Fri morning 9 am ran over to Eastwood to look at their Plastic Resurfacer and talked with what seemed like a guy who knew something about the product. It's a urethane, and not gasoline resistant and says he wouldn't use it in contact with gas. OK. Eastwood has a $10 online bonus discount. I asked if I could order the product on line and pick it up at the store using the 10 bucks like all the whole sellers do these days, NOPE. He even said i could try the SEM trim paint, OK,
Talked with my son about freshening up black plastic stuck to the outsides of vehicles and he says, "check this out".
Will get the heat gun off the shelf and try that method. Saw one video where the guy used a propane torch to do the eadges and a rosebud on a big torch to do the large section of a plastic trimmed truck. My problem with a torch for heat is the gas cap and tank are right there at the plastic part I need to rejuvenate. . Oh boy.
I know anything that anyone selling an wipe on liquid to improve the appearance is just a temporary fix, there are a dozens of those products out there.
Had to replenish my stash of masking tapes and while there picked a qt of Xylene and tried it on the adhesive I'm trying to remove. ZIP, NADA, 17 bucks and strike out. Next is try and make a blend of several different solvents and see if that touches the adhesive.
Here's ingredient in The 3M remover, i think i have all of them in the shop and will do a mix. Of course exact percentages is not shared info, Trade Secret. Hydrotreated Light Naphtha (Petroleum) 64742-49-0 30 - 60 Trade Secret * Xylene 1330-20-7 30 - 60 Trade Secret * Ethylbenzene 100-41-4 5 - 9.9 Trade Secret * Toluene 108-88-3 <= 0.9 Trade Secret * Benzene
Tonight will put some heat to some black plastic. Upstairs in the Mezz is some old black plastics car parts to do testing on. Before doing anything to the one on the 86. Bob
Talked to my guy who threw the black lacquer on the parts tonight. He said he had most all the stuff cut and buffed. Spoiler being so light weight he invited me to hold onto it while he buffed on it. Sat morning will stop over there and with a little luck have all the parts loaded back into my Astro van. Believe it or not that trunk lid slides right into the cargo area of the Astro and lays on the floor. I've been shopping for a replacement vehicle for that Astro for 2 years and NO SUV comes close to the cargo space in the back of that Astro. And that with a second seat in the van, and my golf clubs laying on the floor between seats. Just so many things I like about that Astro that you can not buy today.
A special note: Need to figure out how to repay my debt to the my friend who won't take anything for his time spent on my parts. When my Goodmark hood got black lacquered back in 2016 my other painter friend did that in his paint booth. We took his 67 Dart with the 440 and lots of glass parts to the 4 corner alignment rack and a four corner scaling, i paid the bill. That was a good trade of resources. Now need to figure out how to repay Joe. I helped him install his new $20K Olds engine back in his 65 Olds wagon this past year. We're not close to being even yet.
Hoping to find some times this weekend to reinstall the new painted parts. Apply some heat to black plastic license plate enclosure and watch it change back to pretty. Using a lot of tape and newspaper mask off the bumper cover and paint in the areas necessary so the new bumper strips can be sticky taped down. Reinstall the taillights, put the battery charger on the car cause it's been sitting to long. Next week hoping to see a couple warmer days so i can run the car around the block to have a little fun. Body shop laboring has got real old, need to smell some gas to get the necessary drive to pull the rear and change the R&P.
At the end of Feb the 02 SS needed it's annual State inspections. Rotating tires I saw the left drive axle was spewing grease all over the inside of the wheel and spindle. I washed all the mess up and took it to my inspection station promptly, didn't need them to see the failing axle. Today picked up a new axle and need to install that next week, after the 86 paint R&R is done and before pulling the rear.
Lots of parts I've replaced on the 02 SS front suspension. Just a year ago it was both LCA, prior was both outer tie rods. both front hubs, front sway bar twice, both front ABS harness, numerous rotors and pads. So no stranger to working on the front end of a W chassis. My daughter had an 05 GTP which also was apart a couple times. If all go well it's an afternoon to change that axle, the clean up of that grease spewed from a factory CV joint is time consuming.
