Gerahead's 71 Dart
In the blink of an eye, the summer is over! There has been progress with the project, but it seems every three steps forward results in one backwards. I have checked out, cleaned and re-wrapped the engine bay wiring harnesses and replaced the battery cables. The differential has been rebuilt with new bearings, bead blasted and repainted. The heater box was dismantled, all the metal parts were bead blasted and repainted. The fresh air vent door was frozen and cracked near the lower hinge point. After several days in EvapoRust, the hinge freed up. I welded up the crack and ground it down, lubed it up and now it works great. The heater core looked to be in good shape, not visual evidence of coolant leaks anywhere. I had the heater core checked out and it leaked like a sieve! The new one didn't fit great where the inlet/outlet tubes come through the side of the box, but it'll work. The wiring for the windshield wiper motor had started to deteriorate, so I sent it off to get restored since I couldn't find a new replacement. I sent it to David Bass and was impressed with the results. It was 10 days from when I dropped it as the post office until I had the restored assemble back in my hands and it looks great!
Before:
After:
A couple pf weeks back, I stopped into the shop that will be doing the machine work on my engine. Good thing, I found out that they are about 4-5 out! So over the last couple of days I have torn it down, deburred the block and will be dropping all the bits off today to get into the queue. It looks like it hasn't been molested internally since new and didn't appear to be in bad shape for as long as it has been sitting, but appears to have been leaking from virtually every gasket possible! I have been playing with a liquid chrome product to replicate the long gone chrome trim on the dash panel inserts. It looks promising, but the pen style applicator I used doesn't work well for uniform coverage over larger areas. I just received a "bulk" bottle of the product that I am going to try to apply with an airbrush to try to achieve a more uniform surface. Results to follow. L8r!
Jim
In the blink of an eye, the summer is over! There has been progress with the project, but it seems every three steps forward results in one backwards. I have checked out, cleaned and re-wrapped the engine bay wiring harnesses and replaced the battery cables. The differential has been rebuilt with new bearings, bead blasted and repainted. The heater box was dismantled, all the metal parts were bead blasted and repainted. The fresh air vent door was frozen and cracked near the lower hinge point. After several days in EvapoRust, the hinge freed up. I welded up the crack and ground it down, lubed it up and now it works great. The heater core looked to be in good shape, not visual evidence of coolant leaks anywhere. I had the heater core checked out and it leaked like a sieve! The new one didn't fit great where the inlet/outlet tubes come through the side of the box, but it'll work. The wiring for the windshield wiper motor had started to deteriorate, so I sent it off to get restored since I couldn't find a new replacement. I sent it to David Bass and was impressed with the results. It was 10 days from when I dropped it as the post office until I had the restored assemble back in my hands and it looks great!
Before:
After:
A couple pf weeks back, I stopped into the shop that will be doing the machine work on my engine. Good thing, I found out that they are about 4-5 out! So over the last couple of days I have torn it down, deburred the block and will be dropping all the bits off today to get into the queue. It looks like it hasn't been molested internally since new and didn't appear to be in bad shape for as long as it has been sitting, but appears to have been leaking from virtually every gasket possible! I have been playing with a liquid chrome product to replicate the long gone chrome trim on the dash panel inserts. It looks promising, but the pen style applicator I used doesn't work well for uniform coverage over larger areas. I just received a "bulk" bottle of the product that I am going to try to apply with an airbrush to try to achieve a more uniform surface. Results to follow. L8r!
Jim