Thread: Followed Me Home II

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So I'd called the PO of the project to let him know that the box labeled "Rear backing plates & drums" was missing the drums, and also that I believed that the poly fuel tank came with a filler nozzle & billet aluminum cap, as I had found the cork gasket and screws for it, but no nozzle. Neither is a big deal, but if they're sitting in his garage/basement then they're of no use to him. The good news, he called me yesterday and said that he'd found the drums in the basement, put there after he'd painted them; and he'd not only found the fuel nozzle but a anti-rollover vent and some mounting hardware for the tank, too. Bonus!! I picked up the lot yesterday on the way to another errand, and he told me he'd used "high temp paint on the drums, so they're good to go."

Today I went out and started gathering things that need to be painted chassis black. As I looked at the drums I noticed a spot where the gloss black had flaked to bare metal so I took a piece of duct tape, pressed it on firmly and ripped it off bringing all of the paint off with the tape I spent about an hour with a wire brush before I grabbed a wire wheel in a plug-in drill and got after them. I swear undoing the things the PO did that aren't right takes longer than doing them right from the start!!

Spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out the front part of the barn that serves as the spray area, getting ready to prime & paint a bunch of little junk. Wanting to get the chassis stuff & wheels done so I can get it sitting on rubber, set the engine & tranny in place to see what I need to do to the tranny mount, and then set the body on to see what needs to be trimmed to clear the tranny bellhousing area.

Making good headway Roger! Great that you could get those parts too! I wonder if the guys at Por 15 make and brake drum paint that goes right on rust for better bond, but heat resistant! I know they make brake caliber paint, but I can't imagine they get nearly as hot as drums! I hate wire brushing rust!

Originally Posted by stovens

Making good headway Roger! Great that you could get those parts too! I wonder if the guys at Por 15 make and brake drum paint that goes right on rust for better bond, but heat resistant! I know they make brake caliber paint, but I can't imagine they get nearly as hot as drums! I hate wire brushing rust!

No rust here. Brand new drums painted with heat resistant paint on raw cast iron with zero prep, not even a wipe down with solvent to remove oils to stem rust in the box. They're clean, down to bare metal now and washed with lacquer thinner.

What a awesome project in any case, Roger.
Kurt

Originally Posted by vara4

What a awesome project in any case, Roger.
Kurt

Thanks Kurt. I'm going to have as much fun as I can doing the fab on this one. A roadster is gonna be soooo much easier. No heat, no AC, no power windows, no suicide door latches.

Got the rear drums, front rotors, ladder bars, panhard bar & brake pushrod painted this morning, and as I'm typing this realized that I forgot to pull the pedal

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I still have to get the differential re-painted black, but my guy didn't get the new gears in the third member Friday as he'd promised, and I want to do it all as a unit instead of masking everything so I'll do it Monday/Tuesday, and do the brake pedal them, too. Also have the tranny to do, but it's sprayed with a gray cast iron finish with no primer so I need to do an acetone wash on it, and maybe some grinding on rough spots first, and I may wait until I've done the test fit to see what the tranny cross member needs to mate to the 700R4.

It's all looking good Roger....... Is the body going to be black too...??

wow - just read thru all this thread again and very impressive!
theres some neat builds going on here at the moment and good to see everyone is posting pics and telling us the story
if everyone thought it was too much effort to take photos and post a story there wouldn't be much of a forum!!
i've been guilty of that and now realize that alot of our mistakes/murphy or idiot moments actually help other people,
so i have the camera in the workshop all the time
anyway-too much redwine burbling-thanks for the progress reports!

As always, thanks for the progress pics Mr.Spears. Your at the stage of the build that I always enjoy the most! And I think you do to...

Originally Posted by parkwood

It's all looking good Roger....... Is the body going to be black too...??

Thanks! No, the PO had already painted the chassis black so I've decided to keep it "old school", like the days when the fenders got pulled Friday night for racing the dry lakes over the weekend, then put back Sunday night to be respectable and not draw too much attention.....except I won't have fenders, won't try to be respectable, and it'll be vying for attention. I've settled on an oxblood/deep maroon interior color and had paint matched to that for the wheels. I've not picked the final color for the body yet, at least not to the point where I'll say it's gonna be "X"

Originally Posted by 34_40

As always, thanks for the progress pics Mr.Spears. Your at the stage of the build that I always enjoy the most! And I think you do to...

Mike, you have me pegged! The problem with this part is trying to engage the vision far enough down the road that the features can be incorporated in a sensible sequence I've ordered a windshield and top, figuring that in the Kansas sun a top is all but mandatory. Thanks to Don, Da34Guy, for providing me with the dimensions and location details for the two little brackets necessary to mount the top. I got them bent and in place a few days ago, while I was fretting with getting the barn cleaned out to paint. This is the first one, mounted temporarily before the bottom edge was smoothed out a bit. They can be left in place and painted body color to "disappear", or chromed. I think I'm leaning towards having them chromed, as I think that while chrome can get scratched paint will chip easier.

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Roger what do you use for exhaust fan and filter in your booth? You are doing a great job on this build!

Hank

Originally Posted by desert dog

Roger what do you use for exhaust fan and filter in your booth? You are doing a great job on this build!
Hank

Thanks, Hank! About a year ago I went "all in" on converting the front 15' of the barn into a temporary paint booth. I already had a gable mounted exhaust fan from Tractor Supply that pulls ~1200scfm, shown here.

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I considered moving it down low on the wall but decided that it wasn't worth the extra effort at this point. This is the fan from the inside.

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I decided to use the two garage doors for my air inlet, and I built a pair of 2x4 boxes to hold four 20x20x1 furnace filters each, biased to the outside to increase the exhaust function as much as I could. The two garage doors sit atop these two filter boxes, and I added a piece of 4 mil plastic across the top of the doors to seal the gap caused by the doors being slightly inboard at the top. The filters are cheap furnace filters that run $7.50 for three. I need eight for a total change, but the inboard filters get loaded quicker....

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The inside has a 2x4 stud wall covered in 4 mil plastic, with each side built to fold up to the outside, and the three shed roof extensions pulled up by a pulley system to hold them up and out of the way when the space is not used for painting.
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Once the painting's done the three roof panels lift, and the two wall sections fold flat against the outside barn walls, only taking about 3.5" of space on the side and a bit of overhead space sacrifice for the three shed roof panels. Setting it up to paint means cleaning out this section of the barn, extending the wall and washing down the walls, roof & ceiling with the pressure washer to get all the spider webs blown away. It gives me a 15'x30' open area to spray, which is plenty so far.

That is nice. thank you for the info. I was looking at portable booths, but had decided to go with plastic like You but was going to use portable fan on the ground, but I like yours better. Thanks for the pictures.

Hank

Make sure you use a fan with an induction (brushless) motor. Aerosolized paint can cause a dust explosion, and motors with brushes produce a lot of sparks.

Aren't you worried about the paint coloring the outside of the building. I had this happen to the roof on a shop long ago.

Originally Posted by cffisher

Aren't you worried about the paint coloring the outside of the building. I had this happen to the roof on a shop long ago.

So far the dust has washed off with the pressure washer, Charlie. Like the black overspray dust on the top panel of each door, a quick blast with the pressure washer and they're bright white again.