Decorative Door Sill Plates

[Nitrate]

1981. 2000. I thought the door sill plates were stainless steel but I tried a magnet and it stuck. Is it chrome plated steel? RB

[azruss]

I was able to polish mine out, so definitely not chrome plated. Mine are magnetic as well and the backs show no signs of rust. I think there is some low grade stainless out there that is slightly magnetic and weldable.

[zachmac]

Not all stainless steel is non-magnetic. Google is your friend.

[Nitrate]

Thanks guys. Sure looked like stainless to me too. You can buff that out to a high luster. Plus one for Fiat. RB

[DieselSpider]

Is the magnet sticking when they are removed from the car or to the steel behind them when installed?

Stainless with a high iron content gennerally stains badly and has a blue hue to it.

[Nitrate]

Magnet sticks to trim when completely removed. RB

[DieselSpider]

I had to look this up and found this interesting article in the Scientific American on the differences between face-centered cubic (fcc) lattice/non-magnetic and body-centered (bcc) lattice/magnetic stainless steel:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... s-work-on/

It appears too that the fcc stainless can become magnetic if it is bent at the right temperature such as our door sills are. I found it a good read. My Dad said you live longer if you keep learning new things so I guess I just extended my life a bit.

[fiat218]

When I removed mine, there seems to be a putty of some sort under, was that so it sits solid,filling in the space?.what would you use in place of that now that I removed all of that