Re: Restoring Rusty
 

and so we remove the hood latch and the center bracket

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

ok there I think I finally stripped it, and yes I spared you a bunch of pictures of the headlight buckets, and this and that brackets, those pics I am keeping for myself so I know how it all goes back together (hopefully)

and the old and the new(er)

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Re: Restoring Rusty
 

~ PARTZ ~

yes only one of two exhaust turn downs showed up, my thinking is so that Summit can ship the other one in another box and charge me $8 bucks twice for oversized rather than once - thank you very much!

so got new 2 1/2 inch header extensions, (but Greg didn't you just buy those a couple months ago) why yes I did but those were 2 1/4 silly, and you can't expect to ask Bonnie Wilson to home coming driving a rig with 2 1/4 exhaust, know what I'm sayin'

and my headers have 2 1/2 inch collectors so it seemed wasteful to have to step them down to 2 1/4 robbing the world of all that horse power

also included was a bolt tap/chase kit, some clips and bushings for my overdrive transmission, and Mr. Gasket header gaskets

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Ha. Funny but these time zones can be a bear. I have a friend who lives overseas and he's 12hrs ahead. Try calling him at a decent hour. Lol

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Those "doohickeys" look like rivnuts. I would have kept them lol.

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yeah, but what was they for, did the donor truck have aftermarket AC or something - I don't recall

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Those nuts are for trucks that came with the tall Radiator.

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soaked the radiator bracket over night in some 1:50 Phosphoric acid and water cocktail and then hosed it off, but had to use the wire wheel still to get all the paint off, this piece sits right on top so I wanted to remove all the paint otherwise you need to sand it after you primer it or you will see patches and blotches of different raised surfaces

now I could actually make out that there was a rubber piece on one side, but it was missing on the other side (actually found it, it was stuck to the radiator, lol)

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well that's as good as it was going to get, heck just enuff to fool the SEMA judges - ha ha

and to primer station it went

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As it has been said they are for the big radiator hold-down. Here is a picture.

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I've been wanting to black out the chrome for quite some time now, so I hope these three products play nice together

1. was looking for Etch Primer when I saw this Adhesion Promoter, ok little guy what do you stick to I thought, hmmm "Ideal for Plastic, Vinyl, & Chrome" ok, alright, I can dance to that

2. the paint we will use is our trusty Semi Flat we've used on everything else

3. the ace up our sleeves will be this flat clear [ahem] Matte wheel paint, hey if it can handle the abuse a wheel sees, I'm sure a headlight bezzle will be just fine

yes we painted the backs, haven't you meet The Greg, lol

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Those look great black.

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Thanks, I totally agree and can't wait to see them on the truck, here's more close ups

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Where did you get 'em, I refuse to believe that at $5 bucks a pop LMC Truck has the best deal.

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1/4" npt

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Are they 1/4 or 1/8? The knock sensor for the 1985 ESC screws into those holes... I think it was smaller than 1/4 NPT but I reserve the right to be wrong.
Just grab a caliper and measure it.

NPT specs from Machinery's Handbook 15th edition;
1/8-27, Drill size R, Decimal 0.3390"
1/4-18, Drill size 7/16, Decimal 0.4375"

Gitcher a copy off ebay 10th - 16th editions are pretty useful for old iron... The newer editions have a bunch of CNC etc info that's not as useful to me and they dropped some of the blacksmithing info.
http://www.anvilfire.com/bookrev/ind_pres/machine.htm

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Yeah. Those look better than I figured they would blacked out.

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Those radiator support rubbers are a PITA to to find. I ended up spending a few bucks and bought the Energy versions and still had to make them work.

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Even the OEM parts had to be massaged with a knife.

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Those are 1/4-27 NPT, you probably need to run a pipe tap in to clean the threads. One thing you can do is put a petcock in so you can drain the block if you ever wanted to.

