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!