Restoring Rusty

[Gregski]

and so we remove the hood latch and the center bracket

[Gregski]

and how about a close up of that murder weapon

[Gregski]

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)

[Gregski]

wait what on earth are these doohickeymongies my old core did not have them, time to drill them out, great not a big deal just time consuming

[Gregski]

~ 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

[rusty76]

Originally Posted by Gregski

thanks, hey what are you doing up so early, oh wait different time zone, I'm the one up at 6 am

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

[enaberif]

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

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by enaberif

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

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

[79sierra]

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

[Gregski]

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)

[Gregski]

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

[Titomars]

Originally Posted by Gregski

wait what on earth are these doohickeymongies my old core did not have them, time to drill them out, great not a big deal just time consuming

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

[Gregski]

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

[flashed]

Those look great black.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by flashed

Those look great black.

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

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Chaplain

Yeah I actually discovered four of those pads. Two up top and two below. Had to order replacements.

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

[Gregski]

could someone please tell me what size / thread these "expansion" plugs should be, I am having the hardest time finding ones that want to go in, are they regular threads or pipe threads? these are the little rascals that screw in to the bottom of the engine block, one on each side

today I tried some brass ones from NAPA and they would only go in about 3 turns

(I know my jacked up threads don't help matters much)

[Jake Wade]

1/4" npt

[hatzie]

Originally Posted by Jake Wade

1/4" npt

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

[hatzie]

Originally Posted by flashed

Those look great black.

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

[enaberif]

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.

[hatzie]

Originally Posted by enaberif

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.

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

[Troy Sr]

Originally Posted by Gregski

could someone please tell me what size / thread these "expansion" plugs should be, I am having the hardest time finding ones that want to go in, are they regular threads or pipe threads? these are the little rascals that screw in to the bottom of the engine block, one on each side

today I tried some brass ones from NAPA and they would only go in about 3 turns

(I know my jacked up threads don't help matters much)

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.

[Gregski]

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

[Gregski]

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)