I don't remember the brand and I sold that car 2-3 yr's ago with all the receipts. Each wire was backed with tinted tape and rolled out off the roll. Each strand was very flexible and required effort to get them straight and not wavy. The wires are also fragile. It was a job for an Octopus! Yours looks like it has a backing which should yield a nice placement pattern. Thinking back I should have sprayed some soapy water before attempting to install it. IIRC, my source was Ebay.

I made some decent progress on cleaning parts for plating yesterday evening. I got the last (for now) of the larger parts to be plated blasted. The "cleaned" bucket is getting more full and the rust bucket is empty although I still have a pile of small parts in the vibrator and in front of the wire wheel to do. The clean stuff will get another inspections and more cleaning as needed.

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I even moved on to start media blasting some of the parts that will be painted rather than plated. A before and after here.

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I still need to strip some hardware off the steering rack, trailing arms, roof, and seats. Once those are prepped, I think it will be time to send for plating. This prepping hardware is almost as much fun as media blasting the chassis.

A Good Flocking

As soon as @raynekat mentioned re-flocking the glove box, I knew I had to do it. Not only is this the sort of detail that makes me smile, "flocking" sounds quite dirty so of course I had to give it a go. Even better, I reached out to Doug with a couple questions about supplies to buy and he just boxed up his kit and mailed it for me to use what I needed and return the rest. So, it was time to revisit the glove box.

I was ignoring a few splits in the corners of the box because repairing them would destroy the flocking and as they were, they weren't visible when the box was installed. But now there was no reason not to fix them. I used Titebond III wood glue which is the waterproof version of basic aliphatic resin wood glue. For some reason, I've noticed car guys tend to scoff at this stuff but really, when it comes to bonding any form of cellulosic fiber, you can't find a stronger bond. The form had deformed at the splits so I dampened them with water and heated them with a heat gun until they became pliable. Then it is just a matter of holding them in the desired shape while the material cools. Here it is partially through the repair showing the condition of the box, and the staining that results from the wood glue.

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After a stimulating flocking, it looks good as new. Thank you Doug!

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And here it is back in the dash with a pair of Montana driving gloves.

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BTW, I never noticed before that the glove box isn't wide enough to fit the owner's manual packet without scrunching up the cover vinyl. I guess back in the day, I was worried about scrunching that cover.

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In other news, I'm startng to get panicked over some missing parts. I'm missing the short e-brake cable and equalizer bar that attaches to the e-brake handle. Also missing is the piston rod that pushes into the master cylinder from the pedal. I've pretty much exhausted my search but am heading out to the woods where our main storage shed is this afternoon for one more search.

That's a "flocked" glove box that even a Moose could love. Well done! That stuff flies everywhere, eh what?

Hi Brent,

On my 74 CA car, I have the brake part I can loan you if you cannot come up with one and I have the brake master rod you need as I changed to a Tilton Pedal set up on my V8 car and will not use it. Happy to give that part to you. Easy for me but the emergency brake part is more work and it will be dirty for me. Just let me know my 914 Brother


Bob B
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Hey Bob, That's very generous. I'll keep you posted. A very cold search in the shed turned up nothing. I'm going to give the garage a thorough cleaning and reorganizing this weeked so hopefully they'll turn up. There's a chance they fell behind one of my work counters that has a gap between the back and walls and where I tend to pile crap.

The only reason I want to find them now is in case I need to include any associated bits in the plating batch. There's also a chance I tossed the cable on the scrap heap as that was an area of some pretty horrendous rust. I've also confirmed from reviewing photos that the pedal cluster was removed before I started the restoration, which means it could have fallen through a hole in the floor somewhere along the 1,200 mile route the car was hauled getting it to Montana. It all just adds more texture to the journey, right?

