C1 62 Seat Belt Buckle refinishing

[Ronald N.]

What is the best way to polish my "Aluminum" seat belt buckle fronts? Is there any filler that can be used on these polished aluminum buckles to fill in the pitting? Then, is there a way of properly pollishing them so pitting is not noticable? Any recommendations or source for reconditioning these buckle fronts would be appreciated. Thanks

[Gordon Peterson #4961]

Re: C1 62 Seat Belt Buckle refinishing

Ron -

I have a '63, but I believe this situation is similar on both. The cast (forged?) aluminum flapper on the buckle tends to pit badly - no idea why this is. I have never seen an adequate nor invisible filler for these pits. I have seen an attempted weld fix that was disasterous. I have seen them ground down to eliminate shallow pits, but if you are having your car judged, the judges all know and can easily spot this trick (thinner flapper).

I had one badly pitted buckle and one fairly decent buckle on mine. The only answer I've found was to locate a single buckle with a nice flapper and replace mine with it.

Snake-Oyl (ad in Driveline) may have a method to fix these, but I don't think so. They may also have a replacement buckle. I found mine on eBay.

Pete

[Harry Sadlock]

Re: C1 62 Seat Belt Buckle refinishing

Ron, give Charlie Santorelli a call at Seatbelt Sity, 908-719-2354, in NJ. Explain the problem. He will probably want to see your buckles. Sometime he says there gone and sometimes he takes them in as a trade-in. He only answers his phone from 9am to 4pm eastern time. I've used him with excellent results. Hopefully others will comment.

Harry