Week #149

One of my favorite boring "parts find" stories to tell is my '70 HEMI valve cover story.  If I've told you this already, stop me.

There was a HEMI racer vending some used parts at the Nat's several years ago.  Along with a great deal on 2 HEMI flywheels, I bought these 2 sets of valve covers for $25.  What someone had done was cut the holes out of a brand new set with a 2.5" hole saw and welded them into another set to make a home-made pair of dual plug covers.  At a glance both sets looked ruined, but for $25 I was willing to see if they were salvageable.  After studying them a while I figured that I could cut the home-made cover's original holes out and weld them back into the "donor" set and possibly have a good set of '70 covers for next to nothing.  My plan worked perfectly for one set as the holes one of the dual plug covers cut out cleanly and welded into the donor cover easily with little trouble.  That cover was repaired several years ago soon after the Nat's.  With the motor close to being painted it was time to tackle the other cover.

Things weren't so great this time.  As I cut out the holes for transplanting, it was clear that these holes from this cover were not as clean and complete as the other ones.  Each hole had weld and damage at the area immediately next to where the second holes were welded in.  As I set the cut out holes in position to mark the good cover for cutting I could see that if I used these holes I would be splicing in little pieces of metal at each hole to build back what was damaged.  This would make the job a lot tougher and the cover would most likely not be as clean and nice as I would like it.  I decided to put a call out for another 426 cover to use as a "parts" cover for the holes.  I've seen many a 426 cover be all to hell for big rocker and valve clearances.  That is exactly the kind of cover I'm looking for.

I was forced to set that aside and move on to another task.  Since all the steering column parts were painted the correct blue now there was no reason not to put it back together.  After laying all the parts out I went parts bag to parts bag cleaning and re-lubing everything.  When the time came to start throwing things together, my memory failed me.  There were just too many pieces to recall where everything went.  Luckily I had taken a series of pictures as things were taken apart.  I may have been able to get through it with the factory service manual but my pictures sure helped.  Still, it was a bit nerve racking because with the main rod going through the locking sleeve and all that going through the main painted housing tube, everything had to be put back in a certain order.  I must have taken the ignition switch area apart 4-5 times because of not realizing something else had to be assembled before that area was.  Even after everything was together, I had forgotten to put the plate that bolts the column to the firewall on the housing before securing the main shaft through the middle.  Once that shaft is in place you can't get those plates on.  I was able, after taking the ignition switch out again, to slide the shaft up far enough to get the plates on with having to removing the shaft all together.  By midnight I had the steering column together.  The only remaining part was the coupling to the steering box.  I had yet to clean and paint the coupler.  I did have a kit that included new insides and seal. Once the coupler was ready this part was no trouble to get on.

I got a call from the friend who is assembling my DANA for me.  He says I can come pick it up!  Great!  Hmmm, I will need my wheels and tires ready.  I drug the 5 wheels I had in the attic down for cleaning and painting.  I'm using 4 later year 15x7 plain steel wheels and a correct year 15x6.5 for the spare.  With the small "dog dish" caps covering the part of the wheels that gives away their true year, I was ok with using them... besides, have you seen what people are getting for '70 15x7 steel wheels????  Anyway,  the 15x6.5 I have will look 100% correct sitting in the trunk with the center area exposed.  Yea I'm sure people will spot that it's not a 7" wheel but it's what I have... it'll have to do.  The wheels took for frickin' ever to bead blast.  I was using glass beads at first to get a really smooth finish, but after 2 wheels and like 3 hours standing at the cabinet I said screw this and replaced the beads with the sharper, more aggressive "Black Beauty" media.  It cut the cleaning time down to about 45 minutes a wheel and did a more thorough job.  With the wheel faces, rears and lips cleaned I "treated" them all with Oxysolve and began prepping them for paint.  A big issue with these wheels is the fact that full wheel covers had been used on them and there were bad gouges where the sharp tongs of the covers dug into the lips.  These gouges would show up big time when painted blue so I needed to dress and fill these scratches before any color can be applied.  While I was at it, I decided to fill in the part number near each valve stem in order to further along the deception that these wheels were correct.  After several coats of primer, sanding and wiping down with lacquer cleaner, I sealed the front surfaces with sealer.  I then went ahead and painted all the backs of the wheels with Eastwoods gloss chassis black... I love that paint.  It covers so incredibly well.  I got all 5 wheels, backs and lips, with one can and have some left in the can.  That's where I left the wheels... drying.  I already have my B5 paint for the fronts.  I'll try to get that done within this next 2 weeks, along with picking up the DANA!