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It would probably work okay but you would likely have to really clean or even strip it for it to stick well. That said, I don't know how expensive silvering is these days but I had it done some years ago and it was quite reasonable.

The black on yours might be tarnish, though, so maybe try some silver cleaner that works on silver plating but you would have to take the paint back off to try it.

I have a few spares of the 1953-1954 light housings and reflectors (more housings than reflectors) so will check to see if any have better reflectors for my own car and maybe extras.

Don - I assumed they were silvered or chromed. I couldn't tell if what I was seeing on there was the original coating, or if it had been painted over in the past. Either way, they were both very rough with pitting and peeling. I don't think the original coating could have been saved. I do already have one of the solid state flashers, but it's not on the car right now. Honestly, I think the lights are bright enough for what I need them for. They are really just turn signals after all. The headlights are much brighter and actually light up the road pretty well at night.

acolds - I enjoy seeing improvement on the car, even if it is just a little at a time. The old lenses always bothered me. The new ones were well worth the money.

JWL - Yes, I've run across several threads where white was recommended for the taillights. I debated doing that here, but decided against it because the lenses are clear, and the white showing through would have looked strange.

Howard - Interesting thought on the body wrap. I suppose it may work, or at least is worth a try. Where is that stuff sold?

-Kevin

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Amazon has several varieties. Search for chrome vinyl wrap and several mirror finish flexible types come up at around $10 for small rolls. Here is one of them.

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Maybe I should look at wrapping my ugly rear bumper at the same time, lol. This stuff may work for the parking lights...a little heat and it should conform fine. It may be tough working on such a small object though.

-Kevin

If you really want to restore the original mirror finish, maybe one of those DIY spray-on "chrome" applications might work? That is not really chrome, and would not stand-up to the elements, etc. But I suspect that it might last for a while, inside an enclosed light assembly.

Also, if you are really into chemistry, I believe that there are other options available for actual plating, which could be polished to look chrome-like. For example, I purchased some tire spokes which were zinc-plated, and looked like chrome (even mirror-like finish). I am not sure how difficult (and safe) if would be to do something like that in your garage, though. But further research into the subject matter could be useful.

On my clipper I had those reflectors re-done here in Germany. There are a few places that do some heat or vacuum forming mirror coating that is very reflective. Pge 30 or 31 of my clipper Blog shows when I got them back. I guess that is more than you want to do, but is one way to go. Silver rattle can might be the best bang for the buck.

I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Always wanted a lift of my own. I finally pulled the trigger and got a Challenger CL10V3 installed a few weeks ago. I finished up the wiring for it yesterday and gave it a quick test run. Just enough to get the Panama off the wheel dollies. Lift seems to work fine, but I didn't want the Panama to be the first car lifted all the way up. That honor will go to a car that can be replaced if something were to go wrong.

It's interesting watching the door gaps open as the car leaves the ground. Definitely some flex in the body with all that weight hanging off the back.

Started the car, backed out it and moved it to the other bay. I need to start working on other projects on the Panama while it's still winter.

-Kevin

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Very very nice Kevin!!

I finally got all the lights to work on the car. The license plate lights and dash turn indicators have never worked. I got the dash turn indicators working, but they are super dim. I'm assuming the bulbs just aren't getting enough current. I cleaned up the grounds, so that shouldn't be the issue. The license plate lights turned out had 12V bulbs in them. Swapping them out did the trick.

I've had some fender skirts I picked up from Tucson Packard sitting around waiting for me to do something with them. I decided to clean them and see if I could get them straightened out.

I removed all the old paint and what I could of the original undercoating. Both of them had some dings, while the passenger side had a large crease down half of it. I picked up a hammer and dolly set from Harbor Freight for $50 and tried my hand at straightening them out. I'll need to do more practice, but I was able to get them fairly decent.

The problem I'm going to have is that the Panama apparently had a lot of body work done around the rear wheel wells. It's a common rust spot, and it looks like the guy before me essentially had to redo both of the wheel openings. He didn't put the mounting holes back in when he did the work. And there is a lot of Bondo. In a perfect world I might strip the whole car and redo these areas, but that's just not going to happen at this point. The body work is acceptable for a driver and I don't want to get involved in that big of a project at this point.

It's going to be a struggle to see if I can get new holes drilled and line up the fender skirts. I'm not sure if he was able to get the correct shape or not. We'll see.

-Kevin

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As I recall, only the frontmost hole is round with the others being oval front to back with only the width being the size of the pins. Also, the bolts that hold the skirts in are special, being made of chrome plated brass and having a large 3/4” head so that they can be removed using the lug wrench.