Sat a fruitful trip to the painter's booth. We 1500 wet block a little more on the lid, and buffed a little and loaded everything into my Astro for the trip back to their home. Once all together if I'm not happy with the smoothness of the top of the deck I can play some more with some 1500 to knock it down. Getting trophies was not the reason to paint the parts, and I'm not that picky when it comes to finish, it still an old Chevy.
The valance got a second coat of POR on it's bottom side so it should never show any signs of rust again. As I mention Chevy, GM, never put must more than over spray on the bottom side. Previous before going to get painted several hours were spent on that bottom side to get a coat of POR on it.Tomorrow it will get reinstalled and DONE.
When the trunk lid was stripped 1" around the entire perimeter was taped to prevent stripper from touching the edge and the bottom side of the lid. Success. Before final painting all four lower rear corners of the lid were sanded and prepped. There was a good bit of rubbing, touching, going on in those corners over the years, lack of paint and very little surface rust. Before painting the top of the lid the entire bottom was masked and papered to about 1/2" from the edge. When the top was primered and painted some over spray touched the bottom edges of the lid. I told Joe to not spend any time playing with those bottom edges. When the lid was back in the shop yesterday I spent an hour just touching up the four corners and the entire bottom edges. It's a place rarely seen and I was able to just easily spray using my Duplicolor gloss black. No one would ever know they were touched up. Duplicolor is lacquer, and black. I've used it several other times on my car, side mirror when it got destroy by a passing car, and both doors bottom, and all the jambs are R&Red with it. You can't tell.
Installed the trunk lock back into the lid. That went well. Tomorrow will reinstall the spoiler while the lid is still upside down on the table. That should be easier now that I drill holes in the lid that align with the nuts for the four inside studs. Then the lid get installed and bolted back on the car. DONE.
Well except yesterday i spent maybe 3 hours trying to restore the license plate enclosure. After trying every solvent in the shop to remove a dried film that is directly below the license plate it was finally Berkible 2+2 carb cleaner that dissolved it. The film was about 3/4" wide the full width of the enclosure. My gut feeling is it's remnants of evaporated gas and all the junk we put in here, ethanol and that Winter blend junk they gave us for decades before ethanol in PA. Thinking of the 1500 or more fueling of this car's tank in 30 years of owning it has burped and dribbled fuel there hundreds of times. Only explanation I can think of for that film. There are three slots in the that area to drain off burped fuel, GM provide them, maybe they knew something.
The other product i found worked on the plastic enclosure was the A/C system flush. i went through about 10 phases of wet sanding and washing with the flush all the way to a 2500 grit wet sanding to get the finish uniform again. Next step is to find a black top coat finisher to see if a uniform pretty finish can be had. i tried the heat the plastic with a blow gun on low and found no effects on areas i was sanding and prepping for a finish product. But the top of the enclosure also got hot and wow, it did exactly what I saw other do to the plastic with heat. The surface got very black and oils came out of the plastic. I walked away for the day and will see what that looks like tomorrow.
Tues will be three weeks since pulling the trunk lid. Complications in the home life contributed to that three weeks, not able to spend time on that project the result. But the learning curve to get this trunk lid project done will make tackling the roof repaint much easier. Not sure when that will happen, but won't procrastinate on it for the next decade like i did with the trunk lid. Bob
Needing to have something soon to apply over the black plastic license plate enclosure the past week have been surfing the web to find something. There are a dozen products just for the exterior plastics, even more for tires.
