Caprice belt line trim

I am sure I am not alone with this, but my trim all around my 95 Caprice is a peeling mess. The chome is almost completly gone, the plastic coating is peeling all around, and it looks like its rusting behind whats left of the plastic. I am pretty sure its not rust, I thought these were all plastic? Anyways, is there any way to revive this stuff? I am thinking of either ripping it all off completly, or painting it. In the condition its in now, it really makes this wagon looks like a junker. You can see in the pic below what I mean, kind of. Especially on the rear door. I'll try to get some close up pics later.

Why not delete the trim completely? A good look with the N92 wheels.

I'm interested in learning what others have done for this too, since my car is a woody and removal isn't an option towards making things look better.

Just thinking out loud here. But what about removing the "chrome" part from the trim and replacing it with some aftermarket 'chrome' trim?

Not even sure it's possible to remove it but a thought. I did replacement 'chrome' on the upper part of my RMW's front bumper. Found the stuff (thanks Chris!!) at AutoZone I think.

My tan 9C1 has been doing the same thing since I bought it in 2003. I am not interested in deleting it since it's saved my doors from a whole lotta damage over time (I daily drive the car in the summer).

Bewber wrote:

I'm interested in learning what others have done for this too, since my car is a woody and removal isn't an option towards making things look better.

"Technically", it is removable. I'm thinking about doing it now and either leaving it as a wood delete or replacing it with something that looks like the Kingswood trim from the 70's.

Technically, ROOFS have been proven to be removable, but I still aint gonna do it, this week.

Bewber wrote:

Technically, ROOFS have been proven to be removable, but I still aint gonna do it, this week.

Same reason why I won't be removing my wood trim... yet

You can very carefully score the bottom of the chrome area with an X-acto knife and pull off the chrome. Pull it at about a 45 degree angle upwards and it should just roll over the top and come off. Sorta hard to explain but the chrome only wraps over the top of the trim for about 1/16 of an inch, so you don't need to score the top. Just carefully score the bottom of the chrome. After that, just clean it up with some whitewall cleaner or something. At least on my MAB car I got a smooth light gray appearance behind the chrome. I did this about two years ago and it still looks okay. Way better than peeling chrome. If you are rilly, rilly careful you can actually sand away the gray and end up with the color of the trim below. I know this because I nicked a couple places with the knife and it was blue under there.

The gray stuff behind the chrome is smooth and would serve as a base for paint or for decals. I plan to try to put some chrome striping on there as Mike mentioned.

Warning, the following pictures are graphic. They depict a neglected and dirty wagon with chrome beltline delete.

Door are also removable, but I didn't get rid of mine yet! I like the above idea to remove the chrome, but what do I do about the lower part? This is peeling way worse than the chrome is.

I stand corrected, it is just the chrome peeling on my car. I am going to do what Wagon Collector did, that looks good to me. But I still have this other ugliness as you will see in the following pictures. It looks like spotty rust, but how is that even possible? Its the whole way around the wagon, except on the front bumper's trim.

Well, I've never seen that before!

Grab some 800 or 1000 grit wet sandpaper and see if you can clean that stuff off. I'm afraid that may be a porosity issue in the material, and it may have soaked up dirt like a sponge. Again, I've never seen that, so I don't know. If the sandpaper trick works you can then polish it back up by hand with some 3M Super Duty compound or equivelant.

Keep us posted, I'd be very interested to know if it cleans up.

I'll keep you guys posted on the progress. Hopefully in the next few days I will have time and it won't be raining at the same time!

I know its been a while, but I finally got around to the trim. I tried wet sanding, but the spots were still there. I took it a step further and using a razor sliced layers off the trim, only to find the same thing deep in the PVC. The only thing that would save this trim would be a re-paint. On closer inspection, it appears that the paint is gone on the trim where you see the orangeish spots. At any rate, I went ahead and deleted the trim. I must say, I like the look without the trim. My thumbs are sore from rubbing that glue off the body, but it looks good.
I do have one question for those who did this. What did you do about the rear corner pieces? There are screws behind that trim. I would just leave that trim on, but it just looks bad.

Hi 95BRMW

Did you get my PM about the bolt you were looking for?

Tom C.

i have a 2 tone wagon and the chrome is bad i am going to remove molding then replace it with 1'' chrome molding i bought. i think the factory chrome is 7/8. i will post pics when i get it done.

What the trim looked like on my 3rd wagon when I purchased it. It had the faded, peeling wrinkled chrome with the dirty "rusty" spots on the body colored grey.


What I did with the trim on my first wagon before selling it.


I do believe the bumper trim is 7/8, like stated above, and the aftermarket trim I used is 1 inch. It is a hair bigger and slightly different shape than the bumper trim but hard to notice as they don't touch each other.

rh96ss your 1st wagon looked great. you did same thing i want to do except i will be using chrome molding