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This is a basic question. The interior of my 53 was painted 100% when I bought it, no chrome showing on the glove box or the speaker. I assume it is still original however.

How can I remove the paint, but still maintain the chrome (If its in decent condition) If not, I guess I start over anyway

You can remove the paint off chrome parts by using laquer thinner. You need to be careful not to get the paint on the other surfaces like the glovebox door as it will take off the paint also. remove the lock and other parts, thenm using a horse hair brush "paint" laquer thinnner on the parts, then use another brush to remove the paint. take varous times depending on thickness of paint.

Jake

53 trucks did not have any "chrome" due to the shortages created by the Korean War.

Actually, the glovebox and dash strips above and below the speaker grille are stainless (in '47-'51), not chrome. '52/'53 was painted from the factory and '54 was a different dash.

Yup, just take a little meduim rubbing compound to cut through the paint and then polish on a hard pad to the stainless and it will shine right up, you can't hurt it. If you use the hard pad it will shine up just the raised ribs and you will get the stripes of paint on the glovebox cover, which looks a lot better and has less glare than polishing the whole banana.

Thanks for the info, Kook, just so I understand, there is no chrome or stainless on a 53? Thanks, you may have saved me some time and disappointment

The interior door handles and window crank handles and vent window handles were chrome. The exterior door handles were also chrome. The headlight rims and parklight rims are stainless. The center winddhield divider trim is also stainless.

52 and 53 did not originally have chrome grills or bumpers. They also did not have stainless trim above or below the speaker grill,nor did they have a stainless glovebox door.

Zackly except that there was a brief period in late '51 when headlight rings were painted as well.

It's a little squirrely because some assembly plants had leftovers and some didn't. Hood badges and bumpers were also chrome but around mid '51 all hell broke loose with the chrome supplies coming from the orient and that pinched off chrome and placed high demand on stainless which also got very tight quickly thereafter. The stainless that was around was going into cars of '51-'53 so it put trucks at the bottom of the food chain. But the door handles and cranks are chrome in all cases.

Chrome bumpers, chrome trim, etc all began to evaporate around April 1951 and was totally gone by year end of '51. While they still showed chrome on the literature, it didn't exist.

I cleaned my 51 dash peices with paint stripper down to the stainless steal. I sanded all the flaws out with wet or dry sand paper. From 400 to get the big stuff down to 600. Chrome polish and a buffer makes it better than chrome, it won't peel, rust fade or what have you. Best to you. O