Purchased a 12 oz bottle of Solution Finish after watching some pretty good reviews. Just like tire products there is a plethora of brews of chemicals for these plastic trim resto products. Silicone for the most part which can be oily, wash off and not last, or hold color. The Solution is a polymer tech and has carbon black in it. I like that idea of inducing carbon back into the plastic surface. Several video testings of it shows it's among the best of many it went up against. https://www.solutionfinish.com/
One of my other top contender to try was TLC Cera Trim, it was also highly rated. But appears to have a problem in this country right now, unavailable, but you can buy it in Australia and send it here , Go figure. https://special.thelastcoat.com/html/products/
The only other restorer I had interest in was Renew Blak which seemed to test well. It is a ceramic base which i was leery of. https://renewprotect.com/collections/all
Mon at lunch time reinstalled the spoiler on the lid when lid was still laying upside down on a table. Did a wrap of that 3M butyl around the base of the 6 studs on the spoiler. Aligned the studs in the two outboard holes, easy when done upside down, and as two hands hold the spoiler in place the 3rd and 4th hands install nuts on each end. This just holds the spoiler in place as the 4 middle nuts are installed, much more difficult. . By the way the 6 spoiler nuts where pretty cool as installed by GM. They are a 10 mm hex with a concave floating washer, maybe 3/4" OD. On the concave side of the washer a ring of butyl was stuck, looks like by an adhesive. When the spoiler was removed there was sealant (dried out butyl I assumed) on the stud and on those washers. All old was removed before reinstall.
Anyways with butyl on both sides of the lid's sheetmetal got a good seal at all the studs. Went over the tightening of the studs about 6 times just snugging. Oh, those holes drilled to make tightening of the spoiler nuts easier did make it easier, but not easy. Still a PITA to start them and had to use a 1/4" drive universal for five out of 6 of the nuts.
Next the valance got installed and the three 7 mm hex sheetmetal screws with new black mylar washer snugged down. DONE.
Next with two people and two pin punches the deck gets slide onto the hinges and a 3/16" pin punch inserted in a bolt's holes on each side. This makes getting the bolts started easy and no worries of lid sliding down the hinge and hitting the valance with fresh paint. I marked all four bolt locating before pulling the lid and realigned to those marks. The four bolts are metric and they have a somewhat taper hex, gets fatter at the base. Interestingly a SnapOn 1/2" 6 pt deep socket is the perfect fit. A 13 mm 6 point is just to sloppy at the top not a good fit at the bottom either. Just an usual hex. Also the bolts have floating washers with "teeth" to bite into the sheetmetal. Just nice all around bolts, for a GM. Anyhow after the two of us played with what I had marked for the old bolt location, did the close open the lid exercise a half dozen times adjusted each side and decided once again, it's a Chevy, more than likely it wasn't great before you took it apart. Close enough for now. Need to move on.Deck lid installed, DONE.
Reinstalled the trunk release wire, the trunk light wire, Had to fish a piece of 16 gauge solid core wire through the lid, then use it to tape the two trunk wires to and pull. Just makes you wonder when these cars were built the tricks they had to attach the spoiler and pull those wires. Done.
After a few hours of "family life" made it back to the shop in the evening knowing there's a little prep time, a lot of masking time, and some spraying of SEM trim paint to do before bed. Was pleasantly surprised on how well it laid down on both the alum trim and the plastic bumper's back 3/4" edge. Only about 6 light coats, 10 minutes apart in my shop at about 70 degrees, and coverage is very good. All the things that attach to the back end have been cleaned, taillights, license lights. plate and plate holder all done. Hoping to see the Solution Finish i ordered Sun night off ebay show up tomorrow.
Currently looking for replacement bumpers for the plate enclosure. Original are about 3/8" OD and about 13/16" thick. Tonight Ebay'ed rubber bumpers, should be Auveco 4237 a 3664645
Will put the battery charger on the the car tomorrow and may even be able to pull it out into the sunshine later in the week. Today did nothing to the car, probably the coldest day of this year with very high winds speeds at time, sat and rested. Today the wife got an new electric recliner and her teeth cleaned, a good day for her.
Almost ready to pull it out in the sunshine and take a few graduation pics.