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well another one of those ton of work days with nothing to show for it

just spent hours upon hours fighting the rust, using both a wire wheel and a Phosphoric acid bath (at 1 parts to 50 gallons of water) it was too weak it would take weeks for them to clear up so I doubled the cocktail to 2:50 today

so here are some pics of things getting cleaner

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the brackets on the back of the grille molding were rusty and the only way to clean them was with acid as I could not get in all the nooks and cranies with a wire wheel, plus under them

here's how they are progressing (I have to do half a stick at a time, since I only have a 50 gallon drum which is only about 3 feet tall)

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the entire core support was covered in rust, I had no idea it was going to be this bad

Fun Level = -2.8

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I was bored (and $164 bucks short) so I decided to make my own tumbler

first I tried using my square sander figuring I hardly ever use it now that I have my orbital, an aluminum vice, a Folgers "decaf" plastic coffee can (empty preferably) a bolt or two, and the key to the entire operation a pot or aka dim switch from home depo for like $2 bucks plus 20 cents for the plastic case for it

so here is Tumbler Jr. 3000 ver. 1.0

before and after bolts after 1 hour of vibrating using Walnut "blasting" media

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well even after wiggling with that thing for 2 hours it was just nothing to write home about

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you could say the wheels in my head starter a turnin'

Tumbler Jr. 3000 ver. 2.0

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finally upgraded to Ol' Milwaukee 1/2 inch drill (man those guys make great drills but their beer stinks, ha ha) and got some actual "tumbler" media

so here are the results now after tumbling [ahem] spinning for an hour

Tumbler Jr. 3000 ver 3.0

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

You could just drop them in EvapoRust overnight, then wash them off.

It's a chelation catalyst, and turns Fe2O3 (rust) into Fe3O4 (magnetite). The orange crusty rust turns into a sooty black powder that wipes or washes off, without dissolving any metal.

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Thanks Rich but wouldn't my Phosphoric acid do the same thing? I've tried all the name brand solutions and they just charge 5 times for a diluted Phosphoric acid, and all the "green" products you know environment safe couldn't remove a bugger off my finger.

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Phosphoric acid will also eat at the metal. EvapoRust won't. You can throw stuff in there for a week, no prob.

Oh, and it's a catalyst. It doesn't get used up by the process. Buy it once and just keep using the same stuff.

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Once again, I agree with Rich. I used evapo rust when I started and it worked pretty well. It doesn't seem to do that great on stuff that's pitted really badly, but I guess if the pitting is real bad a part replacement is probably in order.

You can even use it on sheet metal by spraying it on and then letting it sit covered in plastic, using magnets to hold the plastic.

That said, there have been a couple times where I wished I had phosphoric acid to use. Like for example, I ordered new rubber bushings for my core support from energy suspension, but they don't come with the metal cups and giant formed washers, so I've got to use the old ones that were in such bad shape and had to grind some of the pitting smooth. Couldn't find replacements, soaking them probably would have saved me some time.

Right now I am looking for a less labor intensive way to clean up the factory aluminum accessory brackets that are dull, dirty and mildly oxidized.

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Tried Simichrome?

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I haven't. It looks a lot like a product called Wenol that I used to use though. I bet they would shine up real nice, however there doesn't seem to be getting around that elbow grease I am trying to get out of.

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Simichrome doesn't take a lot of effort, and you end up with a near-chrome shine. Used to use it on the Norton engine case.

Not mine, but that sidecover and those heads are aluminum, done with Simichrome.
http://www.paradise-moto.com/pics/da...45-592x379.jpg

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Where did you hear that? Internal combustion engines like to run at around 185-210, new or used. Most damage is done at lower temps, such as moisture accumulating in crankcase.

Glad to see you got your head problem solved w/o spending mucho dinero. Can't believe how fast you got them off that junk yard engine. I guess it's faster when you can simply cut hoses and lines and not have to worry about saving all the fasteners.

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I have seen them with 1/4"-28 and 1/4"-20 threads. GM went partially metric in the 80s, so who knows for sure. Closest thing to 1/4" is 6mm x 1.0.

My real GM water pump #88894341 (also AC Delco 251-544) has 1/4"-20 threads.

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Nothing was cut, I am not one of those guys that comes through like a tornato, I purposely unplugged all the dreaded GM clips, etc. The bolts, well that's another story most ended up on the ground.