73 Grande full vinyl top bright edge trim / molding

[Casey Dempsey]

A previous owner of my 73 Grande unfortunately painted the vinyl top edge trim to match the white body respray. I’m not sure that I can effectively remove the paint and repolish the trim bright again. Reaching out to see if anyone with a parts coupe or grande has this trim. I haven’t found any aftermarket making these pieces.

 

[Hemikiller]

Removing the trim will require the headliner to be pulled back from the roof rails and sail panels. That said, one of our members has a Grande' he's parting out.

https://7173mustangs.com/threads/complete-73-grande-part-out-avocado-interior.43214/#post-437384

 

[Grande73]

A previous owner of my 73 Grande unfortunately painted the vinyl top edge trim to match the white body respray. I’m not sure that I can effectively remove the paint and repolish the trim bright again. Reaching out to see if anyone with a parts coupe or grande has this trim. I haven’t found any aftermarket making these pieces.

View attachment 80043

The trim is painted correctly as it came from the factory. Lower half of the trim is the bright silver anodized aluminum with the top half being painted either white or black depending on the roof covering color.

 

[Casey Dempsey]

Wow Grande73! You have educated me on this. I had not noticed the black paint on this molding on the black vinyl tops. Was this a 73 year feature only? I see many Grande’s where the bright area on that molding looks much larger. Here are some additional photos of my car and you’re saying that this is factory correct,

 

[Grande73]

As far as I know all 3 years, 71-73 either had the black or the white paint on the trim. I replaced all my top trim with NOS Ford trim. Only colors I've seen were black and white. I was able to get most of the pieces in white, but a couple were black. I ended up repainting all of them white so the white would match. My car originally came with a white top. My Dad bought this car used for my mother between 1978-1980 and it had a black top installed. Someone had painted the trim black over the white. As the black paint got chips in it there was some white showing. This is its 5th and hopefully final vinyl top.

Some people have stripped the paint off their moldings, so they are only polished aluminum. As far a s I know none came from the factory that way.

 

[Hemikiller]

Wow Grande73! You have educated me on this. I had not noticed the black paint on this molding on the black vinyl tops. Was this a 73 year feature only? I see many Grande’s where the bright area on that molding looks much larger. Here are some additional photos of my car and you’re saying that this is factory correct,

The paint on the trim was used 71-73. It makes sense that the white roof would have a white paint on the trim so as to not stand out. Black painted trim against a white roof would look like a three year old was set loose with a Sharpie.

 

[Grande73]

As far as I know all 3 years, 71-73 either had the black or the white paint on the trim. I replaced all my top trim with NOS Ford trim. Only colors I've seen were black and white. I was able to get most of the pieces in white, but a couple were black. I ended up repainting all of them white so the white would match. My car originally came with a white top. My Dad bought this car used for my mother between 1978-1980 and it had a black top installed. Someone had painted the trim black over the white. As the black paint got chips in it there was some white showing. This is its 5th and hopefully final vinyl top.

Some people have stripped the paint off their moldings, so they are only polished aluminum. As far a s I know none came from the factory that way.

 

[Casey Dempsey]

This has been very interesting for me. Thanks for your detail photos of your car. All the vinyl top cars I had seen prior to mine looked like the photo below, so I assumed mine wasn’t correct. I have a few small stains on my vinyl top and I’ve got replacement white top not yet installed. I brought it by local upholstery & trim shop yesterday to get installation estimate. Technician told me that the white paint on my trim would likely chip/flake off when removing & replacing the molding. Light bulb went on and I thought this is likely when owners have gone to fully polishing their aluminum molding all bright.