Fender bumping and other fun
Saturday in the shop. I started out by cleaning up the horns and air cleaner in the blast cabinet, along with a few other small parts. They and the transmission are now ready for painting.
The paint from fenders and hood was stripped with chemical cleaner 6 weeks or more ago, then the fenders thoroughly cleaned, sanded and primed. Here's what that looked like:
A smelly, messy job!
Today, I started straightening the left front fender using a body hammer and occasionally the dolly. Very slow work, especially since I'm new to the process and not very skilled at it. The good news is that all the fenders are very solid, with no rust to speak off. They have a lot of dings and irregularities however, so the straightening is a critical step if the car is to look good when finished. Here's me at work:
I got about 90% of it; Ken will finish it up properly.
Another job today was rebuilding the steering box. The original didn't seem to have a lot of play, but thanks to eBay I had both a NOS sector shaft and steering shaft. I had new bearings and a seal, so figured why not do it right? This turned out to be a pretty easy job. First the column gets unscrewed from the box. Then the box is taken apart (2 bolts hold it, and the sector shaft can be separated from the column end.
I degreased both pieces, then pulled the sector shaft out of the housing. The bushing seemed fine, as there was no play when the new shaft was inserted into it. There are two small bearings [Timken 5-BC] on either end of the steering shaft, easily fitted to the shaft. The last piece is the oil seal on the end of the sector shaft housing. It has to be dug out, then a new 1/4" cork seal fitted to the carrier. I need to make a gasket, actually two gaskets, a paper and a cork one, that go between the two housings. Should be a nice tight steering car, especially since I replaced the ball-and-socket type tie rod ends with the bolt on variety soon after I got the car.
That was pretty much it for today. Slow but steady progress!
The paint from fenders and hood was stripped with chemical cleaner 6 weeks or more ago, then the fenders thoroughly cleaned, sanded and primed. Here's what that looked like:
A smelly, messy job!
Today, I started straightening the left front fender using a body hammer and occasionally the dolly. Very slow work, especially since I'm new to the process and not very skilled at it. The good news is that all the fenders are very solid, with no rust to speak off. They have a lot of dings and irregularities however, so the straightening is a critical step if the car is to look good when finished. Here's me at work:
I got about 90% of it; Ken will finish it up properly.
Another job today was rebuilding the steering box. The original didn't seem to have a lot of play, but thanks to eBay I had both a NOS sector shaft and steering shaft. I had new bearings and a seal, so figured why not do it right? This turned out to be a pretty easy job. First the column gets unscrewed from the box. Then the box is taken apart (2 bolts hold it, and the sector shaft can be separated from the column end.
I degreased both pieces, then pulled the sector shaft out of the housing. The bushing seemed fine, as there was no play when the new shaft was inserted into it. There are two small bearings [Timken 5-BC] on either end of the steering shaft, easily fitted to the shaft. The last piece is the oil seal on the end of the sector shaft housing. It has to be dug out, then a new 1/4" cork seal fitted to the carrier. I need to make a gasket, actually two gaskets, a paper and a cork one, that go between the two housings. Should be a nice tight steering car, especially since I replaced the ball-and-socket type tie rod ends with the bolt on variety soon after I got the car.
That was pretty much it for today. Slow but steady progress!
posted by Bob Shafto at 2:51 PM
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