Bruce Stone and/or Garrold Shaffer probably have those spare parts

I picked up a grease fitting and a better set of picks yesterday to take a stab at finishing the brake disassembly. We left off on that story with two front calipers successfully disassembled, a late rear caliper disassembled except for the inner adjuster screw, and an early rear caliper with a stubborn inner caliper that didn't want to screw out. Following Eric's advice, I screwed on the grease zerk and pumped her full of grease to blow the piston top off of the adjuster. Within seconds it was done and I could finally see what the trouble was. The adjuster was just spinning inside the piston which seemed like a good thing since it meant no broken gear teeth. But how to get the adjuster off? That turned into a 3 hour puzzle that first required tearing the adjuster from the other piston apart just so I could figure out how the damn thing was put together.

There is considerable difference between the early and late adjuster mechanisms. While the late adjusters are typical German with simple efficiency and only the necessary parts, the early adjusters are a Rube Goldberg sort of affair that is positively idiotic. The hub for the screw floats inside a series of gadgets interconnected by springs. Once the piston is removed, there is no pressure that locks the hub that the screw goes in with the rest of the mechanism so it just spins free. This was a BIG problem since the reason the piston wouldn't screw out was because the screw was seized inside the hub, hence the spinning without pushing the piston out. I tried all sorts of bad ideas to try to get enough leverage to break the screw free from inside the hub. What finally worked was pushing down onto the spring loaded top in one of several holes with a scratch awl and gently tapping with a small hammer. This simultaneously put downward pressure to lock the apparatus with the hub and spun the hub off the screw. Finally, success! Here's the complete assembly of brake bits to be cleaned and restored.

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And here's both late (rear 2) and early (front) adjusters. The late ones are German simplicity. The early ones are complicated pieces of shit.

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Here's a close up of that trouble making little fucher. I wonder if I can find a tap to match the threads of that hub. I'd like to chase those threads clean up some slight roughness from the rust.

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That's it for now. Got another project I've been working on that I'll report on tomorrow.

I'm impressed! Not many people would spend that much time documenting that they've got a screw loose.

As the late Jim Morrison might say, "Come On Baby Hush my Firewall..."

The plan was to haul that heavy and bulky firewall pad out of the shed and put it in the car, but it didn't pass inspection. The lead-weighted rubber looked fine and only needed a cleaning, but larger areas of fiber (does this stuff contain asbestos?) were missing.

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Looking at alternatives, I strongly considered the 914Rubber option for replacement pad but quiet is very important to me and I thought this would be an opportunity to upgrade to more modern materials. Searching the many options and weighing them against my tight-ass CSOB criteria, I took the hint from @76-914 and ordered some of this on ebay for $34 shipped:



It is very similar to the sample of H-Liner from B-Quiet that I have. The foam on this stuff is more dense, which seems like might be a good thing, but the foil face on the B-Quiet product is more durable as this stuff seems a little on the fragile side. The other difference is that the stuff I bought is 1/3 the price of B-Quiet and got really good reviews on Amazon. Since I wasn't going bone stock, I decided to up the ante and put some of my unused Noico sound deadener to use as a base layer for extra sound absorption. Using the original pad as a template, I cut the materials to match.

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Next step was to install the Noico.

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I've already stated my policy on the Mercury spaceman look. There were seven childhood heros who could rock that look but that's about it. I don't want my engine bay looking like a pot grow room so the open cell liner needed an extra treatment.

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Okay, here's where I screwed up. Despite the cheesy commercials, I've used Flex-Seal to waterproof planters to grow carnivorous plants (have we established that I'm weird?) and knew that it creates a finish texture that is a good match to the original sound pad. But don't use Flex-Seal! Actually, it worked well but it wasn't until it was too late that I realized that rubberized undercoat or body schutz would work just as well and be more cost effective. To match the texture of the original pad, you really need to build up 3-5 coats. Flex-Seal is $13/can and it took a full can just to spray one coat. The CSOB in me decided the one coat was enough even though you can still see the wrinkles of the foil face but looks original-ish.

George (dr914) was nice enough to post the NAPA part # for the correct panel fasteners for installing the pad. The adhesive backing on the pad worked pretty well but I did have to supplement with just a littler contact adhesive in a couple spots where the pad makes sharp bends.