Today installed the stick-on strips that cross side to side on the bumper cover. They look better than expected and installed them rearward of the old one so as to hide the "line" that the old strips were on. Painting the area to the front of the strips in SEM trim paint took care of making that area pretty. The strips from Mike are longer and are trimmed to length before sticking them down. I thought sticking them down was not going to be easy to align them where i wanted but starting in the middle and going outboard to position them was easy. Bingo.
Got out the 3M polishing compound and did all the surfaces at the back of the car, then went over them with a coat of my black wax. None of the new paint got any wax, not until maybe 30 days and after I'm happy with the new black finish. Because it's lacquer, and i have the exact paint just put on, and I can just put some in a Prevail sprayer, or load the small detail gun with some paint and throw a few layers over an area. There is a run in the right rear corner of the spoiler, nobody would every see it but i will get rid of it and if needed blow some paint over the area, then 1500 it, then compound, polish and do it again if necessary.
I should mention as far as rust in the trunk lid is was near zero, about a 3/8" round surface rusted area in the bottom outside pass corner of the lid. Just surface rust which a phosphate wash several times and primer made it, GONE. There is absolutely zero filler anywhere and just blocked lacquer primer. Part of the reward when you have owned a 175K mile PA car for all but 9400 and the first garage kept 6 years of of it's life is good body panels,
One of the means to an end for paint on this car was to learn how to do this lacquer thing on any area of the car, individual panels or a whole side or a whole car. Doing the trunk and butt end of this car was, is, the learning curve to doing a preservation of the body.
Waiting for the Solution Finish black plastic stuff to show up so i can put two coats of it on the license enclosure. Shopping those truck lid bumpers ordered Auveco 4237 off Ebay last night. While surfing for them found Advance Auto said they could get them for me. Today stopped at the local Advance store and just for fun asked the 18 year old kid at the counter to check. According to him and his computer they would be in his store at 3 pm, today. Told him tomorrow i will stop to see if that really does happen. Ya know back when we had several auto paint suppliers local they had Auveco parts drawers on the back shelves of the store. I've picked through them to buy inner door panel clips, door handle clips and other silly parts. Now we only have one supplier in a 25 mile radius and their inventory is depleting.
Taillights are in, battery is on charge. Hoping to see the black plastic restorer and bumpers in the next day or so. Need to go over the new paint on the trunk lid with the 3M polish yet. It left the paint booth with just a low speed compounding, no polishing, some time needed yet to make that new paint a "five footer".
Will send some pics of the final product when the sun hits it hoping this weekend. The 86 needs to show it's face at a couple places. My friend with the paint booth needs to see the final product. And I will stop at the upholster who is doing my driver's seat's recovering and adding some bolstering. I need to push his button to get me done. The seat is removed from the car when the rear come out of the car, very soon.
Next 86 project is install the 3.73s back in the rear. But need to install a left 1/2 shaft in the 02 SS first. It has spewed it's grease at the outer CV joint and made a big mess of thing under there. That shaft install is the reason the 86 needs to be done very soon, I need the bay, and the heated area. . Bob
Surprise, Advance called at 7:48 am and 11:24 am this morning. Couldn't get over there until 7 pm tonight to find, no Bob had ordered the Auveco 4237, "but I'll go check the shelf", he returns with a green Auveco box of 25 rubber bumpers I ordered, he reads off the monitor "sold individually", $.79 each. Only need to purchased 6 for $5.02 and went home. That restored just a little faith in the parts ordering system.
They measured, not with mike, 1/8" thick and just shy of 3/4" diameter and looks to be a 1/4" needed for a hole size. The rubber quality feels very good and not a cheap repop. They are fatter at 3/4" and a little thinner at 1/8" than the original but i like that 3/4" width. When the trunk is closed you can not see that bumper and and wider is probably better than the stock 3/8' bumper width. Bought enough to throw a couple away on a dry fitting if necessary.
Did spent time tonight looking for a better choice for a bumper but found i would need to buy a box of bumpers from most online sellers, 20 to 25 bucks a box average. 4233, 4235, 4265, 4281 other potential candidates that could be trimmed to thickness on the belt sander. https://www.auveco.com/bumpers And some bumpers just aren't available any more. By the way even Softseal sells odds and ends of bumpers.
