I can't say whether this bright idea of mine has been offered by others before, but here goes:

The metal badge on the front of the hood has a raised centre section and DATSUN letters that are chrome finished.  The recessed areas are painted black.  Over half a century the black paint had faded to pretty much nothing.  I briefly tried to paint the recessed areas, but getting into tiny areas like the interior surface of the "A" was beyond my artistic skill level.  What I came up with was  to take a very thin touch of vaseline on my finger, and run  it over the raised chrome areas, being careful not to get any on the black areas.  Again, a very thin layer on the finger. Then spray paint the badge - three coats in my case - let it thoroughly dry, then wash off the vaseline with soap and water.

It worked!

Attached is the finished product.  I regret not taking before and after pics, but I think any 240 hounds will have a pretty good idea of what it looked like when I started.

Nice job with your solution.  Another way to do it is to spray the entire emblem and then wipe a pad lightly soaked with paint thinner across the high spots before the paint dries - that's a process I've used in restoring lettering and emblems on vintage metal dealer style license plate frames.

Those backside clips are available at Lowe's in their Hillman drawer isle.

I did the vaseline on my horn pad too.

Another good tip thanks to @psdenno is a silver Sharpie for all the silver around the radio and console. I bought mine at Hobby Lobby fyi.

Edited November 9, 20213 yr by siteunseen

Siteunseen,

Thanks for the tip on the silver sharpie.  I'll try that.

As  for the hood emblem retaining clips, I had a s.o.b. time getting them off back when I was at the tear-down stage.   Easy getting the nuts off and on with an 8mm socket if I need to ever touch up the emblem. 

Edited November 10, 20213 yr by Richard McDonel