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If I'd had my epiphany BEFORE sticking the pad in place, I would have spent more time building up layers to create a thicker coating and match the original more closely. I still think it looks good. Time will tell how durable it is.

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A major complaint of the original pad is the weight. I've read it is 11 lbs. but honestly, it feels heavier. All I know is that it bottomed out the 7 lb. max on the postal scale I had available to measure, but I'll bet it is closer to 15 lbs. So anyway, how does my new version compare? Well, the Noico weighed in at 4.6 lbs. and the open cell pad added a whopping 0.9 lbs for a grand total of about 5.5 lbs. That's a decent weight savings. Of course I don't know yet how it will perform but I can tell you that standing inside the engine bay, the difference was immediately noticeable. The space instantly took on that hushed atmosphere of an insulated space. I'm pretty sure the cabin will be as quiet as a Lexus

Checked a small project off the list during lunch today. When I took the glove box apart, the little screws attaching the door pull were corroded into the threaded nutserts embedded in the plastic pull. The only way to get them out was to yank the inserts out of the pull. Belmetric didn't have the right size (3mm) inserts, but I found them on Amazon. Only catch was they come in a bag of like a hundred or so. If anyone needs tiny inserts, I'll send you as many as you need.

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I smeared the insides of the bores with a tiny bit of E6000 adhesive just to provide extra encouragement for the inserts to stay in place. It wasn't really necessary as the inserts fit tight enough they had to be tapped in with a tack hammer.

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Good as new. I just put it on finger tight since it will have to come back off.

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Okay, should I be worried? Do I need an intervention? Yesterday I noticed that the rubber bellows on my NOS brake cable wasn't folding neatly along the pleats. For some reason that bugged the shit out of me so I forced it to fold right and clamped it in place hoping it will develop correct memory. I hope so because I'd hate to have to abandon the project after getting this far.

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Oh My

Just drove through Montana on the way home from Seattle. Nicer in a 914.

Should've stopped by. I'm just 3 miles off I-90.

And, if you'd been in a 914, it would have been the first one to drive up that road.

Thanks Brent! I was begining to worry my OCD was getting the best of me. It's now clear to me I still have a ways to go...

Well, I was on pins and needles but the bellows clamp worked so I guess I'll go ahead with this project.

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Good thing too because either Santa arrived early today, or 914rubber took a huge dump on my floor. This should keep me busy for awhile.

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I'm trying hard not to let these goodies distract me too much. I really need to finish up prepping hardware to send for plating.

That a lot of nice stuff sitting there.

Okay, I had to play with some of the new goodies a little bit. I installed the front trunk cable. I have to be honest, I'm not wowed by this piece. The sheath is spot on but the wire cable is soft mild steel compared to the original which is smaller gauge but a very stiff spring steel. To make it work, you have to flood the tube with lubricant. Seems like a stiffer wire would be a better option here. Based on this, I'm not going to use the engine release cable that came in my kit as the original is still in good shape. Important thing is that this cable looks like it will work and it is in sans latch.

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Another shot of the cable with a new heater hose grommet down there.

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I also installed the 3-hole grommet for the Bowden cables. I hope to hell that is in the right hole because it was a little bastard to get in. Foreshadowing of what is in store when I install the air box?

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Another shot of that heater hose grommet with some spiffy harness showing through.

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Then it was around to the back side to play with my nipples... heater cable nipples that is. You can see the NOS OEM shift bushing there too.

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I also installed the engine shelf seals. Hard to photograph but I cut them a little long to leave some extra for when they shrink.

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You can see one of the new roof latch cups in this one.

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I installed a couple other things too but that's enough screwing around, time to get to work.

Okay, back to serious work of harvesting hardware to send for plating. I tore down the steering rack. That thing was a little bitch. The oil seal had bare metal outer ring that had fused itself but good to the magnesium housing. Had to invent a couple new curse words to get the pinion gear out, but I prevailed.