It's been a week since the last post, sidetracked, family first.
Lets see, update, Solution Finish, bought off Ebay, seller never shipped, reordered from another ebayer and got it on Thurs. Ebay refunded my money on Thurs for the first non delivery, i was surprised that happened without a fight. Thurs night using a small, 1/2" flat, fine paint brush applied the Solution Finish to the license plate enclosure. Shaking the 12 oz bottle is necessary before and while applying, My thought was the carbon in the solutions needs to be suspended in the liquid. The bottle is plastic and has a ball inside to help agitate the solution. The outlet of the bottle has a 3/16" hole to restrict the flow when pouring. I just dropped solution on the side of the brush repeatable to apply it. Instruction say to wipe on with a small microfiber clothe, wear gloves and let dry for two minutes and wipe with a microfiber towel. I used the paint brush because you need to cut in (paint) the enclosure where it touches other areas not to be "painted". Areas of the black plastic I sanded look good and overall finish is ok to good over the entire enclosure.
Today the enclosure was washed with a microfiber rag, car wash detergent/water and rinsed, and wiped dry with a microfiber rag. License plate lights, the plate holder and plate where reinstalled in the enclosure. If I was count the number of cracks found in the plastic enclosure it would be more than a handful, mostly concentrated around the four screw hole locations, but the pass side where the rubber truck lid bumper is installed has many cracks. Doubt i will be around long enough to ever think about replacing the "OK" enclosure but for now i would say took a D- enclosure and made it a B+ in appearance. Done. Will assess the long term life of the Solution Finish product in a few months after it's been subject to some washes and sunshine. Oh, i cleaned the paint brush with lacquer thinner, not a silicone, and finish does appear to dry onto the plastic.
My 1995 Astro has a black plastic on the rear bumper cover and will get dosed with Solution as another test of it durability.
In total bought 12 of the rubber bumpers which were all the Auveco 4237, 15 bucks total, 6 from Ebay for 10 and 6 from Advance for 5 buck. Why did that happen, because it did. Had to drill the holes in the enclosure to 1/4" to install the 4237, there under head OD is 1/4" And had to lube the barb on the rubber bumper, and grab onto the barb with pliers to pull the bumper into place once it was partially through the hole. They are firmly attached to the enclosure, not coming off without a fight. Happy with the bumpers OD but would have like them to be a little thicker, height, maybe 3/16 and not the 1/8" the 4237 are. But DONE.
Couple days ago after studying the finish on the truck lids top surface it was time to do something to finish the cut and buff. Got out the 2500 wet and dry, then went over with the 3000, both with soapy water. When the three parts left the painter's booth I knew there was still work to be done to satisfy my expectations. After a lot of wet sanding I made a common mistake and jumped right to 3M polishing compound and the shine and finish was junk. Got out the 3M rubbing compound, did a small section, and learned ya can't skip the steps when buffing to get that lacquer shine. So the dummy turned out the shop lights and went to bed. This morning talked with my painter and told him I am a jerk. Couple hours later we walks into the shop with all his tools and compound and brings back the gloss. He left all that stuff and i will play for the next couple days bring the deck lid to an A finish and shine. He also brought the 3" buffer pads in various textures, this to do the front face of the spoiler with, his 10" just couldn't get the concave area very well. After just a few minute i hear, uh-oh. He burned the lacquer in a couple places within a short stretch. He wasn't happy, I was OK with that, I will fix it.
