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I caught the writing on the part as well - made the job feel a bit more personal.
I remember once working on my old (new then) Buick Grand National, taking the door panel off for some reason... on the paper liner on the door, some factory guy wrote "hi there!" which I found amusing.
To Ed: I no longer have a 996 (997 now) but if I did and had the same issue, some nice anodized levers would make an awesome upgrade project. Not sure how many you'd have to make and sell to cover all of the effort and costs.
An office type "Smart Label Printer" will do this. I use one daily. It uses clear plastic sticker blanks with black laser type looking ink. Any size or design letters from 6 to 72 font, any style letters / numbers. Never tried to use it to make symbols but its worth a try.
I kind of like the idea of a quick-install sticker. It might offer some protection as well. I think I'll try them.
I kind of like the look of the "silver carbon fiber", versus the plain silver.
Which do you like better?
I like the quick install idea too, I doubt I would ever gone through the hassles of removing the levers unless there were no other options, the decal is that option.
I also have some Clear Bra film left over, so I can always protect the CF decal with it, and replace just the Clear Bra film if it got scuffed in the future.
Personally I bought the darker CF pattern, got to find a few minutes to install them, but would prefer to wait until ambient temperature gets a bit warmer first, last weekend would have been good and it is snowing here today again!
I would love to have some polished levers! Please let me know if you end up making them. I know that I'm a bit late on this post, but if you still can make them, Im in.
Sorry to dredge up such an old thread, but I'm in the process of restoring a trunk release unit as part of an upgrade to memory seats. I bought this unit knowing that it needed some work.
I sanded the plastic part and painted it with Krylon Fusion Satin Black. It has a bit more gloss than the OEM finish, but it is a pretty close match.
I'm now exploring options for restoring the handles. It may not show too well in this photo, but they have surface scratches and pitting.
I found this post and I thought the results were good. However, the handles on the part I bought appear to plated. I'm not sure if they are chrome or some other finish. There are a couple of shops in the area that offer chrome plating. I was wondering whether it would be worthwhile to explore plating the pieces. I would also like to know if there are other finishes since they don't appear to be highly polished chrome.
Ten years later and this thread has helped me out tremendously. Note* I did not have to disconnect/remove the whole assembly out to change out the broken latch (it snapped in half), I was able to do it in place. This thread made it all possible. Thank you DFC for posting this.
To restore the front/rear hood graphics on the levers after painting them, it's pretty easy to print your own water transfer decals. You can take a picture of the graphics on your original levers (or find a picture for the part online), photoshop out all the silver, then print the black outline on a water transfer decal, and apply the water transfer decal between the silver basecoat and clear coat on the handle.
I repainted my latches the same way but scratched them the following week with my foot.
I'm thinking about sanding the levers to bear metal and polish them. Does someone already did it?
I repainted my latches the same way but scratched them the following week with my foot.
I'm thinking about sanding the levers to bear metal and polish them. Does someone already did it?
Interesting idea. I don' t know what they are made out of. If aluminum, I suspect it would look really good. If steel, then probably would not look good and would rust without some type of coating.
I bought the decals. Went on easily enough, although I struggled to find just the right position. But for the 2 minutes and a few dollars invested, it's excellent. And from anything further than 12" away, it looks PERFECT, really!
03-12-2013, 01:18 PM
