For various reasons I couldn’t get down to Mustang Maniac this weekend, so I was a Mr Grumpy big time, so the wife was telling me. I’m not so sure she was correct in her statement, but I was at a loose end with myself. OK I was little tiny bit grumpy and that’s all I will admit to. There I have said it and it’s the only part admission I am gonna make. Ahem, moving swiftly on. I decided it was clean up time and spray for a few bits of the car. All day on Saturday I was de-rusting the rear shock absorber mounts that were in a bad way. This was the usual POR15, primer and spray. This is usually a three to four hour gap between the two coats of the paint. I managed to get it done in a single day as my home-made oven was at full temperature. OK, my oven is in fact my man cave, and I didn’t make an oven after all, but it felt like it. I have a temperature gun some readings I took inside the man cave were 25deg to 33deg Celsius. So I painted outside and moved them inside the shed and left them to bake. It certainly done the trick alright. The spraying inside the man cave was just as effective as the spray coats were going of in around ten minutes between coats. Why no pictures? Well the plates are just squares with a hole on the ends at an angle that the bottom of the shock bolts into under the leaf springs. It really is a boring bit of metal to look at, and I don’t say that about too much stuff on a Mustang!
Today was little different though, again the oven was hot as the sun was shinning down and not a cloud in the sky, a beautiful day in fact. Perfect for plonking my stuff in the middle of the lawn and start wire brushing, degreasing, cleaning & painting. For some reason the wife was Mrs Grumpy at this point! I decided to finish the gas pedal spray and add the silver strip at the top of the pedal arm to match the brake pedal assembly. It was sprayed and left inside the oven and it dried pretty quickly. The idea is for the silver to start just after the firewall inside, I think I got it right, I don’t want it to show from the outside. There is no need for the silver edges at all on the pedals, in fact you won’t see them unless you look underneath the dash. I only put them on there for a little detail, just because I could and I know they are there.
The other part I stripped down today was the gear selector mechanism. This is the chrome lever with the T-handle on the top. This was pretty bad-looking, but in fact it was only a little rust on the surface. Wire brush got most of it off and the Eastwood Rust Encapsulator applied, in the oven! It all came up well, but I have not assembled it all yet, I wanted the spray to cure properly before I scratched it off while it was still soft. I will post the completed pics next week to show what it looks like. I have added a page for the process so far here, or can be found at the quick links below.
If all goes well I hope to be going to the Enfield Pageant on the 24th – 26th May 2014. I had a great time there last year rummaging through all sorts of old stuff. I did hear that Mustang Maniac will be there again this year, which will be good as last year I managed to grab a hot sausage sandwich from their big American SUV motor home. Pop along to see the guys and see what they are up too. 🙂
Oh, by the way I am not associated with the event in any way, it’s just a good day out. Should I take some photos there?
Quick Links:
Gear Shift Refurbishment click here or go to Photo Menu – Inside the car – Gear Shift Refurbishment.
Enfield Pageant link click here.
Sure, take your camera if you want to share some shots with us. Thank you.
I’m sure there will be some nice cars to take pics and share with.