Thread: Roadster pickup getting closer

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I ain't never paintin' another part in my life!!! I just picked up the loose parts we took to the powder coater and man, are they nice!! We couldn't have painted them to look as smooth and glossy. We had the extra step of having them all clear coated on top of the black, and it really made a difference.

The frame was baking on the final coat when I was there, so we can probably get it later on today. Can't wait to see that thing all done. This is so easy.....drop off raw parts and then pick them up all done and ready to install. Why have we been wasting our time spraying this stuff all our lives?

I had to pull a little of the wrapping off to see what the parts looked like, but I left most of them for Dan to unwrap. But here is a preview.


Don

Very nice indeed...

Not bad, huh? I'm really stoked about this thing coming together. (finally, it's ONLY been 4 years ) I just tracked his stainless steel bolt order, it is being delivered today too. Maybe by Sunday night this thing might actually be a roller.


Don

Don,
They sure look good! And it won't chip or dull with a little maintenance. I bet the frame will look awesome!
Ken

Hey, you're back!! How was the vacation? I have you and a bunch of other powder coater lovers to thank for pushing us in this direction. To me paint doesn't look nearly as good...........but that is just me.


Don

Yes, and it's good to be home. Now it's getting adjusted to the time again, old age! We had a great time.
I'm really glad this is working out, sometimes it can go the other way if you don't have the right guy
Ken

Wow! That looks super nice. I bet Dan is going to be pleased. Your going to have to wear sunglasses driving behind him from the glare! I'm convinced now that I'll at least have the rear drums coated, and if I have to do any work on the differential, then I'll have it done to.
P.S. nice pic Ken!

That's ONE BIG CAT you have there! Looks like your family had a great time.

Well, time to go pick up the frame. Pictures to follow.


Don

Don - you'll be happy with that powder coating regardless of the naysayers here and elsewhere. Mine, while it does have some orange peel, is head and shoulders above my original paint (and that was also a good job). I had to add a bolt on bracket and found that the coating is even somewhat difficult to start a new and sharp drill bit. I only wish that I had taken a few more close up photos of the completed chassis.

Ken, nice to see that you made it back from Oz and Kiwi land(I like your furry friend)

Those parts look very nice!

Glad to see you'll be going together for the last time. I've been looking forward to seeing this one finished. I know it's going to be very cool! (already is for that matter)

I have to agree with you about not painting any more parts. The few I had done sold me on powder coating, especially on driver.

Mike

Dave and Mike,I'm like you guys............I think this stuff is great. An hour after it came out of the oven we were hauling it home and could handle it right away. With paint you have to be careful for a long time till it really dries, which can take days or weeks to get really hard.

We pulled an all nighter last night, worked until 4 am. The frame came out really nice, and the coating got into every little spot. Got the rear axle assembled as far as bolting the pumpkin in and getting it mounted to the frame with the fourbar setup. What took a lot of time was the fact we let them powder coat everything, letting the coating flow into every hole. So we had to use a dremel to open up each one so the bolts would go back through. I wanted to simply run a drill bit through them, but Dan didn't want to chip any more coating away than was needed. It was time consuming, but we finally got the bolts in and put antisieze on the entire bolt. Since he is using stainess bolts everywhere we didn't want them galling for future removal.

I didn't take any pictures yet. Because it is his car I figured I would let him post his pictures on his forum before I did it here. Don't want to take away his fun. But tomorrow we are going to hit on it again and try to get the front end installed, and he will be posting some pictures then, so it is fair game for me to do so too.

Oh, BTW, I needed to pickup a simple 9 inch Ford housing to center section gasket and 10 of the little copper washers so we could install his pumpkin. First I went to Advanced Auto and got a blank stare from the kid behind the counter............got the usual "What make, model, does it have A/C, what color upholstery?" routine. He got his Manager, who was about a year older, to help, still no luck. So I went to the local Ford dealer. Parts guy says "We haven't carried those in 26 years!" Next I went to NAPA and they didn't have them but one of their stores about 15 miles away did, so I went there and got them. I felt like I was working on some rare antique or something. Even the local speed shop didn't have any.

Don

Don,
Glad to hear it came out good. Started to worry a little when you didn't post last night. Old mother hen here Looking forward to pics
Ken

Yeah Ken, I just rolled out of bed! By the time we ate our "dinner" from the all night McDonalds, it was 5 am, and I crashed. I can't wait till he gives me the ok to post my own pictures............I caught h*** the last time I beat him to the punch.

Don

Don - sounds like fun. I just wish that we had weather good enough so I could at least get out in my garage shop to work on some of my punch list items before the upholsterer gets it back. It has been cold enough that my 2 propane heaters barely make a dent in the temperature. The car was in the basement shop before this winter so some progress was made during the dog days of winter. Oh well, we're taking a week in the Orlando area to warm up and celebrate my wife's early retirement and pray for a thaw.

Those @#$% crush washers - no one locally here had them and I ended up mail ordering from Currie. Even those seem too hard and wouldn't seal the stud threads even with some extra "torquing" on the nuts and drooled gear oil so I ended up using some high temp silicone on the threads as well.

Don, when I was driving stock cars a few years back, we were running two tracks which necessitated changing the chunk in our Ford 9-inch sometimes twice a week. We never used a gasket; we just used high-temp RTV silicone, the copper-colored stuff. Never had a leak and never had a problem...

As an alternative, one time back when I was kid, I watched my dad make a gasket for a differential from a brown paper bag. He used the chunk that had been removed and "cut" the new gasket by holding the brown paper in place and tapping the edges with a ball-peen hammer. I've never forgotten that trick... If you can't find a gasket locally and Dan doesn't want to just use RTV, you can make a perfect fitting gasket using the above method. If Dan isn't happy with brown paper, he can get some sheet gasket material at the parts store. (Gotta be pretty thin for the diff, though...)