Anybody know how to get the chrome trim ring off of a 1936 Plymouth P2 tailight bucket? Mine need re-plating, and nobody seems to know how to do this, except to plate the whole bucket and then re-paint all but the rings (!).
mike
i,m supprised nobody has asnwered you yet, no they wouldn,t chrome plate the whole bucket then paint the rest , you have to be able to remove the ring to replace the lens if need be, also to srevice the electrics. look under the bottom of the ring there shoud be a small screw , remove it pull the ring out from the bottom , then lift it up,and the ring should come off .
Hi Elmo!
I have a couple old '36 Plymouth tailight buckets without lenses. I can se the hefty spring that holds the ring on. . .didn't want to wreck the rings on my car by fighting that spring without some insight about what to do! I'll check them out more closely following your directions. Thanks.
Well, I checked for a small screw underneath the trim ring and found that this model doesn't have one. But, because of looking under there, I DID figure out how to get the ring off. The spring has kinks in it aparently designed for a special tool to be inserted to compress it so that the ring can be released. It's really very simple (if you have the tool) and I can't believe we couldn't figure it out. I guess we're just not smarter that fifth (third? first?) graders. You do have to know how to get the lens out, though.
As an update: actually, it turns out that the spring has nothing to do with removing the trim ring from the tailight bucket. Closer examination reveals that the ring has several small "tabs" that turn under the rim of the bucket, holding the ring on. These need very carefully to be folded back.