Day 78-80 - Air and Cleaning

The past few days have been pretty good for progress.

I installed my compressed air piping system.  This will act as a pre-cooler and water separator for all my tools.  I already have a water separator right at the compressor outlet.  And for paint I have an air dryer.  So needless to say, I think I should be ok!

I then started organizing, re-bagging, and cleaning all the rust nuts, bolts, and washers from the car.  I did this earlier to my pan bolts and it came out well.  They will sit for the next few days to get all the crud off.

I did do a little resto work.  This part is my high beam switch.  It is inside and didn't have much corrosion and it cleaned up well!

The biggest change I've had is cleaning the inside of the gas tank.  Back when I tried to get my car running when I lived in Daytona, I had a lot of trouble with fuel delivery.  You might remember the clogged fuel filter I posted before.

Well, needless to say the entire inside of the gas tank was not a pretty sight.  BUT, I managed to salvage it!

This was just the dry crud I rattled around and dumped into the trash can.

After just washing it out with water and rolling a chain around.

After my first batch of muriatic acid and water solution with the chain

Not bad, a few spots to go here and there.

Still some work to do.

 Once it got to the point above, I filled it completely with water and then topped it off with about a half gallon of the muriatic acid.  I then let it sit overnight.  It had barely anything in the morning!  I didn't get a picture of the metal before I dried it, but while drying it the metal already flash rusted.  No worries, right before I paint it I am going to phosphatize it which puts a protective coating on it and turns any remaining rust into an inert metal.  I can then paint on top of that.

I'm going to use that same silver paint I used to paint my pan with.  Its also great in gas tanks!

I talked with my media blaster and paint supply company a couple days ago too.  I think I'm going to buy a sand blast cabinet as it is about the same price as having my guy do the small items.  Plus I'll have it in the future to do more things.

The paint shop is working on finding my original paint codes to duplicate the original colors.  The codes are in the system, but they may have to do some special tweaking to make it work.

My next big project is to set up a paint booth in the garage.  I need to get plastic, some wood, box fans, and filters to set it up.

I'm off to work for a few days so I'll have plenty of time to stew and think about it!