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I have a question regarding the refurbishment of the toggle latches for the rear quarter windows. I need to get both of mine rechromed and I was wondering what the best procedure is for having that done. Is it best to leave them assembled with all their rivets or does one need to disassemble them by drilling/driving out all the rivets and separating them into their individual components in order to have them rechromed? Same question for the window hinges; do you need to drill out the three flat rivets and separate the hinge pieces from the chrome plated brass trim? This seems to be turning out to be a pretty big job!

Any recommendations?

Thanks

Gary
1964 1275 Cooper S

Gary i would go along to the Chrome platers, They will tell you what to remove ect, Obvious you need a company that does re-chroming, ,Gary here is a company that advertise in a jukebox magazine located in Chicago, Hope this helps you

Goff,
Thanks for the reply. I believe at the very least I need to disassemble the toggle latch and hinges so that I remove any dissimilar metal components. I found out that the piece of the toggle latch that is trapped under the rear of the quarter-light window is actually just polished Aluminum (or inium) so I suspect it would not want to be part of an assembly that is getting chrome plated (I have that part separated on the hinge on the bottom). I also discovered that I needed to completely disassemble the piano hinges because it appears the part that is crimped to the window is chrome plated brass and the actual hinges look to be made of stainless steel.

There are a lot of small parts in these quarter lights!

Am I doing this right? I have been trying to source some alternates for the rivets used to assemble all these little pieces and I think they are made of brass and copper...

Gary

In the UK they would cost more to rechrome than the price for NOS off ebay , the last ones I bought were £25 each
If you are going to have them rechromed they will need stripping down

Nick

The places I've taken mine have told me there is no need to strip the window latches into individual components.

Most importantly, part of that latch (the screw-down part) is made of pot metal. As long as the entire assembly is chromed according to the method for pot metal, you won't have any issues.

Unfortunately it's extremely expensive to chrome pot metal.

I didn't have to disassemble my piano hinges either (or window frames). They simply chromed the whole thing as if it were all stainless steel and it worked fine. Came out looking fantastic.

I didn't know they were still available NOS. When I look on eBay I don't come up with anything but perhaps I don't know what their proper name is...

Gary

Also at least on all my latches, the material used is either solid brass or brass sheet with the exception of the aluminum part that is captured under the window frame. There is no pot metal on my latches at all... Maybe that makes it easier for the plater to deal with...

Perhaps the older style latches used pot metal? I have a bunch of the ones as shown below but these came off of earlier cars (glass is dated 1959 and 1960)

Gary

interesting topic, here in Malta we have non who re chromes parts, is it easier buying repro ones or are these not found to be for sale?
thanks
c

Gary Schulz wrote:Also at least on all my latches, the material used is either solid brass or brass sheet with the exception of the aluminum part that is captured under the window frame. There is no pot metal on my latches at all... Maybe that makes it easier for the plater to deal with...

Perhaps the older style latches used pot metal? I have a bunch of the ones as shown below but these came off of earlier cars (glass is dated 1959 and 1960)

Gary

Interesting Gary, mine don't look like these at all (I have a '66 Cooper S), which definitely have pot metal for the piece that accepts the two screws.

Gary Schulz wrote:I didn't know they were still available NOS. When I look on eBay I don't come up with anything but perhaps I don't know what their proper name is...

Gary

You would have to scan ebay every week for those items to come up for sale, Also could be waiting a long time, Just have a run to the local platers Garry ,Show them what you have and they will tell you if you need to strip any parts down, Re-Chroming is a time consuming process , About 12 processes start to finish, The main cost is in the polishing , Cost wise i had the external hinges chromed on my Mini Jem, Garry i polished them myself ,Then the platers chromed them ,8 components = £3 each = £24 ready next day , If they had done the lot 3/4 months waiting time and 3 times the cost
Hope this helps

Goff

these are 66-69 not sure if there nos

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/24A2132-Rear- ... Swf-VWVz97

Nick W wrote:these are 66-69 not sure if there nos

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/24A2132-Rear- ... Swf-VWVz97

that seller has some nice nos panels for sale as well

and some rubbish - bet there are not many takers for a nos acclaim wing!