Dry sanded with 3000 until the cooked paint areas were smooth again, scuffed the entire left side of the spoiler's front face and lightly scuffed the right half with 3000. Wiped down with prep wash, blew off area and masked entire rear deck area except the entire spoiler front face. Got my Prevail sprayer out, mixed up a three oz black lacquer to 2 oz thinner lacquer mix and sprayed the front side of the spoiler end to end. Yep, got a short paint sag at one point and didn't like the way the burned area covered. Turned off the lights and went home. Will block sand out the spoilers ills tomorrow and throw another coat of paint on the face. Gotta love lacquer, you can screw it up, sand to fix and shoot again the same day. Bob
Found a few hours today to heat up the shop, as in burn some heating oil. Blocked out the two defects in the spoiler front face paint that I threw on Fri evening, then shot two more coats of black on. Waited 15 minutes and removed all the paper and masking tape used to shoot the spoiler. I learned long time ago about how tape and some adhesives when left on fresh paint can cause a problem, reacts with the paint. Must have been 25 years ago a heat gun was used, by me, to remove all the decals off the SS. Forever they were ghosted into the black paint. The SS on the back face of the trunk lid just was removed, by getting rid of all the old lacquer.
When i had the Goodmark hood finally painted with lacquer back in 2016 I had vinyl numbers made in identical fonts to the ones used on the late 2nd Gen BBC Vette hoods. After one side was installed decided it needed adjusted a hair, in a very short time the vinyl was stuck on the hood it had effected the lacquer that was just a month or two old.
So I had my fingers crossed today when I pulled the 3M masking tape off the fresh paint on the trunk lid. No damage.
Will need to block sand the spoiler to remove the light peel from the Prevail paint job the past two days. then it a spoiler buffing and then finish the lids surface, take some pics outside, if the sun ever comes out again. Bob
All done, or so I thought this past Monday. Finished the final polishing with my 3M Perfect-It machine polish and the dual action buffer. Got out a bucket of water and the car shampoo and ended up washing the entire car. A month of sitting in the shop and all that trunk painting effort, everything was dusted and had splashes of slung compounds everywhere. Out into the sunshine once dried and took some pics. HAPPY with the results.
Loaded all the stuff my painter lent me to buff out the paint in the trunk and drove over to his shop. He, we, are both satisfied for the little bit of cost and the results.
Next drive to Sunoco to top off the gas tank. Pull the plate holder, remove cap and insert nozzle, gas burps almost immediately over the freshly finished plate pocket. Next within seconds I hear a pop and the plate drops down to the bumper. One of the holes on the pocket to secure the plate's holder just breaks out of the plastic pocket. WHAT THE XXXXXXXXXX. Leave the station with the plate laying down on the bumper. Drive over to my upholster's shop to set a date for my driver's seat to be rebolstered and new seat cover made for just the driver's seat for now. The 5 yds of gray vinyl we ordered to match the original seat's is now finally in his shop.
Back to the shop and form a plan to fix the license pocket. XXXXXXXXXXXXX Emailed Mike, no pockets available currently, factory burned down that produced them, none in stock. Someone here had mentioned they were not to happy with the quality of that repop. Ebay had a couple used pockets but they appeared as junk for outrageous money. At the U-pulls back in the day could have removed a dozen from cars going to the crusher. Who'd a thunk it.
The past couple days as time permitted have made an 1/8" alum plate "sandwich" to produce two strong locations to bolt the plate holder back onto the pocket. Had to cut out the two screw locations that hold the plate holder to the pocket and epoxied plastic back into the holes. Did that last night. Will give that expensive 3M epoxy a day to cure and then mount the sandwich to the pocket.
Was hoping last week to be done with this post, project. It seems to never end. Bob
Today used some 3M black weatherstrip adhesive on the two back side sandwich pieces and bolted, using four 6mm x 18 mm bolts, the sandwich face threw the pocket to clamp the sandwich together. Very happy with the way it turned out, not bad for 30 hours of aggregation, so far. Oh, painted the sandwich with SEM satin trim paint. Will let that sit for a day or so before bolting on a redesigned plate holder.
Must have been a decade and a half ago when bolting on a B or was it F-body license plate holder was a hot topic. It's main advantage was when full opened it would stay down in the 90 degree open, not require holding it down to fill. The SS holder is a PITA, you need to hold it down or lock the gas filler in position to hold it open. Up in the mezz two holder of the B or F donor vintage have been stashed away for 15 years. One I was going to install back then was even out to the powdercoater and is still pretty gloss black. There was something back then I didn't like about the B holder and decided not to use it on the car.
