Both Saturday and Sunday I was lucky enough to spend at the garage. I took some engine measurements and everything looks good. I wasn't that meticulous and not what I would consider especially careful as I was just looking for a gross problem that I would need to address (like a new motor, perhaps). I do intend to perform a much more careful and extensive "blueprinting" of the engine at a later date and will post on that when it happens. I also disassembled the head down to where only the valve guides remain installed. There are some issues with the head (pretty sure I'm going to need a new set of valves) but I will post on that later as well. For now, take it that engine work is on pause.
We don't have the gas turned on in the garage yet (propane heat) but the garage warmed up enough after lunchtime on Saturday that I decided to spray the last bit of red that I needed to get on both the frame and the front suspension turrets.
In the sun it was over 60F, so I moved the turrets outside and shot them with a dust coat of primer. If you remember, I had previously painted one red with regular Rustoleum. Not a match, of course, so it was time to get the proper color on.
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| Dust coat of primer on both turrets for better base coat adhesion. |
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| Oooo, ahhh. No clear coat yet. |
In between getting the turrets shot, I set up my "paint booth" again and finished up the underside of the frame with the two coats it needed for full coverage. I let everything dry completely overnight. Sunday I came back to put the clear coat on everything. The directions call for 3 to 4 coats, waiting 10-15 minutes between each coat. It was still a good temperature in the garage, so that's what I did.
It's far from perfect. The clear coat on the frame wasn't great, and there is quite a bit of orange peel. But, it is only the frame after all. I will say again, however, that I am very happy with the quality of the paint from Automotive Touchup and how evenly it applied. It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it.
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| Look at that shine! |
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| Opposite side. |
In between coats, I worked on cleaning up the front suspension turret mounting hardware. There are five bolts that hold a turret in place. Four are on the outer part of the frame and one bolts down from the top. There are nut bars that fit into the frame that sandwich it all in.
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| How the suspension turret bolts in. |
In my case, most every one of the bolts was stripped in some way. I didn't take any pictures that came out clear enough, but a few had just a thread or two that was deformed while others had a quarter of the threads completely flattened. One of the four nut bars had bad threads as well.
I still have the black car's hardware and discovered that several of those bolts were also in bad shape. Not as bad as Dorothy's, but for a rebuild, bad enough not to re-use. All of the nut bars were good, however, so I cleaned those up and primed them for use. I also cleaned up the shims.
That, along with the engine stuff I mentioned at the beginning ended my weekend. But, I'm very excited that my next visit to the garage (already done as I write this) included actual chassis assembly!
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| (L to R) Lower wishbone shims, nut bars, and turret shim all cleaned up. The shims are from Dorothy. |
That, along with the engine stuff I mentioned at the beginning ended my weekend. But, I'm very excited that my next visit to the garage (already done as I write this) included actual chassis assembly!
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| Sneak peak. |
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