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I'm cleaning up and painting the steering column parts, and I see that it looks like the chrome horn ring and trim on the steering wheel seem to have been painted with some sort of clear coat. It is really yellowed with age, and scrapes off easily revealing the chrome beneath.

Question - was this a normal coating, or perhaps something to do with the "Korea Chrome" to make a thinner plating job last longer, perhaps?

Now that I've gently removed it, should I apply a new clear coat to the chrome for protection?

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There isn't much mention of interior items that had the enamel coating but overall they did mention heavy use items subject to a lot of handling would be stainless or have the good stuff while light use items would be of the war chrome.

I guess the inner items on the wheel not subject to hands grabbing it that often might be considered low use. If it is a thorough smooth coating over all surfaces including the portion not usually grabbed and looks factory with what they described as a soft velvet touch and slight orange peel look then it could well be war chrome. I would recoat just to be safe if the chrome is still good under it.

Most 52s I've seen have the clearcoat on the horn ring and the wheel grips. You can often tell the war pieces, even if they have been stripped by the fact that there will be a lot of copper showing on the back.

I recommend recoating them as they pit very quickly without it unless they are in a perfectly dry climate.

I know my 52 Mayfair had that coating on its thick chrome armrests/window sill on the inside beltline.

The horn ring isn't coppery on the back, although some other bits and pieces on the car are. But it won't be any effort to re-clear it so I will do that.

Anything special that I should do to it to ensure that the clear coat sticks? Obviously I don't want to sand the chrome.

So proud of myself! I reassembled the steering column, got all the shifter parts in the proper spaces and managed not to scratch any of my new paint sliding things together. Stood back to admire my awesome handiwork, and....

Yup, forgot to slide the felt seal for the bottom of the shroud and also the rubber and jute floor seals on, before I installed all the shifter linkage parts. Doh!

That will be a good job for tomorrow night after work, when I am less annoyed with myself.

Meanwhile, has anyone else noticed a difference in the wire construction between their car wiring and the turn signal column wires? All the car wires are hard, brittle insulation with cloth covering (what hadn't rotted or been chewed) but the wire harness attached to the turn signal mechanism in the steering column is a more modern style, flexible insulation with not cloth cover. Looks brand new, still fine so I didn't feel the need to replace those wires.

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The turn signal wires on my 53 clipper were exactly the same. The column side must have came from a different supplier that already started using the more modern wire. I also left the old wires in the column and replaced everything on the vehicle side.

I think in the fifties packard was slowly moving toward plastic coated wires as the wiring between the junction boxes (turn, head, and horn) was also plastic coated, perhaps for better weather resistance. Funny enough, though, the wiring from the turn signal housings themselves were still shellac clothed.

My 55 has the more modern coated insulated harness but had cloth shellac wires from all plugs and junc blocks to acc (horns,headlights,blower,underseat heater etc. I rewired all these and have had no issues since. I think I posted this already but there were MANY of the cloth wires BARE!

Same on my 51. The turn signal wires are a newer style, with no cloth.