I think I'll walnut blast the housing before reassembly. I might have a replacement bearing in the mail tomorrow compliments of @mb911 and ordered a second and the seal. Ben, I confirmed your bearing is the right one - THANKS In the end, that was a lot of work to scavenge those three bolts above the retainer springs for plating, but sooner or later, it had to be done. Oh, I'm installing turbo tie rods. To refurb the old ones would require new rod ends, bushings, and bellows. Kind of a no-brainer to go turbo.

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Next up was finishing off the brake pistons just to get them off the bench. A few hours in the vibratory tumbler and then some high temperature gray paint.

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So what's the opinion on this one? No, I didn't grab hold of it with vice grips That chip was actually corrosion. I think it will be okay but curious what you smart people think.

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Finally, I tore down the rear shock towers to harvest bits for the platers.

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Those shocks no son buenos. Anyone no where to find Boge/Sachs rear shocks anymore? I'd like to keep the ride as close to stock as possible. I'm going to test the rate on the springs. Not sure where to find stock springs anymore either.

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That's it for now.

AA has stock springs and I think 914rubber is also having them made. The shocks are a bit harder. Put out a WTB in all the usual places. Someone might have a set in their stash.

Simply Dashing

Progress on the car has been a tad frustrating lately. Nothing major, I've just had completion of a number of tasks delayed for various reasons which has me with lots of irons on the fire but none are hot. I needed a win to feel some sense of accomplishment. You may recall that the dash top was slightly grungy when I started this project and fell just a little shy of concours quality.



Time to break out the 303 Protectant and see if we can spruce that up a little. Yes, I believe that is better. This 303 is an amazing product.

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Oh don't get your undies in a twist. Yes, it is a 914Rubber vinyl kit.

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I also gave the dash a facelift with new vinyl and half-ass installed the dash cap and knee pad. The fit is loosy goosey because most of the hardware is in the plating bucket or missing and those pieces were really warped from being stored in an unheated shed for two years. Of course, both the padded pieces look typical for originals, cracked to pieces but new pads are not in the budget.

Here is the result hanging loose in the car for easy removal again. The air control panel bezel in in a box for replating. I didn't recover the radio plate yet because I'm not sure what radio will be installed. I might have to make a plate for a modern single DIN opening and the 914Rubber kit only gives me enough basket weave vinyl to cover one plate. All in all, this feels like accomplishment.

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ooh that's lookin purdy!

This is looking great! I will need to do same with mine to freshen it.

You've started this car from a really dark place. Glad to see it getting treated so well and revitalized.



I wonder if anyone has done the dash in leather rather than using one of the aftermarket toppers?

Lookin mighty fine there Brent. That is a quality trimmer type job!

Thanks guys.

I pissed away the rest of the day changing the hydraulic fluid on my snow plow. About as much fun as a colonoscopy. No way to do it without a huge mess. Tomorrow should be fun though. I got an unexpected package today that will let me finish up one of those unfinished projects.

The recent pics can't possibly be of the same car...

Brent, you're doing a stellar job on your baby!

The only thing changed from the before and after is the addition of that defroster switch you gave me. It really spruces the whole thing up!

Nice Rack!

The steering rack reassembly got stalled a little while I waited for a second bearing to arrive. It was delivered yesterday so I drove the 3 miles out to the mailbox and was surprised to also find a box full of goodies from PMB Performance. Included in that box was a shiny new turbo tie rod kit. So this morning the steering rack finally went from this:

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to this:

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A word about those retaining springs. Several posts on turbo tie rods on the Internet mention that the original retaining springs don't fit the turbo tie rods. I was curious what was supposed to go there so looked up the 930 parts in the PET. The PET shows the same springs as for the 914 on the 911 racks, but no retainers at all for the turbos on either side of the boots. Bottom line, you don't need retainer springs (or a substitute) for these boots. I went ahead and reinstalled springs on the inners but didn't bother with the outers. If you really want retainers, you can twist the old springs apart at the joint, clip them to length by cutting the NON-tapered end, and twisting them back together. It isn't necessary though.

You might notice several yellow tags there reminding me that I'm not finished yet. One reminds me to replace the pressure plate cover bolts with freshly replated bolts because, well, you know...

