Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Day 88, 89 - Moving Backwards...or not!

Well, I really have not done a whole lot on the car in the past two weeks or so.  I have been incredibly busy with work and also trying to time everything right.

I did upgrade the lighting in my blast cabinet because Caroline said she couldn't see!  So now she can blast to her heart's content and be able to see the parts.

I put in two 1500 lumen 27w LED flood lights meant for the front bumper of cars for forward projection.  They work great.



Once that was complete, I decided to take my bug pan out for a spin.  I needed to get some of the ethanol treatment I put in the fuel into the carburetor to help long term storage.  Well as I was putting it back into the garage, I couldn't get it into reverse and it started rattling pretty bad.

Here's a video of the problem.

I did some research and called my transaxle shop this morning.  I removed the engine, brakes, shocks, and transaxle and drove it down to the shop so they could look at it.  Right now we think it may be the reverse fork selector or something internal to the transaxle.  We will see what they find.

It could also be that I didn't have something adjusted properly (shifter, linkage, etc) and that prevented reverse from being selected.  The only problem with that theory is it was driving fine for the past couple months...so we will see what they have to report.

I was kind of down over the weekend because this is a big step backwards for the car.  I can't move it up and down the driveway by myself because of the slope, so I really need the engine/transaxle to be working when I want to do paint.  I had planned for the that the week of June 9th.

Keeping my spirits high and remembering it could have been worse when the car was all finished, which the transaxle is then a real pain to remove!

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Day 86-87

Yesterday I got some good things accomplished!  I hung my plastic from the removable bars that line the garage ceiling.  Everything went ok, I just need to "drop" the plastic, tape it together, and I should be ready to paint.  I may make some further mods to this system, but so far I'm happy :)


Those stands are new and will be useful for body parts!


Today, I had hoped to do some real painting but the weather decided to ruin my plans!  We had dust and wind, which would have just made my life more miserable in the long run.

I did however get some important things done.  I have my original headlight buckets and want to preserve the stamping on them.  This is the nice one.

Note the tape.

Unfortunately, the other side had some rust that ran right through the part number.  I used my Evapo-rust product and it did a great job but while removing the excess liquid the paper towel I was using also wiped away the stamp  Shoot.

I looked at find a replacement, but they are $75-100 and the 34T is what I really care about (another date stamp!)...the chances of finding an original replacement are slim to none.  So, one of my headlight buckets won't have the part number.

My plan is to tape off the remaining part number and then blast, prime, paint the buckets.  They both have some rust and paint that needs to be taken care of.

I finished the long running project of sealing my gas tank.  I used the acid bath to remove the surface rust again and then a phosphate treatment after that.  The phosphate didn't appear to do much as it flash rusted again after I dried it.  No worries, the paint I used to coat the tank can handle much more than surface rust.


As it was draining the excess paint.

My elaborate stand.

Drip, drip.
The tank will now go off to media blast and I'll prime/paint the outside.

 While I was waiting for the paint to (drip) dry, I assembled my lights I'm going to use for painting.  These have great output and don't get hot!  LEDs rock.

I also used Novus plastic polish to get my knobs looking brand new.  It is a wonderful product that with a little elbow grease really did the trick!
After and before.
These are the original Bakelite knobs, not cheap plastic reproductions.
All of them done.  My fingers hurt.
 Some of the knobs are duplicates because I bought extra (original) ones.  Some of the knobs were broken, I bought new window cranks for better chrome, etc.  The knobs on those aren't removable.

And finally, because I cleaned my assist straps with brake cleaner and a red throw away rag...the red bled through onto the vinyl and wouldn't come off.  Besides that colossal screw up the straps were really in nice shape.  I wasn't going to have to do much to them besides clean them.

Well my cleaning made them worse, so I found a vinyl paint made my SEM and color matched them so they are looking brand new again.  Live and learn...


So now, I have a large list of replacement parts that I need to get for all my interior stuff.  I will probably wait on that since paint/body is my priority right now.

I plan on blasting my small items, dropping the plastic, and painting the small items in primer.  I will then use my single stage paint and get them looking good.  Then I'll ship the body off to media blast and have that done.

Whew....now to find some time for all of that!

Friday, May 9, 2014

Day 85

Well, we were gone last weekend so progress slowed.  But has since picked up at a blistering pace!

Today, I finished taking care of the cleaning of my bolts, nuts, washers, random parts from the interior.  I got a coat of clear on them to prevent future rust.

I've also been working with my sand blast unit to get some things cleaned up.  Most of the items now are natural finish pieces, but I am going to get very aggressive soon with all the small painted pieces from the interior.

Here's an example of how well it works!

Before and after!  Hard to beat these kind of results.
Another issue I had was with one of my window regulators.  The water rested in the channel at the bottom of the driver's side window so it slowly rusted out that area.  A pain really.  These pieces are date stamped and I tried very hard to find a correct, date stamped piece...and couldn't find one!

Not good.
 So I did the next best thing and bought a correct looking one and modified my old one a bit.
What the donor one looks like compared to the bad one.

Measured, cut and welded...so it is date stamped and functional!
 My front and back paint booth frames are just 2x4's and therefore are very precarious when free standing.  To prevent them from falling over, I came up with this design which allows me to have "feet" to brace the frames but also is easily positionable for storage.

Feet deployed.

Winding up

Stowed!
 And finally, the most exciting thing today was my run to the paint store!  $$$$ later and I have all the primer, activators, wax and grease remover, random parts and pieces that a guy could ask for.  I also ordered the small batch colors for the interior pieces, wheels, and such.

The only major purchase I have remaining for the paint is another $$$$ or so for the base coat and clear coat (and their associated hardeners).

I also have the gas tank soaking in another acid bath for one more overnight so it will be ready in the morning for my phosphate coating and then the Master Series silver.  That is the same paint I used on the pan which also serves as a great gas tank sealer!

Tomorrow I am going to mount the plastic on the booth, finish putting clear on the rest of the bolts, sand blast some things, and maybe some painting!