Tonight with all three holders in front of me the B powdercoated holder became the new holder for the car. A G-body holder has two springs, one on each hinge, of very high tension each when installed. Their tension is not easily reduced, heat needed, cutting not an option. The B holder in stock form uses a linkage with just one spring on one hinge and is designed to have an over center where the tension nears zero in the fill open position. A clever setup.
The stock very high tension spring was removed on the B holder. The tunnel the spring operates within was reduced in height and width and length to fit a new spring with less OD and much less tension. When installed on the car you need enough tension from the spring to hold the plate holder firmly against the rubber stop of the pocket. That angle is about 2 degrees vertical forward, almost straight up on my car. Have cut my new donor spring three times now and next is cut two more coils off to check closed tension once more. Currently it will move slowly by itself to the closed, near straight up position with my current tension, Just need to see if I can add a little more closed tension. The opening tension of the cut new spring is minimal. I have plenty of the same donor spring, found them in one of the plastic drawers where you throw springs from stuff you pulled apart for junk.
Notably the closed tension of the plate holder needs to be enough to insure the holder stays pressing against the rubber stops in the pocket. One of the neat tricks of this car when it has a very good launch is the pass seat floor mat will fold, bend, the vertical, firewall leg of the mat down to the floor leg of the mat and stay there. That was some good hooking of the rear tires. The license plate holder can't be allowed to do.the same thing. When closed, against the stops position, needs to stay in that position when accelerating. Adjusting that spring tension at the hinge hoping that will take care of that.
Maybe if things work out I can drive the car this week.
It's been a week since the last ramblings, it's been a 2 steps forward, 4 steps back week for the most part.
Alum plate sandwich attached and looked good. Noticed some more stressing, cracking of the 37 year old plastic pocket. Next is finish the swap of the B plate holder into the old broken pocket.
After 50 mods to the B's hinges, tension spring of that plate holder, numerous dollying of the steel license plate surround to reduce it profile and width, trimming the Pa license plate, 50 test fittings, something had to happen. Yep, I gave up on making that combo of parts fit and work correctly. There is just not enough top to bottom width of the pocket to accommodate the full width of the plate surround and not touch the top when closed, or touch the bottom of the pocket when open a full 90 degrees. It is an either you touch the top or you touch the bottom fit, make a choice. No matter if you slot the mounting holes in the hinges, or even make new hinges with even lower mounting hole locations there no height location of the holder that works.
So off comes the plate's nice satin black surround permanently, the ugly, old, Pa plate's edges all get dressed on the belt sander and the plate installed. Now it rattles down in the bottom groove of the holder. A piece of stick on foam to the back side of the plate will fix that. That I can handle. But it doesn't touch when full closed at the top and doesn't rub at full open at the bottom of the pocket. The plate holders hinge bolt holes are slotted now so tweaking of holders installer height is easy. For now, happy the car can now leave the shop for a drive, maybe tomorrow.
The next piece of this plate pocket fiasco showed up on Fri. Initially after the start of R&R of the plate pocket a search for a new or good used pocket was done and found nothing. Used is junk and over priced and new showed "out of stock". This past week frustrated with the pocket's plastic failing did another search and emailed Dixie, very limited supply they said, ship, sitting in my trunk yesterday. No real time to study the part but know it's not like original, glossy plastic, I think is a PVC. Several differences i saw immediately but to early to condemn it. But it is also the only show in town.
More on that install later. I have a driver's seat that is supposed to be delivered for rebolstering and covering tomorrow. \ Bob
Used the engine carb primer, a glass turkey baster, squeezed a few oz of snow blower non ethanol down the carb and soon it was off to pick up my grandson. Today was the last day of his Spring break from school and no one to look out for him, the 86 was enlisted to take care of him. So I asked him if he wanted to go do some burnouts and we were good to go. I know, but, he'll be 10 in a couple of weeks and I'll be 18 going on 72 in a week sooner than him. A half dozen 1 and 2 burns never hurt anything, The fat Comp 2s on the car have outlived their usable life will be recycled after this season.