Another tag reminds me to apply locktite to the tie rod threads and tighten them. I'm waiting on the special spanner to arrive after our wonderful postal service lost the first one that should have arrived two weeks ago.

The last one reminds me to torque the rubber puck bolts and bend the lock tabs over the bolts. I didn't do that because I'm still undecided about the puck. I have a brand new one that came in my 914Rubber kit, but my original looks in perfect condition. I'm inclined to keep the original and sell the original at a bargain. What would you all do?

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A couple other notes. The steering shaft looks like it might have been anodized originally but my upper shaft was badly rusted (that sounds dirty). I bead blasted it and shot it with a coat of flat black paint. I think it looks acceptable.

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Finally, and interesting note about the new tie rod ends. One came with the standard castle nut and the spindle cross-drilled for a cotter pin. The other came with self-locking cone nut loosely threaded on the spindle and a second self-locking ring nut in the package. The spindle is not cross-drilled. I'm guessing this is just an alternative mounting version and the choice of nuts is an either/or thing. Anyone have better insight? The alternative could be that they want it double-nutted.

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Well, I best get back to it. I have some unfinished business with the snow plow to take care of first though.

One more little project completed today. Also in my box of PMB goodies was a new pair of rear wheel bearings and a pair of ball joints. The joints have nothing to do with this project. I just wanted to show off my new balls.

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Of course the first thing to do with a new set of sealed bearings is to tear them apart. Wait... what?

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But why? I've been reading a lot about premature bearing failure and it turns out these Slovakian bearings are coming out of the factory improperly greased. There are a couple good Youtube videos on this. I wasn't taking any chances.

The first bearing I popped open actually wasn't too bad. The grease on the outer race sides of the bearing cages was on the skimpy side but it might have been okay.

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However, one vid claims the factory grease is only rated to around 250F. I don't know what typical wheel bearing temps run, but that seems a little close. This redline stuff is rated for something like 800F so seems like cheap insurance.

Here's the first bearing greased and ready for reassembly.

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I popped open the second bearing and it was downright scary. It doesn't show well in this pic, but there is no fuching grease in there! There is a smear of grease on the inner race side of the cage but the outer race side is bone dry. I mean DRY! How the fuch are they getting away with this?

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Anyway, takes maybe 20-30 minutes per bearing and they are all back together with a good pack of quality grease. Time well spent.

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One last pic just to show off what else I got from PMB. New soft brake lines, new bronze pedal bushings, and those pretty yellow tubes. I'll probably wind up buying a pair for the front too. I just need to let the sticker shock wear off a little first.

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A useless post, but then which of mine aren't:

You said sticker "shock"...

(But hey, at least I read what you write and don't just look at the pictures. That outta get me a little credit.)

Wish I could say the pun was intended, but nope. You get the credit for that one.

Good call on the bearing grease. Downright piss-poor QC - or maybe they ship them like that on purpose, so you'd have to buy new ones in the not-to-distant future

FAG isn't the only game in town ... are SKF bearings suffering from the same QC process?

I wondered the same thing about SKF. I just ordered my bearings from Eric/PMB. I think he sells both FAG and SKF depending on availability. I used SKF bearings in my rack rebuild. One bearing was new and stamped "Made in France" and the other was NOS made in Germany. Maybe the French have better QC

BTW, I forgot to mention that I wound up with a couple extra bearings from the rack rebuild if anyone is planning to do a rebuild. One is a NOS made in Germany SKF 16002 which fits my 1973 rack. The other is an FAG 6202. Not sure what that fits but if anyone can use one or both, I'll send them to you free.


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A new set of fuel lines from @Rotary'14 came in the mail today.

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The immediately went in the car.

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I need to get some 30R14 hose to connect them together as well as some small pieces of hose to wrap the lines at the metal hold downs.

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I think I'll mount the bypass fuel regulator for the carbs on the MPS bracket. Should make for clean routing of fuel hoses for the supply and return.

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I also recieved a package from @KevinW . The missing brake part problem is solved as well as a nice pair of rubber springs for the rear struts. Thanks Kevin.

