Folks a while back I wrote an article about restoring hubcaps that was recently published in a restoration magazine, however, the tips apply to many hubcaps, including your Mach 1 ones and addresses the outer edge curb rash that you mentioned...
It was a non-mustang restorer publication and yes my wife had a classic car she wanted me to restore, so I had to keep her happy also
Jeff, if you wish, I have a more detailed version with additional pictures that I can update, however, the issue is that the example pictures are not mustang ones. Let me know.
Here is a slightly modified version.
My Tips on how to remove dings from Hubcaps
First let me say that I am not a metal smith and there may be better ways to clean up your hubcaps, but after searching the archives, and other places I could not find anything. This is what worked for me, since I am trying to do as much work myself on our car as possible..
As you can see from the first picture (before), there were a number of dings and creases all along the outside edge of the hubcap. There were also a number of other dings/dents in other areas as well that I had to work out, but, I will focus on the outside edge here which is usually the worst.
1- Since the outer edge is rolled over on itself you can not get directly to the front face. You need to bang through the back side hard enough to push/flatten the front face dents out. Through trial and error I started with a light weight hammer, and eventually ended up using a heavy mallet in order to hit it hard enough. Remember that you do not see the back side when mounted and even though I was hitting it pretty hard you would have to look carefully to see any bang marks on the back.
2- See the picture (Bang) where I used a steel dolly to support the face of the hubcap. This dolly was actually a steel splitting wedge that I ground the surface very smooth so it would not cause any more damage. Any heavy/smooth steel stock would work as a backing as long as it is thick enough to keep the hubcap flat due to the protruding center area. Tip: Make sure that the rest of the hubcap is on a soft towel so any bouncing does not cause additional damage.
3- For most of the dent removal, I used many pieces of hardwood that I whacked with the mallet. The wood was slightly thinner than the rim of the hubcap so it would not hit the outer edge where it is rolled over. You want to maintain that round rolled edge. As a side note, there may be areas where that rolled edge is damaged. What I did was bang that outer edge towards the center. I supported the opposite edge against my body and hit it hard until most of the shape came back.
4- The hubcap in my example pictures had dents around the entire rim so this was a long and time consuming process to bang the dents out. There were a few areas, such as creases, where I needed to use a piece of steel stock to bang, versus the wood in order to flatten out the crease.
5- After I banged out the dents, I then sanded the entire rim with an orbital sander, including the outer edge. See picture called "sand". I started off with 120 grit, then progressed to 220, 320, 400, 500, and finally 600 that I did by hand. After you do the 120 grit stage you will then see all of the spots that you did not bang out. The rim will be scuffed everywhere except the low spots with a little shine. Those are the dents that you need to go back and bang out. Repeat the 120 grit sanding in just those missed places, and then progress to the 220 grit around the entire rim, followed by the 320, 400, and 500. The reason for the 400 and 500 was to get it as smooth as possible for the final 600 grit sanding that I did by hand. In order to properly polish stainless as outlined below, you want to finish sand with 600 grit or greater. *** Caution*** with the 120 and 220 papers, sand as little as possible so you remove the minimum amount of metal. I did damage one hubcap where the dent/crease was so bad that I wanted it perfect and in the end burned through the face. Still waiting on that replacement hubcap delivery from EBay!!
6- Prior to doing any buffing/polishing, I did remove all other dings/dents on other surface areas. You will find that the flat raised flat area in the center of the hubcap is very easy to clean up using the same process as I did on the outer edge. The curved areas are a little more challenging. For the curved areas, I needed to use different size/shape pieces of wood for banging, and most sanding was done with a dremel tool and by hand.
7- After all of the sanding has been done, now is the 3 stages of polishing. I used the Eastwood stainless buffing kit on my 10" buffer. The steps were: Sisal buff with Emery compound, then, Spiral Sewn buff with Stainless compound, and finally Loose Section buff with White Rouge compound. I found that the 10" buff worked good, however, a few areas I used a 4" one on my drill.
8- If you look at the picture "Final" you can see that all of the dents are now out and it looks pretty good. The actual hubcap looks even better than that picture, since it was hard to photograph the shiny surface.
For the worst hubcap with dings all along the outside edge, as well as various dings on other surfaces, it took about 6 hours from start to finish and you would never know the edge was banged up.
Enjoy,
Tony
