styles, or is it just the pic?

ie one looks like closed slots, the other like the OP showed.

 

They’re identical. Most of the black paint is worn off of mine, especially my driver side, so they look different. It’s supposed to mimic the grill openings.

 

Looking closer at those, it looks like you may be able to swap the 'inside' ring on one side to the 'outside' on the other side. If that's the case, the Ebay doors are your answer. Dis***embling the ones you have will tell the tale...

 

Pick up a traffic cone on the way home, should be about the right size to slip that damaged ring over and start moving the metal with your hands. Remember to take the cone back to the construction site when you are finished.

 

Got me excited for a minute! I have the rivets drilled out of one bezel and the pieces separated so I can match them up. The inner and outer rings are different unfortunately. The inner is almost a full inch deeper than the outer in some spots. Great suggestion though.

 

Anneal the aluminum with a propane torch and a black Sharpie. Scribble the area you want to anneal with the black sharpie and heat that area until the Sharpie fades out. It will be dead soft at that point.

 

If what you say is true, I'd be very much tempted to use an inner and trim it to size.

 

But be VERY careful. That thin aluminum will easily melt with a good torch, might lose the edges long before other areas get hot enough to burn the sharpie off.

 

Make the eBay guy a very low ball offer on the ONE good piece. I looked yesterday and saw some single ones, it may take a while to come up with both sides. Check the Ford Barn Cl***ifieds, I found trim for my car there.

As far as the finish goes, maybe something in a powder coat would hide any marks if you got it smooth enough. The ones on my car I shot with some leftover Argent Silver, although they are more recessed than yours. Duplicolor makes a decent chrome spray paint.