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I popped open the second bearing and it was downright scary. It doesn't show well in this pic, but there is no fuching grease in there! There is a smear of grease on the inner race side of the cage but the outer race side is bone dry. I mean DRY! How the fuch are they getting away with this?


Brent, I'm an automotive engineer with background that includes development of hubs and bearings. I've worked with both SKF and FAG directly. Both make great bearings. Too much grease is as bad as too little. There is an optimal grease load for bearings. Believe it or not, there is a lot of lab testing to figure out what is optimal.

Too much grease will:
Cause more parasitic drag- just like oil windage sucks HP from an engine.

Cause more heat buildup within the bearing that leads to actually thinning the grease and the thin film that is between the bearing and the race.

Lead to grease leakage over time out of the seal which attracts dust & debris that then abrades the lip seals, leading to dirt and water ingress which shortens bearing life. Grease expands when hot -- you need space in the bearing for that expansion otherwise - it goes out of the bearing as it expands.

Too much grease is also wasted $$ to the bearing manufacturer. It costs more $ than necessary, degrades bearing life, etc. No sense spending $ to degrade a product.

On the flip side -- now that you have re-greased, don't worry about that either. The $ wasted for "extra" grease is by far the biggest piece of the equation above. For your project, the "extra" isn't going to hurt a thing.

Great to see how far your project has come. Awesome workmanship.

Paint looks great and I'm Jealous that you are at the reassembly stage of the project!

@Superhawk996 , thanks for posting this. I thought when I did that first bearing (the one i the pics) that I was probably overpacking it. That has been nagging at me and I've been thinking I should pop it back open and remove some grease. Your post affirms my gut was correct. Even a dummy like me could figure out that too much grease would cause drag. Worst case, I could see it causing pressure to build up inside the bearing when it heats and possibly pop the seals.

That said, I still believe there may be a QC problem with these bearings. The first clue was several reports of premature failures of recently purchased bearings. I first read about it on this forum which led to learning this is a known problem in the Boxster world too. That was the only reason I decided to pop my bearings open in the first place.

Second is what I found on the two bearings I opened. One had noticeably less grease than the other, so one of them didn't have an optimal amount. I think the first one I opened would have been okay. I could see they weren't wasting any money on extra grease, but it looked like an adequate amount to keep the bearing lubricated. the second one was a different story. I don't know how quickly grease applied to the inner side of the ball cage would migrate to the outer, but at a minimum, the bearing with less grease would have run dry on the outer race until that happened. But it also looked to me like even after the grease was evenly distributed, there would only be a very thin film of grease coating the bearings and races. I just wouldn't have been comfortable with that one.

Overall, I'm glad I spent the time and grease to do this, but I'm even more glad there are smart people like you to help me correct my mistakes. It's not the first time, nor will it be the last, and my car is much better because of it. Now out to the garage to scrape some grease out. Thanks!

Now out to the garage to scrape some grease out. Thanks!
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Seriously, I wouldn't sweat it. I mentioned it more so to point out that you would be amazed how little grease it really takes to make a bearing happy. Most of us tend to over pack them. My younger self included.

Much of the bearing discussion is based on trying to get ideal life (10 years / 100,000 miles) out of a bearing. Not likely to be a real concern for our "toy" cars.


With respect to early failures of bearings reported on the web, I'd be willing to bet a lot of those involve flawed installations. Beating on bearings with hammers or pressing in using the wrong race to apply pressure accounts for a lot of premature failure. Likewise a "cocked" bearing will wear very quickly. I know this from having done it myself back in the day

A couple of points w.r.t. the difference in grease pack between bearings.

All things have manufacturing tolerances. Since grease load isn't massively sensitive to variation I'd expect rather generous tolerances.

Biggest risk to off the shelf service bearings would be "waxed" grease that is simply dry itself and has lost its lubricity from sitting on a shelf somewhere for the last 10 years.