So need to fix a couple simple car ills on the daily drivers pretty immediately. The 02 needed the left 1/2 shaft done about two months ago, it now throwing a dark fluid. My Astro with the short SBC is now throwing a code 35. My bet is the 3/8" hose for the PCV system has sprung a leak and messing with the IAC. Old computer systems on cars were so simple in the old days. They only needed to calculate, not think like the new stuff. Bob
More than happy with the new paint appearance. How it wears against the elements, sun and, sun, to be determined. Lacquer 35 years ago wasn't good, today's lacquer has to be, worse, no lead in it anymore.
Not said recently but one of my reasons to go re-lacquer is patina. All the black lacquers on the car deteriorate over time, they all need attention often. The Goodmark hood was lacquered in 2016. Now the trunk and rearward is all fresh. The sides of the body have a zillion stone nicks, but very good gloss for original. The roof is not ugly, just homely, on the future to do list. What will happen to the trunk surfaces is the same thing that happened to the hood paint job, the sides of the car, the roof.. Some sun, some stones, some scratches from the being out on the Pa highways. In a year or so it will have oxidized a little, maybe got a second coat of black wax. But no special treatment when it comes the life the next 10 years.
Last Fall my grandsons and I went to one of the last shows of the year. I had ran the car at Cecil County just prior to the show and decided not to wash the pig. We managed to find a spot back in a corner of the lot, parked and walked to look at the 200 cars there and of course the kids are starving at 11 am. So now the problem, will need to wash the car now to show off the new paint? Or it will look good even when dirty, it's a black car. NOT!
Such a nice day on Thurs got the 86 out for a few hours. My friend who sprayed the trunk lid wasn't at his home, next stop was to see if Tony Angelo was at his shop. The building he's in now I've been past a 1000++, but a few miles from my shop and in the neighborhood where my teenage years were spent. Last year i had stopped at that building, his crew was there but not him. Yesterday parked in his lot in the 86, next to one of his current projects, the Lincoln. Knocked on the door and within seconds Toni answers, seconds later he's wanting to see what I drove in.
The talk soon was on his Lincoln toy. He blows up this first stock engine after his turbo install a few months ago. What I saw under the hood now is a race 4.6 with all the good stuff in the shortblock, a big turbo and a think it was a Gear Star trans. Expecting 10s from that Lincoln. Talk about squeezing an engine into a tight space, those 4.6 must be 10' across, they are huge. Video of the Lincoln.
Tony was very easy to relate and talk to. Soon his "crew" came down the road with his RX7 on a trailer, nice car, back from some work that was done, oh, it has an SBC in the RX7 His two guys in the truck hopped out and were all over the 86. One of them has a dad with a 4th gen El Camino he races. They like G-bodies.
Just was nice to have the 86 out for some sun and appreciating people.
On the way back to my shop stopped at one of the local long time car repair shops. A black Trailblazer SS was sitting out front. Nope, customer car and not for sale. Need a replacement for my Astro but don't need to spend more than my house cost for a 15 year old vehicle. Bob
Just an update on the repainting of the trunk lid area. It's done, and all black paint is now all dusty, the spoiler is about 4' off the ground because jackstands are holding up the frame while the 8 1/2 is now sitting on jackstands on a workbench. The driver's seat is out of the car and at the upholsterer's shop getting a refresh.
Didn't let much grass grow beneath my feet between finishing the painting and getting the next two projects started. The painting was just for preservation and pretty, the 3.73 swapped back in and more seat grip are needed to cut a little time off the runs we're hoping to get in this year. Goal was 48 runs, 3 events for 2023. Time is slipping away already, their first event is this coming weekend, 4/29, second is 5/13 and next 6/17. Not likely to make the May but the June is a necessity. Bob
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