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Has anyone restored their hubcaps? Looking for some guidance and haven't found any great videos on YouTube.

Polishing them shouldn't be a problem, but not sure about dent/scratch removal.

Any helpful advice would be appreciated!

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Not an easy job to de-ding and polish stainless. Might be easier to simply write a check for a perfect NOS set I have available. $400.

If they don't need to be prefect just clean off the whole thing with oven cleaner (this also strips the paint) then polish. Mask off the hexagon and paint with spray paint. Redo the black with a Fourney paint marker.

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Not that kind of project, I'm not trying to build a car for Pebble Beach. This is my project car, so I like figuring out and doing the repairs myself. Sometimes I'm in over my head, but that's okay.............actually most of the time I'm in over my head! LOL

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I agree that they don't need to be perfect, I don't want to take away from my car's character too much, just spruce it up.

Carefully tapping on the dents from the reverse side with a variety of body hammers onto a dolly will lift the dents. Be aware that EVERY hammer blow will make a mark on the other (decorative) side so use VERY light taps and by going slowly you may do it without adding new marks. Stainless is a solid material, unlike plated parts, so it can be dress sanded in ever finer grades and finally polished 1st with jeweler's rouge then with polishing compound to restore its bright surface shine. My car has plated caps but I was able to restore one cap to an acceptable appearance. I really like having as much on the car as possible from its build date. I agree, there is a lot of pride in having as much surviving parts as possible.
Bob J.

Looks like that one flew off and ran down the road from the edge damage. Some of these are notorious for that, so check fit after repair and secure if necessary.
I'd guess it'll be more time and effort than it's worth, but everyone's time is there own. Investing in skills perhaps is justification...
They're not making any new P hubcaps, so preservation is important. I just saw where Toshiba has gone the way of Packard now. Once prominent company now kaputski. There's no guarantee of a company having continued/perpetual success. Too easy to make a fatal blunder. We take that for granted and it's not.
Like everything else, proper tools. Metal working is an art. I use a small specialty trim hammer and anvil that I got from Eastwood for stainless trim. I bought stainless polish and wheels from them too I think. Something smooth to work against is needed, I don't have a shot bag, that might work but could leave dimples if shot too big. Fairly hard sheet plastic, etc. - matching profiles, if possible. A pointy small plastic hammer is OK too. But hard to find. A bossing set is expensive now. I'm debating purchase myself.
Gentle is the keyword. You don't hammer it hard enough to make dents, you tap, tap, working from the edge in usually, aka coaxing out, so you don't get more hammer dings. Metal tends to go back where it came from(memory). Some you can get with one blow in right spot, if you're swavvy. If thin, sometimes you can press out a large dimple with your hands. Have to shrink after if it oilcans - another art. Look at the edge radius of the indentation, gradual or sharp. If it's sharp then harder to work out. You won't get rid of surface damage unless you weld over and grind/sand back. High spots are usually filed, but this is thin to start with so can't tolerate much metal removal. Small very fine files. One can weld stainless with TIG if cracked/damaged but undercutting is common with filler and there's no post body filler here. [Note; it's take incremental sanding to 2000 grit to prepare for wheel polishing.] Cracking happens a lot with thin stainless and can happen when straightening or during damage.
In the hubcap era, we used to pick roadside hubcaps as kids and polish them up as souvenirs, so to speak. If they're not pitted, they can usually be touched up/made presentable, but chrome has to be redone if it's pitted. You can straighten the dents out first and then send off it won't cost as much as letting the chromer do it. There are places that just do hubcaps too. Search around for pricing.
Most of these have an inner steel cage that makes dent removal impossible in places without picks, etc. A good set of picks will set you back $200 or open up the disc and reinstall when done.
Be careful buffing as it's easy to get a haze if not knowing what you're doing much like chrome. And getting them all to match sheen has to be taken into. Tendency is to over polish.

You can probably buy drive-quality wheel covers for far less money than all the effort needed! They were used on a number of years so are fairly common and easy to find. The set on my 1954 Patrician is very nice although I have had an NOS set for many years that I hope to put back on it when (and if) the time comes but if I hadn't found those, I would have been perfectly happy with the set I already had.

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That's extremely reasonable for a set of NOS wheel covers. Man, would love to buy them from you but the current make safe and reliable budget on the car is grossly high. Appearance is not even on the radar. Lol



Earl