11/2/2003: Sorting, Cleaning, Painting
Last night I worked on the air cleaner assembly. It’s fairly rust-pitted, but essentially solid. The one from #40912 was in rougher shape in general, but somewhat less rusty. I believe I will use the lid from that one with the body from my car. I have to finish sandblasting them before I can be sure.
Today I started to clean up and organize some of the parts which I hadn’t put away yet, and I dug into the spare parts stash to find some parts which needed replacement. I found one good interior door opening handle which was in considerably better shape than the ones which came off the car. I also found a replacement for the thermostat housing bolt which I snapped off while disassembling the car.
I also started a box of parts to be zinc-plated. This includes most bolts on the car. (If I just wire brush them and put them back on, they’ll rust on me, and painting them isn’t durable) Where possible, i’d like to maintain the original fiat bolts, since they have specific head markings. I will look into just buying new nuts and washers, as I imagine they aren’t expensive, and it’s probably simpler.
I also have a few items, including a decent oil cap from #40912, which need to a yellow cadmium or yellow zinc dichromate coating. I’m probably going to end up spending the $150 or so for the Caswell Copy-Cad kit, which is able to do regular, yellow, or black zinc coatings.
I finished up today by working on the two little cover plates which go on the car’s floor and cover the subframe mounting points. One was in very rough shape and will need replacment. Since it’s just a flat piece of sheet metal with 3 holes in it, this is no big deal.
The other cleaned up well, with some pitting on one side and very little on the other. I’ve painted it (and some other small brackets) with POR-15, and will be installing it on the opposite side of the car, so the pitted side is face d own. The other I will fabricate using this good one as a pattern.
I need to buy some open-cell foam which goes beneath them, presumably to keep them from rattling against the floor of the car and to provide some minimal sealing against water. I have a number of foam-type substances I need to replace, such as the gasket around the fuel sender cover in the floor of the trunk and the gasket around the air cleaner lid. (which had turned into a gooey mess).
I also need some rubber items, such as the bump stops for the brake and clutch pedals and some missing body plugs. I’ll check #40912 to see if I can salvage a few.