Hi biddyviscount75,
I'm replying to your comment I saw on the VV forum.
Aged plate aluminum presents many problems. I have restored 4x vans & have mainly tackled window polishing,
Cladding usually needs de-oxidizing, otherwise you are trying to polish years of grime.
link
The front of our 77 Viscount would not shine so I left it in a matt state & painted the rest (which was original)
A few members on both VV & Classics have succeded with paint.
Cheers
Mustang
How to Polish Tarnished Grooved Aluminum Windows
There's not a product, brush, potion that I haven’t tried to rejuvenate old aluminum,
I’m yet to find anything that works, better than this method:
(I’ve removed, polished replaced, over 36 x windows to date)
Best method I have found for polishing grooved tarnished aluminum: (Non Oxidized)
1) Course steel wool , (pending condition) sprayed with INOX (pending condition)
(WD40 is too light & dries out quickly)
With this first step it is important to remove all lumps of tarnish,
cavities from heavy tarnish are best left as part of the history.
2) Medium steel wool (any tarnished condition)
3) Fine (any tarnished condition)
Steel Wool is cheap, it wears out, change your pad when it balls up.
You should have reached a semi shine by the “fine” stage, if not you may have skimped on stages 1 & 2.
Now the secret is to finish with steel wool 0000 still saturated in INOX.
Rub like no tomorrow, then de-grease the Inox.
Next Step
I have tried Purple de-Oxidizer, Purple Polish, White bull bar shine, most others....
I now recommend AUTOSOL, or the USA made NUSHINE
apply after all of above.
However once you achieve a shine, maintenance with
Purple de-Oxidizer followed by Purple Polish will give you a slightly higher gloss.
It takes time, you cannot rush it, set small targets.