Week #120
A friend from one of our local Mopar clubs called me the other day asking how the car was coming along. I went into the same old crap about not spending as much time as I'd like and then I started my whining about not wanting to get out in the garage during the week due to not starting until 8 P.M. and not felling that I had enough time to get anything done before having to go in. He was quiet for a second and then proceeded to let me know just how full of crap I was... but very nicely, as only a friend would. He reminded me that I should just tackle the little things in the evenings and to plan the bigger, time consuming chores for the days I would have more time. Of course I knew this but had gotten into a cycle of only wanting to work on the next "thing on the list"... no matter what size project it was. His "outside looking in" view was a good one. I'm going to try.
I ordered a bearing/set-up kit for the DANA that should be here in a week or so. Until then I had planned on starting to coat/paint/refinish the front suspension components as mentioned in last weeks update. That is a major project and since it was only Monday, I thought I would look around for something smaller to tackle. This was going to be easy... there was a gazillion small things!
I gathered all the components for the side marker assemblies and set out to get those installed. The housings were still sitting on the bench from when I painted them several weeks back. I had all 4 NOS lenses, 2 red and 2 amber, bought from different sources, 1 NOS rear mounting bracket for a rear unit and 2 NOS nuts for the rear. These lenses are held to the housings with both small plastic tabs and a double stick type tape from the factory. The protective cover on the sticky stuff peeled right off of 2 of the lenses... no problem... but the other 2 would just not co-operate. Just too many years stuck. I used my own double stick tape and every thing went on great. The NOS bracket used to hold the housing on looked great but this left me with the need for another one that looked great. I had several, none of which look very good. However, the left one that was original to the car was covered with black spray paint. I could see that under the paint was a very nice galvanized finish. It was time to try something new...
I have two words for you... walnut shells. That's right, crushed walnut shells used in a bead blasting cabinet. I had bought a bag back during my last sand run. I had read where this media was used on things where the original finish was to be protected. It was time to put it to the test. I swapped out the shells for the glass beads, turned the pressure down to about 60 psi and gave it a try. At 60 psi it was a bit slow but the results on this galvanized part was amazing. While glass beads would have made quick work of the paint removal, they would have left a uniform grey finish on the metal. These brackets are galvanized and they need to retain that marbled grey finish. These walnut shells did just that. I had no problem installing this bracket in the same trunk with the NOS one. Since it worked so well I grabbed up the tail light housings I had planned on using. These housings were nice but had just years of crud along with some light over spray and dripped on something. After removing the lenses and gaskets I gave the shells another go. I risked a bit higher pressure on these, 75 psi, and it worked although I could tell I didn't want to go any higher. The first housing looked fantastic... to me. I kept those multi-tone grey swirls in it's finish yet had no sign of over spray or crud. The second one unfortunately didn't come out so great. It had some staining from some mold or something that just would not come off. I had 2 more sets to work with and found another one that cleaned up equally as good as the first, along with the 12 special nuts used to hold the housings in place. On to the lenses. I have yet to see a "bad" '70 RR/Sat rear tail light lens. I suspect since they are set so deep into the tail panel they are saved from most boo boos. First I cleaned this set up with soap and water. Then polished them initially with Mothers aluminum and alloy polish followed up with "Perfect-It" hand glaze made for paint. They ended up with a very nice polished look and were fine for installation.
Last week I sent off parts from the doors to be re-chromed. This included the leading edge of the vent windows, and all the vent window related parts. They should be back to me in 3-4 weeks. In the mean time I thought I would install the door handles and locks as a little pre-assembly to the doors. The new handles went in fine. The holes for the locks however needed some attention. The lock mechanisms are a very tight tolerance fit with no room for paint. As has been the case on each car I have had painted, primers, builders and paint build up around the hole would not allow the lock to fit. Using a small file I had to "find" the metal edge all the way around each hole before the lock would even think about going in. If you are ever faced with doing this, be sure to only file on an "in" stroke as pulling the file out could easily chip off a chunk of paint. Another thing I had a problem with were the little key lock seals that come with the paint seal kit. They are so wrong it's pathetic. First they are the wrong material and 2nd they are way bigger in outside diameter than they should be. I just wasn't going to use them. I found my old locks and luckily the original seals were still in place. I had to spend about 30 minutes on each scraping the entire circumference lightly with a razor blade until a nice clean original color surface was exposed. Another small chore done!
Two other small items installed this week were the hood pin bezels and the extra bracket at the left side for the exhaust hanger... 30 minutes total time spent here.
Several small projects but I felt like I did a lot... more than I might have done before my friend called. If I'm lucky maybe more good friends will call... to tell me how full of crap I am!