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Shield your eyes! All my gold parts came back today from being refinished.

I replaced the 2 larger scripts on the rear quarter panels a couple of months ago so all the gold is complete.

Now I have the Clint Eastwood & Lee Marvin version of 'Gold Fever' in my head and can't get it out.

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Look in GREAT!!

Looks great! Where did you get the gold plating done? I've been trying to find a place to do gold plating for my 56 400 emblems.

I worked with S&H Chrome Plating. They are in the Nashville TN area. They cleaned and repaired my trash, replaced some pins, and did the Nichol coating. They then sent it to another local man that did the actual gold plating as they were not set up for gold. I am pleased with what I got back today.
Here is their link:shchrome.com/

Can you tell me who replated them and how much it cost?

Wow, those parts are beautiful. Well worth whatever you paid for them.

-Kevin

I placed a link to the chroming company that I used in my last post.

I got a pretty good deal on the gold because of a mistake in the quote they gave me.

I filled out an online email form and sent a photo of everything along with the email. They came back with a really low price that I knew had to be wrong.

I responded, asking them to recheck the price for repairing and gold plating of everything in the image. They responded with the same low estimate.

So, I sent them everything and they called me a week later with a final estimate of $1800.

That is 350% more than they told me in two emails so I called them and spoke to the guy in charge. I told that I knew what emailed price was too low but I'm not paying a 350% increase.

We spoke for a couple more minutes and finally agreed on $950 for everything in the picture. With tax and shipping, I paid just over 1K.

Back to the steering column.
Spoke to Mike Dulinski a few days ago. He was searching for a collar that is circled in the image below. Mine had that broken tab inside. He had a bucket full of them and they all had the same broken tab. We think most vehicles have the same problem so I am not going to worry about it. I did see a NOS part on Ebay today for less than $50 but I'll save a little money.

Received a replacement gearshift lever and rubber boot today. I was surprised the angle of the shift is different in the image below.

Does Anyone have any suggestions on getting the new boot and shifter in place? I am thinking of either a heat gun or soapy water unless I can figure out how to do both.

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The 47 lever is different but of similar construction at the base pivot area in as much as it has a tight fitting external rubber boot. I was able to use silicone spray on both the boot and lever to get the rubber to slide reasonably well. Rubber pieces should be at room temperature so would say to try silicone or the soapy water first. If the rubber is very cold or extremely hard or stiff a light application of heat might help warm and flex it a bit faster but too much heat could be bad too

The early 55s did have a couple of issues with linkage and getting stuck in park. Have seen several seriously bent levers where a lot of strength had been put to the lever in trying to get the linkage to move. That might be how the extra bend in your original occurred.

My collar still had the tab, but all of the detents had significant wear. I attributed the wear to the grease issue at the lower spring limiting the shift lever travel and causing it to scrape.

I use P-80 Rubber Assembly Lubricant. I didn’t remove or replace the rubber, the shift lever went in without too much trouble.

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