"Midnight Rider" 1970 C10 SWB Fleetside

[loudchevy]

That is a nice x-member.

[omodified]

I received the headers back from Jet-Hot. Initially, I was pretty impressed with how the finish turned out. Then I started digging in a little closer and realized that many of the tight areas between the primary tubes did not get polished. I did reach out to Jet-Hot about it and they explained that the headers are indeed 100% coated. However, because the area is so tight, it doesn't allow for 100% polishing to be achieved during their process. They recommended that I polish myself with a non-abrasive metal polish cream. I found a video that shows the Jet-Hot process. I suppose I can understand why polishing cannot be achieved in the tight places. Disappointing, but at least I can have the final say on how these things turn out. For polishing, I used a Dremel with the tiniest polishing pads I could find. Once I hit all of the really tight spots with the Dremel, I polished the entire piece by hand. It actually turned out really nice. Passenger side is finished and installed. I used new exhaust gaskets and torqued one pass to 132 lb/in and then again to 216 lb/in. Last, I blocked off the O2 sensor hole, for now.

[omodified]

Getting really close to painting. Really just waiting on the temp and humidity to drop off for the year. One of the last prep items is replacing the seam sealer. A lot of the old sealer had already been removed but there was still some hanging around. One spot in particular was on the front side of the rockers. The passenger side looked good underneath. The driver side ended up having a small rust hole, unfortunately.






Poked around the area to see just how bad the area is. Opened it up to get all good metal surrounding.






Repaired and ready to go. Thankfully, this is the last of the rust. Applying the seam sealer is next.

[omodified]

Seam sealer applied. Next up, black primer sealer.

[omodified]

Decided on my base coat color. Going with Axalta Nason 99 black. It is the modern equivalent of 1970 Chevrolet 500 Black. Here it is sprayed out. The truck will have much more clear!