Too late, it's done. The reason it was bugging me is because I put so much grease in that first bearing that grease oozed around the seals and between the inner races when I put it back together. I knew at the time that couldn't be good but just wiped off the grease that oozed out. I just opened that one bearing up enough to wipe some excess out with my finger. I'm happy now.

What a Gas
Continuing to gather the last hardware bits to prep for plating. This plating stuff really sucks because it forces you to disassemble components before you are ready. I much prefer to break a component apart, refresh it and put it back together before all those memory synapses decay. Oh well, I'll quit my bitchin'. This morning was breaking down the fuel tank. Nothing noteworthy except look how clean this is inside.

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Even the sock was in great shape.

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I guess the tin worms were too busy eating the rest of the car to notice this. Probably helped that the last tank of fuel in this sucker was old fashioned leaded petrol with no ethanol. That's no joke. I was planning to do the whole electrolysis thing to clean this tank, but that seems like a wast of effort. Now I'm thinking just an overnight soak with vinegar or metal prep and call it good. What do you smart people think?

BTW, that first pic shows maybe the best reason of all why it is a good idea to run a return fuel line. Anyone see what it is?

That’s awesome. Glad the tank stayed nice. Not sure about the return line comment. My thinking cap is only coming up with the fact that it dumps back into the “bowl”.
Carry on....

I purchased a motorcycle with fuel that was 26 years old. Must have been real gas. No rust in the tank.

@Dion , your thinking cap is working well as usual. Because the return line enters at the bowl, it means the pump is constantly refilling the reserve fuel bowl. The result is that the system is constantly scavenging fuel from the tank and concentrating it in the bowl so the pump can drain out the last drop. Without it, the pump is going to be fuel starved before the tank is actually empty. I can't see in well enough or get my hand in to tell if there are any holes in the sides of the bowl, but it looks like starvation could occur even with several gallons left in the tank. Now I want to see a cutaway view of that thing.

cup full not empty

But does it runneth over?

Ok, here's a little catchup of some tasks that go back to the weekend before New Year's Day. I decided to clean up the engine fan and shroud. That seems random, but there was some logic behind which is long and boring to describe, so I won't. I wound up just blasting them with crushed glass because I didn't have much luck with walnut shell. This pick shows the fan after media blasting followed by brushing with a brass wire wheel against the untouched fan shroud.

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And here's the shroud after the same treatment. Both were sprayed with Boeshield T-9 for protection because it was recommended on another thread. Seems like good stuff but time will tell how it protects over the long haul.

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The fan was a little frustrating because I picked up a can of VHT primer on New Year's Eve and went to paint the fan pulley the next day only to find the paint had gone to shit. I suspect it had frozen as the pigment just puked out in solid chunks causing me to have to reblast the pulley and put the task on hold. Finally climbed off my hermit mountain last week and exchanged the paint, so finished the job this morning.

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It isn't bolted together as that hardware is in the plating buckets. Here's a shot with the repainted timing marks. The story on that black mark is in this Mystery Mark thread.

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My other task today was to do something about this box of rusty brake calipers.

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Oh yeah, I also finished blasting the A-Arm that has been in the blasting cabinet for weeks. Look closely and you can tell which one it is.

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A better shot of the calipers. Two of them have taken a ride on the wire wheel. I'm told the shine will show through after plating.

Click to view attachment

I strongly recommend putting more paint marks even with the existing ones on the front part of the fan, just in front of where the belt goes. They are a lot easier to see than the actual timing marks, and can give you a very good quick reference when setting timing or finding TDC.

I also recommend another mark at 180 out from the TDC mark.

--DD

Will do. The pulley already has marks filed in for the 27 BTDC and the 29 BTDC mystery mark but on the flange where the pulley mates with the impeller. I just haven't painted the 27 mark so it doesn't show in the pic. I'll add the marks suggested. If I understand correctly, they should go on the opposite side of the pulley piece from where it meets the fan? I don't remember having problems seeing the factory marks back when I was tuning these cars, but I was a lot more flexible with better eyes back then.

Coming along nicely. Awesome to see the craftsman ship you're putting into parts most will never see. Outstanding.